Design Record Graph and Axiomatic Design for Creative Design Education

The authors have been offering a graduate level design course at the University of Tokyo. The students form groups of about 5 members to identify their own design goals and construct creative solutions to meet the product functional requirements (FRs). The course teaches Design Record Graph (DRG), a network diagram that starts with the product FR that divides into a number of sub-functions. The division continues until all functional elements are identified, and when every element functional requirement maps to a single element design parameter (DP), the design meets the independence axiom. The projects often start with heavily coupled designs that gradually turn into clean solutions towards their finalized design. The graph expression is easier for design students to get started with functional decomposition without having to work with design matrices.