Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 139). / The particular subject of this thesis is Housing for the Elderly. The intention is to propose an architecture which springs from an alternative attitude towards housing the elderly ... an attitude which purports that multiplicity and exchange are the elements crucial to one's well-being; in contrast to the current paradigm within the world of planning for the elderly ... one of segregation, classification and singularity. With a little license, I call this a research and design thesis, as it has been difficult to define. As a 'research' paper, it entails the use of a particular method of selecting, understanding, and (finally) using a range of references in order to distill from them some underlying principles of form. Yet unlike a true research thesis, it is loosely structured and left open-ended ... intentionally so! The 'design' work provides the testing ground for the principles gleaned from those references. It also allows me the opportunity to exercise myself in synthesizing and arranging architecture. Yet as a design thesis, the work is only the start of an architecture process ... far from being complete. In essence, the thesis is an endeavour in knowing a little more about the 'dancing' between referencing and designing. / by Julia A. Campbell. / M.Arch.

Thesis. 1975. M.Arch.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / Bibliography: leaves 166-167. / M.Arch.

Thesis. 1979. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 115-119. / M.C.P.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the application of design processes to the development of novel self-use molecular diagnostic devices for sexually transmitted infections. The argument proposed in this thesis is that the application of design methods at the earliest research stages into miniaturised, low cost, molecular diagnostic technologies will accelerate and improve the process of translating proof of concept diagnostic technologies into usable devices. Concept development requirements and potential issues and barriers to development were identified through interviews with expert stakeholders. These requirements were further refined through a survey of a multidisciplinary diagnostic medical device research group. An action research method was applied to develop a proof of concept prototype to the preclinical trial stage. Through these research studies, a design process model was formulated for use in a research environment. The application of design methods to the proof of concept prototype described in the thesis have resulted in a preclinical trial prototype that exhibits the necessary features for development into a self-use molecular diagnostic device. Issues and barriers were identified and discussed, design guidelines for further development beyond preclinical trial were defined and a generalised design process model for self-use molecular diagnostic devices for sexually transmitted infections was proposed. This research highlights the need for design methods to be applied at the earliest possible stages of the development of novel molecular diagnostic devices.

Uma importante fonte de vantagem competitiva para muitas empresas é a capacidade de criar projetos de produtos compostos por um número pequeno de partes e de fácil montagem sem deixar de atender às expectativas do consumidor, denominada abordagem DFA - Design For Assembly (Projeto para Montagem). Para o reprojeto ou para reduzir o custo do projeto de novos produtos com esse foco, é necessário obter informações que podem estar muitas vezes armazenadas em locais de difícil acesso e nas mais variadas formas de repositórios do conhecimento. Uma maneira de obter essas informações é criar uma classe sistema, chamada peer-to-peer, que permite a sincronização e compartilhamento desses documentos entre cada local espalhado numa rede. Esse tipo de sistema busca a descentralização das informações, ou seja, estas ficam espalhadas pela rede (interna ou externa) com a vantagem de que cada organização poderá manter sob sua \"guarda\" as informações sem nunca dispô-las em servidores de terceiros e estas poderão chegar automaticamente até os usuários por meio de transações XML. Sendo assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver uma ferramenta de auxílio à gestão do conhecimento que atue na geração, codificação e transferência do conhecimento sobre técnicas DFA. A avaliação de soluções existentes foi utilizada como metodologia para propor um modelo teórico que especifica o desenvolvimento do sistema. Pode-se concluir que esse tipo de sistema fornece aos participantes meios de coleta de informações mais eficazes, já que informações sobre DFA podem ser consultadas. / An important source of competitive advantages for many organizations worldwide is the capacity to create projects for products consisting of a small number of parts of easy assemblage, nonetheless attending to the consumers\' expectations, named DFA approach - Design for Assembly. In order to re-project or decrease the expenses caused by designing new products aimed at such, it is necessary to retrieve information data which might be stored in inaccessible places and in a large variety of knowledge repositories. A way of retrieving this data is the creation of a system class, called peer-to-peer, which allows these documents to be synchronized and shared among terminals connected to a network. This system aims at decentralizing data, that is, they are spread throughout the network (internal or external) with the advantage that each company may protect the information by not making it available in computers belonging to third parties. Moreover, this information can automatically reach users by means of XML transactions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a tool to help knowledge management work in generating, codifying and transferring knowledge concerning DFA techniques. The assessment of available solutions was used as a method to propose a theoretical model which pinpoints the system development. It can be concluded that this type of system provides the users with means to collect data more efficiently, since DFA data may be accessed.

M. Arch.

This thesis presents a new approach to building a design for testability (DFT) system. The system takes a digital circuit description, finds out the problems in testing it, and suggests circuit modifications to correct those problems. The key contributions of the thesis research are (1) setting design for testability in the context of test generation (TG), (2) using failures during FG to focus on testability problems, and (3) relating circuit modifications directly to the failures. A natural functionality set is used to represent the maximum functionalities that a component can have. The current implementation has only primitive domain knowledge and needs other work as well. However, armed with the knowledge of TG, it has already demonstrated its ability and produced some interesting results on a simple microprocessor.

The focus of environmental work in manufacturing companies has increasingly shifted from end-of-pipe solutions to the environmental performance of products and services. The product development process is central to creating value for customers. This thesis argues that companies can simultaneously create value for consumers and be profitable while taking environmental considerations into account. Modernising ecodesign means taking advantage of environmental benefits and the innovation potential when developing solutions rather than using ecodesign simply to ensure that legal requirements or customer demands are met. Ecodesign is a strategic issue and should be included in early product development activities, such as for project selection and when setting product targets. There is also need to perform ecodesign according to the characteristics of specific development processes as for radical product development or when developing integrated solutions, using a combination of services and products. This thesis reports on the findings from five different research studies, all of which adopted a qualitative approach in which the emphasis falls on exploring and creating understanding and meaning. The studies focused on three areas of ecodesign: A) rethinking approaches for manufacturing companies, B) setting environmental project targets and project selection and C) redesign of products. Recommendations on how to modernise ecodesign have been developed and can be summarised in six points: • Perform ecodesign both vertically and horizontally in a company. • Increase interaction between organisational units. • Take advantage of innovation potential in products, services, user behaviour and the delivery and take-back systems. • Take environmental considerations into account in the project selection process. • Set environmental targets for ensuring that environmental considerations are taken when developing innovative solutions. • Develop ecodesign procedures that fit the characteristics of the development process

Given a special focus on Design for Environment (DfE) methods and tools, the objectives of this thesis are to, “Identify basic design-related requirements that a method or tool should fulfill in order to become actively used by engineering designers”, and to “Investigate how those basic requirements could be used to make DfE methods and tools more actively used in industry among engineering designers”. The research has shown that designers in general have three main purposes for utilizing methods and tools, of which the last two could be seen as subsets of the first one. The purposes are to: (1) facilitate various kinds of communication within the product development process; (2) integrate knowledge and experience into the methods and tools as a know-how backup; and (3) contribute with structure in the product development process. The low degree of follow-up implies a risk that methods and tools are used that affect the work within the company in a negative way. In order to be able to better follow-up methods and tools regarding both their utilization and usefulness, there is a need for a better definition of requirements for methods and tools. Most of all designers’ related requirements are related to their’ aims to fulfill the product performance and keep down the development time. This can be concluded as four major requirements, that a DfE method or tool, as well as a common method or tool, must exhibit: (1) be easy to adopt and implement, (2) facilitate designers to fulfill specified requirements on the presumptive product, and at the same time (3) reduce the risk that important elements in the product development phase are forgotten. Both these two latter requirements relate to a method or tool’s degree of appropriateness. The second and the third requirements are related to the fourth requirement, which is found to be the most important: that the use of the method or tool (4) must reduce the total calendar time (from start to end) to solve the task. The conclusion is that DfE methods and tools must be designed to comply to a higher degree with the main users - in this case the designers’ requirements for methods and tools / QC 20101021

Manufacturing companies around the globe are striving to increase their revenues and profitability. One way is through Functional Sales, i.e. shifting the focus from the production of products to the production of services. Functional Sales and Design for Environment (DfE) have many common issues, e.g. the life cycle perspective. The paper’s aim is to highlight a proposed interactive design method for Service Engineering of Functional Sales offers and to relate this method to selected DfE methods and tools as well as users’ experiences with these methods and tools. The paper concludes that the proposed method has several benefits that are useful in DfE. One benefit is that the method does not focus on products but rather on how needs can be satisfied by increasing service content. Another is the visualization of e.g. validation in order to facilitate communication between different actors in the product development process.