TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS LAW OF DESIGN - THE CASE OF THE BRITANNIA BRIDGE

In a recent paper, Dasgupta [6] has claimed to have identified two universal, qualitative laws of design. Of these, one is called the hypothesis law, which states that: ''A design process that reaches termination does so through one or more cycles of hypothesis creation, testing and (if necessary) modification.'' This law was arrived at from arguments based on a model of the design process at the ''knowledge level'' [9] and on the concept of ''bounded rationality'' [15]. In the present article we describe an extensive empirical test of the hypothesis law using an important historical case study. The case in question is the design, conducted between 1844 and 1847, of the Britannia Bridge which spanned the Menai Straits in Wales. Using published records of the project as the basis for our evidence, we shall show that the design process followed in this project strongly corroborates the hypothesis law.