Design families and design individuals

This paper discusses design families and design individuals. Phase spate is introduced to complement state space. Phase transition as a generic method of generating design families is proposed and then demonstrated through an example of simple designs with one component. Based on phase transition in the biological world, a development model for complex designs (with multi- components) is established, by which different phase transitions for changi ng complex design families are analysed and simulated Two concepts are draw n from the biological analogy: through gene mutation and regulation the ind ividuals of complex design systems can be varied and searched within their state spare; and by changing the interpretation process of genes. the famil ies of such systems can be explored within their phase space.