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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Exploring abduction in regenerative design

emphasized that the generation of hypothesis includes our repeated implementation, eventually becomes generalized
interpretation of certain preference, which is not based on as a theory through induction. This follows the three-step
past knowledge affecting the truth of the hypothesis, nor scientific inquiry procedures outlined by Peirce, which
is it based on the test of the hypothesis after admitting a March adopted as the Production-Deduction-Induction
certain possibility of the hypothesis (Parisi, 2013). Hence, (PDI) model in design (March, 1976).
compared with deduction and induction, abduction is not Consequently, GAN_Physarum, as a product of
delimited by “a priori theory or a posteriori verification” abductive reasoning, is speculative but innovative. This
(Parisi, 2013, p. 234). Roozenburg insisted that innovative
abduction (Syllogism II) should be the key reasoning in inference motivates the invention of new rules and the
design so that innovation could be created, responding to realization of novel outcomes, suggesting a higher level
the original idea of abduction to produce new knowledge. of innovation than other design reasoning modes. It is
Building on this foundation, Kroll & Koskela interpret not intended to solve problems but rather to provoke
syllogisms in the context of design. They added that more questions and discussions that drive the design. It is
the function or the desired result of design could be the worth mentioning that without a fundamental shift in the
starting point (q). The rule to infer from p to q may be design reasoning and orientation, the application of non-
“a working principle associated with the desired function, human computation may simply establish an algorithmic
or a description of some structure associated with the description of the design, resulting in rule-based form
working principle” (Kroll & Koskela, 2017, p. 64). generation (deductive method). Alternatively, it may only
increase the number of reference cases and the speed
In this regard, the DeepGreen project’s logical structure of induction, optimizing existing solutions (inductive
is identified as innovative abduction. The design reasoning method). In this sense, technology does not thoroughly
starts from a vague purpose – the vision for a self-organized renew the value of design but leads to changeless change.
urban ecological infrastructure (q) – and then conceives We may conclude that decision-making in problem-
and infers rules and causes. The combination of PP and solving sustainable design tends to exclude and converge
CycleGAN is not based on previous design frameworks options. The thinking underlying regenerative design
and examples but is purely speculative. Subsequently, (such as DeepGreen protocols), with its implied innovation
GAN_Physarum becomes the rule (p→q) to infer slime to break through the status quo, needs to be divergent,
mold computation (p) to the urban infrastructure (q); exploratory, and even disruptive. This is why abduction,
both the workflow (p→q) and the slime mold network (p) as a logical structure, facilitates possible innovations and
are the results of inference. Having clarified this logical
structure, the operation of the newly established workflow regenerative architecture.
reshapes the ambiguous design purpose into a vivid urban 4. Abduction as patterns of cognition: The
morphology (Figure 8). Nevertheless, the outcome of the mind ecology of morphogenesis
phase remains a speculative hypothesis to be tested. It
necessitates deduction to verify its feasibility and, through As the logical structure of DeepGreen becomes an apparent
example of innovative design protocols, it can be observed
in the syllogism of abductive reasoning that both rule
(p→q) and cause (p), in this case, GAN_Physarum and PP,
are the conclusions of abductive inference, implying that
they should emerge together. “You do not have ‘p’ unless
you have ‘p→q,’ and vice versa; neither of them can be seen
as a premise (...) Indeed, abduction typically comes to us
in a flash” (Roozenburg, 1993, p. 11). Davis explained that
“All of the component ideas in an abduction may have been
present in the mind before the abduction was made, but
the new combination of ideas or the relation between them
is what is new in an abduction. (...) Sometimes one has to
stare at the problem for some long period of time before the
whole solution appears before the mind’s eye in a moment
of ‘insight’ ”(Davis & Davis, 1972, p. 48). Parisi commented
that abduction as a speculative device “includes a mutual
Figure 8. GAN_Physarum: Paris (scale: 200 m). Source: ecoLogicStudio, yet indirect interplay between method and object, a real
GAN_Physarum: la dérive numérique, 2022 yet inexact connection of thought and fact, a constructive

Volume 6 Issue 1 (2024) 8 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1084