A case study on the application of the theory of inventive problem solving in architecture

This article presents the application of TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving) as a tool to support the initial stage of architectural design. The article presents an application of TRIZ to a real problem – a case study involving Student Housing of Universidade de Sao Paulo. TRIZ was applied to solve the problem of adapting a case study building to make it accessible to persons with disabilities. The case study demonstrates that TRIZ is a methodological alternative applicable to the early phases of the architectural design process, because it includes tools to systematize the use of knowledge on the problem, to model the search space for solutions and to identify potentially relevant creative ideas. The findings are part of the development of experimental TRIZ, where heuristics and instruments of the theory are applied to a new field of knowledge, for which it had not originally been implemented.