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Current page: Peña, Problem Seeking — Ch 3 §Step 1 — Establish Goals
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Step 1: Establish goals

Peña, Problem Seeking — Ch 3 §Step 1 — Establish Goals

Description

Goals are established at the very beginning — while the client has the total project in mind and before thinking gets pulled into details. State the goals across all four considerations: functional goals (how the home will support its activities), form goals (site, character, environment), economic goals (the budget limit, which always exists), and time goals (when, and for how long).

Why this exists

Goals are the direction-setter for everything that follows. Without explicit goals, fact-collection and concept-testing have nothing to aim at, and the resulting program is shaped by whatever question got asked loudest.

Categories

Adjacency

Source

Caudill Rowlett Scott (via ERIC, US Dept of Education)authoritative
Problem Seeking: New Directions in Architectural Programming (early edition (ERIC ED037930, 1969))
Upgrade path: $75 for Problem Seeking 5th Edition (Wiley). 5th edition (2012, Wiley) is the current authoritative form of Peña's method. The ERIC PDF is the earliest published form — all the core method is present; later editions add case studies and refinements.
Section: Ch 3 §Step 1 — Establish Goals
Published 1969-01-01 · last verified 2026-05-14

Solver enforcement

Browsable only — the solver does not currently enforce this directive (no spec-level data to check against). This entry exists so the architect personas can cite it in conversation and the user can read what the rule says.

Related directives

Last reviewed 2026-05-14.