PARADIGMS OF ORDER
In his book, A Theory for Practice, Bill Hubbard Jr. outlines the concept of "design reasoning" in a digestible way by writing "An architect comes to the design task with a repertoire of paradigms of order. By that term I mean to convey conceptions as broad as a building-organization schema and as narrow as a favored construction detail. Some of these we draw from architecture's history, some from our own practices."

These paradigms are tools for making spatial sense of any "wicked problem" that is an architectural brief. Some of these are self-evident, while others are learned by seeing what other architects have done. Below is a kickstart to expediter your own toolkit:

LANDSCAPE

• Economics
• Politics
• Nationalism
• Patriotism
• Globalization
• Diplomacy
• Symbolism
• Cultural 
• Institutional
• Religious
• Economic
• Urban/Rural

SITE

• Size
• Shape
• Orientation
• Climate
• History
• Proximity (to other structures, trees, water, roads) 
• Infrastructure
• Topography
• Zoning (Use/Setbacks/Height/Bulk/Lot Coverage)
• Parking

ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES

• A-Z
• By size (ie. Small, Medium, Large, X-Large...)
• Hot to cold
• Low to high
• Chronological
• Numerical
• High to low pressure
• By color
• Concentric circles in/out
• Grids 
• Ladders
• Fields
• By height, width, or length
• In parallel
• Linear
• Circular
• Radial
• Spiral
• General to specific
• Primes
• Bands or stripes
• Ascending
• Descending
• Soft to Loud
• Overlapping
• Layering
• Numerically
• Old to New
• Clean versus messy
• Difficult to easy
• Speed
• Time
• Frequency
• Layers
• Waves
• Rhythm

FILTERS & OPERATIONS

• Reverse engineer
• Literal diagram translation 
• Tessellate
• Jerk the steering wheel (metaphorically)
• Telegraph
• Compress
• Explode
• Split 
• Axis 
• Diagram/layer to generate form
• Assign a typology to each piece of program and glue together 
• History
• Nostalgia 
• Loopholes 
• Subversion 
• Transgression
• Inversion
• Stand on head
• Stacking
• Skin the diagram
• Cribbing 
• Imitate 
• Frankensteining and/or The Mashup
• Subtraction
• Cut a hole in it
• Cut it in half
• Cut off the arm/leg/head
• The Remix
• The Edit
• Steal/crib/nick
• Mimic/imitate
• “Run the numbers”
• Love the process; not the ideas
• Synergy 
• Constraints are tools or something to push against, not hurdles
• Twinning
• Modulate
• Stepping
• Triangulate
• Rhythm
• Anomaly
• Banality
• Weaving
• Ignore and/or challenge material convention
• Contrast/difference ie. Loud/quiet
• Hide in plain sight = big power plant ski
• Playful 
• Style as branding and...
• Lifestyle
• Contrast
• Scaling up or down
• Metaphor
• Folding
• Swirl/twirl
• Scale up & scale down (apply scale to any filter as well)
• Advertising
• Wrap
• Lines of site
• Align
• Skew
• Central Park
• Broadway
• Map the typologies
• Elements
• Modeling (physical & virtual)
• Tell a story
• Mixing (i.e. black + white = grey)
• Copy
• Transform
• Combine 
• Forms = letters (all languages)
• Typography
• Twist
• Pushing boundaries 
• Cut for hiding views
• Cut for LPC
• Patriotism/nationalism
• Recycle and continue to filter/operate
• Slice
• Tetris
• Make elements do double duty
• Warping/bending
• The Mashup (Franken building)
• Style borrowing (partly mimic)
• Skeleton version 
• Give it weight
• Make it light
• Create balance
• Make it lopsided (top heavy etc.)
• Fields
• Lines
• Symmetry/asymmetry 
• Consolidate
• Overlay/layer
• Screen it
• Green it
• Wayfinding