# Design-Science — current studio and work Archive content is intentionally separate. See https://design-science.co/content-index.json for the full corpus. --- --- title: "Systems that don’t exist yet." canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- INDEPENDENT VENTURE DESIGN STUDIO AUSTIN, TX / WORKING EVERYWHERE # Systems that don’t exist yet. We explore consequential problems. Design what should exist instead. Then make enough of it to find out. [Explore the work](https://design-science.co/#work) START WITH THE SYSTEM. SEE WHAT IT BECOMES. A DIFFERENT STARTING POINT ## Objects are only half the story. The interesting part is what happens between them. EXPLORE THREE SYSTEMS FIG. 01 / RELATIONSHIPS, NOT OBJECTS+ ### A shared operational world. People, agents, and software coordinate around a shared situation. The system gives their actions a common context. [Explore INDUSTRY 5](https://design-science.co/work/industry-5/) ### Many artifacts. One creative reality. Characters, rules, and relationships form a coherent canon. New stories can emerge without losing the intent behind them. [Explore Canon Engine](https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/) ### The journey belongs to the pod. Separate the thing being moved from the vehicle moving it. Different transporters carry one modular unit across a coordinated journey. [Explore NŪMŪV](https://design-science.co/work/numuv/) SELECTED WORK / DIFFERENT STATES ## Different systems. Same instinct. [All work](https://design-science.co/work/) [01 / Company ### INDUSTRY 5 Enterprise systems What if the enterprise were designed for humans and intelligent agents from the beginning? ](https://design-science.co/work/industry-5/)[02 / Company ### CANON ENGINE Narrative systems What happens to creative control when content becomes nearly free to generate? ](https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/)[03 / Exploration ### NŪMŪV Transportation systems What if we stopped designing transportation around the vehicle? ](https://design-science.co/work/numuv/) A COMPANY. AN EXPLORATION. AN OPEN SYSTEM. EACH IS A VALID OUTCOME. 01 / THE UNDERLYING QUESTION > If none of this > existed yet, > how should the > system _work?_ Most innovation begins with a market, a category, or a technology stack. We begin one question earlier. [Start somewhere else](https://design-science.co/method/) METHOD / FROM QUESTION TO CONSEQUENCE ## The vehicle follows the system. [Our method](https://design-science.co/method/) 01 ### Explore. Find the consequential question underneath the familiar problem. 02 ### Design. Model what should exist, starting from first principles. 03 ### Make. Build enough to test the logic and expose what is missing. 04 ### Form. Decide what should carry it into the world. A company is one possibility. OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/) --- --- title: "Interesting problems welcome." canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/contact/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- CONTACT / START A CONVERSATION # Interesting problems welcome. You do not need a pitch deck. You do not need to know whether something should become a company. You don’t even need to know exactly what the problem is. Useful reasons to get in touch: - **You know a domain unusually well.** - **You think an important system has reached its limit.** - **You have execution capability looking for a better mission.** - **You see a route to market for something we’re exploring.** - **You want to build something that doesn’t quite have a category yet.** Or you simply found something here worth discussing. [Start a conversation](mailto:info@design-science.co?subject=A%20conversation%20with%20Design-Science&body=Hello%20Robb%2C%0A%0AI%20found%20something%20worth%20discussing.%0A%0AThe%20system%20or%20question%20on%20my%20mind%20is%E2%80%A6%0A%0A) Or write directly to [info@design-science.co](mailto:info@design-science.co) --- --- title: "Start with the system." canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/method/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- METHOD / HOW THE WORK TAKES SHAPE # Start with the system. Design-Science is interested in problems where incremental improvement may no longer be enough. That does not mean ignoring reality. It means temporarily removing assumptions about how reality has been organized. ## 01 / Explore ### Find the question underneath the problem. Why does the system work this way? Which constraints are real? Which are historical accidents? What changed? Exploration can involve research, history, domain immersion, simulation, technology, economics, and deliberately unreasonable questions. ## 02 / Design ### Stand in the future. Work backward. Define the desired capability. Then ask what system would make it possible. Objects. Relationships. Rules. Actors. Decisions. Time. Consequences. The result is not necessarily software. It is a model of how something should work. ## 03 / Make ### Thinking gets better when it has something to collide with. Build. Simulate. Prototype. Visualize. Write. Run the model. Break it. Put it in front of someone who actually knows the domain. A prototype is not proof that an idea works. It is a more interesting way to discover why it doesn’t. ## 04 / Form ### Design the vehicle. Once a system appears worth pursuing, a different design problem begins: **how should this become real?** It might remain research. It might become open source. It might belong inside an existing organization, require a partner, or justify a new company. An existing organization might even be re-founded around a better reason to exist. Or the right answer might still be: **not yet.** > The objective is to make the right system real. OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/) --- --- title: "A place to originate things." canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/studio/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- STUDIO / DESIGN-SCIENCE # A place to originate things. Design-Science LLC is an independent venture design studio founded by Robb Bush. Its work combines systems design, technology, product invention, and company formation. The studio is organized around a particular kind of problem: **systems important enough to rethink from first principles.** ## Robb Bush ### Founder / Design Authority Robb has spent more than three decades designing complex enterprise systems, products, and new technology propositions. His work has ranged from early supply-chain visualization and enterprise software to autonomous transportation, agentic systems, narrative infrastructure, and new organizational models for bringing those systems into the world. Design-Science is the persistent thread through that work: understand the system, challenge the assumptions, make the alternative tangible. [Explore the historical work](https://design-science.co/archive/) ## Domain expertise is part of the architecture. Systems expertise does not substitute for knowing a domain. The right practitioner can change the work fundamentally. [Canon Engine](https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/) is an example. The inquiry originated through Design-Science, but the company could not exist without the complementary entertainment expertise of Michael Duggan. The result was a company with two co-founders. ## Sometimes we’re not needed. [World Runtime](https://world-runtime.dev/) is open source. A domain expert with the capability to build something extraordinary on it can simply do so. No Design-Science engagement. No studio equity. No obligation to involve its creator. > Good infrastructure should create possibilities beyond the people who made it. ## The right vehicle can take many forms. A company. A partnership. Research. An open system. Work inside an existing organization. Design-Science is not a startup production line. What the work becomes depends on what it needs. OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/) --- --- title: "Work in different states." canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/work/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- WORK / SYSTEMS IN THE WORLD # Work in different states. Some work becomes a company. Some remains experimental. Some is open. Those distinctions matter. [01 / Company ### INDUSTRY 5 Enterprise systems What if the enterprise were designed for humans and intelligent agents from the beginning? ](https://design-science.co/work/industry-5/)[02 / Company ### CANON ENGINE Narrative systems What happens to creative control when content becomes nearly free to generate? ](https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/)[03 / Exploration ### NŪMŪV Transportation systems What if we stopped designing transportation around the vehicle? ](https://design-science.co/work/numuv/) 04 / OPEN SYSTEM ## WORLD RUNTIME A shared operational world for people, agents, and software. [Explore World Runtime](https://world-runtime.dev/) World Runtime emerged through INDUSTRY 5 and is available as open-source infrastructure. Anyone can build on it. They do not need Design-Science. **That is intentional.** OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/) --- --- title: "CANON ENGINE" canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- 02 / COMPANY / NARRATIVE SYSTEMS # CANON ENGINE Creative control in the age of generative AI. ORIGIN / DESIGN-SCIENCESTATE / COMPANY FIG. 01 / RELATIONSHIPS, NOT OBJECTS+ ### A shared operational world. People, agents, and software coordinate around a shared situation. The system gives their actions a common context. [Explore INDUSTRY 5](https://design-science.co/work/industry-5/) ### Many artifacts. One creative reality. Characters, rules, and relationships form a coherent canon. New stories can emerge without losing the intent behind them. [Explore Canon Engine](https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/) ### The journey belongs to the pod. Separate the thing being moved from the vehicle moving it. Different transporters carry one modular unit across a coordinated journey. [Explore NŪMŪV](https://design-science.co/work/numuv/) ## Begin with the creative reality. A story is more than a finished artifact. It has a world, characters, relationships, and an underlying intent. Those things determine which new possibilities belong—and which do not. Canon Engine began with a question about intellectual property: perhaps the most valuable thing is not merely the finished artifact, but the structured creative reality from which many artifacts can emerge. The challenge is to understand, govern, and extend narrative IP without losing the intent that made it valuable. ## Domain expertise changed the architecture. The early inquiry originated through Design-Science. It became substantially more consequential when entertainment domain expertise met systems design. Today, Canon Engine is an independent company co-founded by Robb Bush and writer, director, and producer Michael Duggan. The result was not an adviser attached to an invention. It was a company with two co-founders and complementary expertise. > Domain expertise is not an input. It is part of the architecture. ## Follow the work The company carries the inquiry forward. Visit Canon Engine for its current direction and capabilities. [Visit Canon Engine](https://canon-engine.com/) OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/) --- --- title: "INDUSTRY 5" canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/work/industry-5/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- 01 / COMPANY / ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS # INDUSTRY 5 The orchestrated enterprise. ORIGIN / DESIGN-SCIENCESTATE / COMPANY FIG. 01 / RELATIONSHIPS, NOT OBJECTS+ ### A shared operational world. People, agents, and software coordinate around a shared situation. The system gives their actions a common context. [Explore INDUSTRY 5](https://design-science.co/work/industry-5/) ### Many artifacts. One creative reality. Characters, rules, and relationships form a coherent canon. New stories can emerge without losing the intent behind them. [Explore Canon Engine](https://design-science.co/work/canon-engine/) ### The journey belongs to the pod. Separate the thing being moved from the vehicle moving it. Different transporters carry one modular unit across a coordinated journey. [Explore NŪMŪV](https://design-science.co/work/numuv/) ## An operational world. Shared. An enterprise is already a system of people, decisions, commitments, and things that happen over time. Its software rarely represents that whole world. INDUSTRY 5 asks what enterprise coordination could look like if people, agents, applications, and automation worked from a shared understanding of the situation—and could coordinate what happens next. The starting point is the operational world itself: the objects in it, the relationships between them, and the rules that make an action meaningful. ## From exploration to company What began as a Design-Science exploration became an independent company. Robb Bush is its Founder / Chief Architect. The company is one outcome of the work. Its underlying infrastructure is another. ## Infrastructure that others can use [World Runtime](https://world-runtime.dev/) emerged through INDUSTRY 5 and is available as open-source infrastructure. It describes a shared operational world for people, agents, and software. Anyone can build on it. They do not need a Design-Science engagement, studio equity, or an obligation to involve its creator. > Good infrastructure should create possibilities beyond the people who made it. [Visit INDUSTRY 5](https://industry-5.net/) OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/) --- --- title: "NŪMŪV" canonical_url: "https://design-science.co/work/numuv/" content_status: current publisher: Design-Science --- 03 / EXPLORATION / TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS # NŪMŪV Don’t make the vehicle autonomous. Make movement autonomous. ORIGIN / DESIGN-SCIENCESTATE / EXPLORATIONROUTE TO MARKET / UNRESOLVED ![Conceptual industrial design study showing a modular passenger pod separated from a wheeled transporter.](https://design-science.co/images/numuv-concept.webp) FIG. 02 / POD + TRANSPORTER — AI-GENERATED CONCEPTUAL STUDY. NOT AN ACTUAL NŪMŪV PROTOTYPE. ## Say “new move.” Transportation is generally organized around vehicles. Cars. Trucks. Trains. Aircraft. Ships. Each has its own infrastructure, operating model, and optimization problem. NŪMŪV starts somewhere else: > What if the thing being moved—not the vehicle moving it—were the center of the system? ## Separate the pod from the transporter. A person or shipment occupies a standardized modular unit. Different transporters carry that unit through different environments. The system coordinates the journey across modes. The physical and digital architecture follow the person or product, rather than a particular vehicle. The research describes five connected parts: - **Pods.** Modular units for people, goods, or services, with different interiors around a shared interface. - **Transporters.** Platforms adapted to their operating environment, beginning with familiar modes such as road, rail, water, and air. - **Transfers.** Automated handoffs at hubs, designed to reduce the friction between modes. - **Connectors.** A proposed physical and digital interface—the NŪMŪV Pod Connector Interface, or NPCI—to make different systems interoperable. - **Orchestration.** Coordination of demand, supply, and movement, explored through the i5 agent-based system. ## The opportunity is between the modes. Making a vehicle more capable does not automatically make the whole journey work better. Transfers, empty returns, incompatible interfaces, and coordination across operators are system-level design problems. NŪMŪV explores whether a common modular architecture could let more movement happen through the infrastructure that already exists. This is a design hypothesis. The ARPA-I concept materials set out ambitions, proposed performance targets, and a development pathway. They do not establish a deployed network, certified interface, or demonstrated commercial outcome. ## Every hard question opens another part of the work. Connector reliability is a materials and engineering problem. Transfers are a robotics problem. Custody is a sensing and trust problem. A passenger cabin is an experience-design problem. A first corridor is an infrastructure and economics problem. The innovation-opportunities map treats these as places for domain expertise to change the system: - Manufacturers could develop pods, materials, and connector designs. - Robotics specialists could explore reliable transfer mechanisms. - Logistics and transport operators could test utilization and new services. - Cities and infrastructure partners could investigate hubs and land use. - Researchers and standards bodies could test safety, interoperability, and feasibility. These are potential roles, not announced partnerships. ## Substantial work. No company. Yet. The exploration has produced system architecture, simulation, standards thinking, physical concepts, and substantial design work. The proposed development sequence moves from simulation and standards to controlled prototypes, then multi-modal pilots. No combination of route to market, partners, capital, and institutional environment has yet justified forcing the work into a company. **That’s okay.** NŪMŪV remains available to evolve—with an infrastructure partner, transportation company, manufacturer, city, research institution, or a founder we have not met yet. > Good systems can be patient. ## From the notebook - [Modular, Autonomous Transport and Logistics System for Cross-Modal Optimization](https://design-science.co/2025/08/23/modular-autonomous-transport-and-logistics-system-for-cross-modal-optimization/) — the 2025 concept paper, preserved in its original context. - [NŪMŪV Project Summary](https://design-science.co/2024/08/08/numuv-project-summary/) — the earlier design hypothesis and system exploration. [Interested in NŪMŪV? Let’s talk](mailto:info@design-science.co?subject=A%20conversation%20about%20N%C5%AAM%C5%AAV&body=Hello%20Robb%2C%0A%0AI%20found%20something%20worth%20discussing.%0A%0AThe%20system%20or%20question%20on%20my%20mind%20is%E2%80%A6%0A%0A) OPEN TO THE RIGHT QUESTION ## What should exist instead? Perhaps you know a domain extraordinarily well. Perhaps an existing system has reached its limit. Good places to start. [Start a conversation](https://design-science.co/contact/)