# Design Space **Domain:** Engineering / Optimization / Evolutionary Computation **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition A **design space** is the set of candidate configurations reachable under a representation, its allowed operations and imposed constraints. ## Evolutionary Nexus The ST5 antenna search did not explore every physically possible antenna. Its encodings determined which forms could vary and branch. [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] uses the result to show how selection can find unfamiliar forms within a human-authored possibility space. ## Governance Context Excluded possibilities cannot win. Representation design is therefore prior governance: it determines which solutions and subjects can appear before evaluation begins. ## See Also [[wiki/Evolved Antenna|Evolved Antenna]], [[wiki/Objective Function|Objective Function]], [[wiki/Adaptive Structure|Adaptive Structure]], [[wiki/Ontology|Ontology]]