Designing a building or product forces you to solve a range of problems, to answer a set of questions. A car needs an engine cover, doors, a trunk that opens, openings in the body for headlights, etcetera. A building needs a stable structure, doors, windows, insolation, waterproofing, perhaps floor levels, it should provide functional spaces, etcetera. There are issues to deal with at the level of the whole design, and there are parts, fragments, and details to work out.
Dealing with such a set of issues, and their interactions, conflicts, and overlap, leads to a thorough interrogation of the material or technology you’re working with. Some of the answers will be specific to this one design. But a few of them will be of more general value. They could become a standard component, technique, or pattern. A standardized detail, combination of techniques, or construction method, for instance.
Such experiments can test and/or explore. They can ask, does it work? Or they can ask, what if?