Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionist_design_methodology
The Constructionist Design Methodology (CDM) was developed by artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Kristinn R. Thórisson and his students at Columbia University and Reykjavik University for use in the development of cognitive robotics, communicative humanoids and broad AI systems. The creation of such systems requires integration of a large number of functionalities that must be carefully coordinated to achieve coherent system behavior. CDM is based on iterative design steps that lead to the creation of a network of named interacting modules, communicating via explicitly typed streams and discrete messages. CDM has been used in the creation of many systems including robotics, facial animation, large-scale simulation and virtual humans. One of the first systems was MIRAGE, a simulated human in an augmented-reality environment that could interact with people through speech and gesture
Architecture should be designed to facilitate modular, rapid development
split the problem into separate modules, each which can be developed somewhat independently of the others.
enable parallel execution of implementation
combining the pieces to form a full system
