Designing with Constraints: Are we designing for creativity or compliance?

Presented is a concept that forms the basis of a larger research project aiming to understand the university lecturers design practices around bureaucratic constraints and, as a result, if they were still able to be creative. This idea was developed from the research findings of one of the author's PhD dissertation (Dave, 2017) wherein the lecturers expressed their design practice impacted by the various constraints which are explained in this paper. The authors argue that like other professional designers (engineers, architects), lecturers should be able to be creative despite the constraints. Also raised are the higher-level issue of learning and training in the area of higher education which makes people more responsive to creativity.