Structural engineering is undergoing significant changes, particularly in the area of design. These changes are mostly driven by the ongoing Information Technology Revolution and by the ever-growing importance of novel, or inventive, designs under the conditions of the domestic and international competition for a market share among the major A/E/C companies. In this context, the ability to conduct inventive design in a short period of time, and with feasible and patentable results, is becoming critical to establish and maintain the leadership position in the market.

In this paper, the basic concepts of inventive design, as applied to structural engineering, are provided. Next, the fundamentals of the evolutionary computation are briefly reviewed. In this context, the research project being conducted at George Mason University on evolutionary computation in inventive design is described, and the results of an initial experiment are presented. The experiment has been conducted in the area of inventive design of wind bracings in steel skeleton structures of tall buildings. Also, the initial conclusions and the plans for the future research are given.

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