  Empirical studies on design have emphasised the role of memory of past
solutions. Design involves the use of generic knowledge as well as episodic
knowledge about past designs for analogous problems : in this way, it involves
the reuse of past designs. We analyse this mechanism of reuse from a
socio-cognitive viewpoint. According to a purely cognitive approach, reuse
involves cognitive mechanisms linked to the problem solving activity itself.
Our socio-cognitive approach accounts for these phenomena as well as reuse
mechanisms linked to cooperation, in particular coordination, and
confrontation/integration of viewpoints.
