Baking. Lots of ways little things affect the final product, and accounting for those takes a lot of skill that can be learned through experimentation.
Scientific research. There's trial and error involved, optimizing small parts of a larger method, or trying to find a whole new method to accomplish something. It can be extremely rewarding or an exercise in frustration, or both!
Engineering. Which is a world in itself. For example, electrical engineers design chips with certain efficiency in mind, which requires working with restrictions to materials, components, and physics. There's a lot of researching, modeling, planning, simulating electrical and processing systems, all to finally see a prototype being built and tested as well. Think also of engineers designing engines, communication systems, vehicles.
It takes a certain learned skill to do well, but it can't be entirely formalized - at any level a significant part of effort is still closer to art than to a chore.
You have a budget (monetary points), certain goals (style to go for, inputs from the owner on what they want), hard restrictions (room space, items that will go there, general layout) and soft restrictions (what is more convenient, looks better, gives a better synergy with other parts).
If you have a basic understanding, you have a draft in your head as soon as you see the requirements, and this drafts limits your options to a certain narrow segment of all possible solutions. But it takes more than basic understanding and a lot of work to make the draft into something usable.
Big decisions matter, but small things make for some 50% of the final result, and maybe 25% is achieved by separate things working with each other.
Sometimes you can apply your experience, take an unconventional, illogical draft and find just the right combination of smaller decisions that just make it work, same or better than a more conventional option would.
Finally, everyone can learn to do it; some people learn the basics and have their homebrew styles that somewhat work and sometimes just don't; much more people can't be bothered and use cookie-cutter universal solutions prepared by someone with better understanding; and when someone wants something ~~off-meta~~ unusual, they won't be able to put it together on their own and will need to ask someone with a better understanding of the craft.
On a similar note, architecture.
Organising spaces in 3 dimensions, optimising flow between rooms while minimising wasted space, different layers of complexity that need to be factored in (light, materiality, water, power, waste, structure, law, planning limitations), the constraints of a site both limiting and encouraging the design much like a skill-cap.
Designing a house extension triggers a lot of the same brain bits as build crafting for me.
Baking. Lots of ways little things affect the final product, and accounting for those takes a lot of skill that can be learned through experimentation.
NGL In wvw guilds we do a lot of theory build crafting , trying to counter the meta
Scientific research. There's trial and error involved, optimizing small parts of a larger method, or trying to find a whole new method to accomplish something. It can be extremely rewarding or an exercise in frustration, or both!
Engineering. Which is a world in itself. For example, electrical engineers design chips with certain efficiency in mind, which requires working with restrictions to materials, components, and physics. There's a lot of researching, modeling, planning, simulating electrical and processing systems, all to finally see a prototype being built and tested as well. Think also of engineers designing engines, communication systems, vehicles.
Interior design.
Elaborate please
It takes a certain learned skill to do well, but it can't be entirely formalized - at any level a significant part of effort is still closer to art than to a chore. You have a budget (monetary points), certain goals (style to go for, inputs from the owner on what they want), hard restrictions (room space, items that will go there, general layout) and soft restrictions (what is more convenient, looks better, gives a better synergy with other parts). If you have a basic understanding, you have a draft in your head as soon as you see the requirements, and this drafts limits your options to a certain narrow segment of all possible solutions. But it takes more than basic understanding and a lot of work to make the draft into something usable. Big decisions matter, but small things make for some 50% of the final result, and maybe 25% is achieved by separate things working with each other. Sometimes you can apply your experience, take an unconventional, illogical draft and find just the right combination of smaller decisions that just make it work, same or better than a more conventional option would. Finally, everyone can learn to do it; some people learn the basics and have their homebrew styles that somewhat work and sometimes just don't; much more people can't be bothered and use cookie-cutter universal solutions prepared by someone with better understanding; and when someone wants something ~~off-meta~~ unusual, they won't be able to put it together on their own and will need to ask someone with a better understanding of the craft.
On a similar note, architecture. Organising spaces in 3 dimensions, optimising flow between rooms while minimising wasted space, different layers of complexity that need to be factored in (light, materiality, water, power, waste, structure, law, planning limitations), the constraints of a site both limiting and encouraging the design much like a skill-cap. Designing a house extension triggers a lot of the same brain bits as build crafting for me.
If you love to optimize numbers all day long, controlling
Gardening and baking for sure