I was not familiar with this term until I read and account of a new unmanned hunter-killer, drone-type submarine:

 

 <<"The goal of this program, says DARPA, "is to design, build and demonstrate an X-ship based on clean sheet design approaches founded on the assumption that no person steps aboard at any point in its operating cycle.">>

 

At first I thought it meant kind of "rig for silent running", but in fact it means (as no doubt others know) designing something absolutely from scratch, no preconceptions, preconditions - on a clean sheet of paper.

 

Clarence True used clean sheet design when he starting building rowhouses with light brick and terra cotta, and did away with the front stoop, for a ground floor entrance. Frederick Sterner brought clean sheet design to the existing NYC rowhouse when he reworked the front in Mediterranean-colored stucco.   George and Edward Blum brought clean sheet design to the traditional apartment house model of the tripartite window unit, which had the center, wider pane double-hung, but also the narrow little side windows double-hung.  The Blums made the side window units casements, a much more useful design for a narrow window.

 

Clean sheet design is, I think, something that could also be brought to bear on aluminum/plastic siding which always seeks to replicate traditional clapboarding.  A little "clean sheet design" in the world of historic preservation administration wouldn't hurt either.  

 

Christopher