Pioneering the Unknown: The World of Speculative Design

The field of design has evolved significantly over the past couple of decades, and two prominent philosophies have emerged to jointly push the boundaries of design. Critical Design, the forerunner of this transformative journey, first made its appearance in the late 20th century, pushing the envelope with its speculative and provocative nature. Rooted in the belief that design is a means to pose incisive questions, challenge the status quo, and ponder the future consequences of present choices, this philosophy led by Anthony Dunne, as introduced in his seminal work Hertzian Tales (1999-RCA) drew inspiration from earlier movements like Radical Design in Italy and the avant-garde British architecture of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Critical Design is characterized by its willingness to explore conceptual and often darkly satirical design concepts. It does not always result in practical, usable products, but it excels in fostering long-term thinking and revealing the intricate, sometimes contradictory, nature of consumers. This philosophy suggests that change is not just possible; it may be inevitable.

The next chapter of this journey unfolds with Speculative Design, a philosophy that stands on the foundations laid by Critical Design. Anthony Dunne continued to shape this evolving discourse, notably in his 2013 book Speculative Everything, co-authored by Fiona Raby. Speculative Design, often seen as a visionary tool, takes these principles to a new level, transcending the traditional boundaries of design.

Unlike conventional design, which primarily seeks to provide solutions to present-day problems, Speculative Design directs its focus toward creating proposals that identify and debate critical issues that could shape our future. It invites us to embark on a journey into uncharted territories, to contemplate alternative futures that might await us. While traditional design strives to find concrete solutions, Speculative Design's primary goal is to generate questions, challenge conventions, and ignite discourse. It doesn't adhere to a rigid process; instead, it embodies an attitude, offering a distinct set of tools, techniques, and methods to accommodate different contexts.

Understanding the Methods: Navigating the Future Creatively

Speculative design relies on three distinct sets of methods that differentiate it from traditional design approaches, which are a cornerstone of the discipline.

1. Identifying Signals of Emerging Technologies and Trends, Particularly Keeping an Eye on the Weak Signals: In Speculative Design, designers actively engage in research and analysis of emerging technological trends. By doing so, they aim to identify signals of change that could potentially impact the future. This method involves staying informed about advancements in various fields, such as technology, science, and culture, and recognizing early indicators of potential shifts. By spotting these signals, designers can incorporate them into their speculative scenarios, allowing them to explore how these emerging trends might influence the future. A significant aspect of Speculative Design is the focus on "weak signals," which are subtle indicators of something new or unfamiliar on the horizon. Designers pay close attention to these signals as they may represent nascent changes or unexpected shifts in technology, society, or culture. These weak signals serve as seeds for potential future scenarios. By mapping and exploring these weak signals, designers can develop unconventional and thought-provoking speculative ideas that challenge conventional thinking.
2. Exploration and Visualization using Narratives (Storytelling and World-Building) as an Integral Technique: Speculative designers engage in exploration and visualization to spark their creative processes. Through exploration and visualization, designers can stretch the boundaries of what's considered possible and create vivid, immersive narratives of future scenarios. These narratives are often presented through visual representations, prototypes, or storytelling techniques. Through storytelling, designers can make complex and abstract future concepts more relatable and engaging. World-building is an integral part of this process, often involving the development of fictional settings, characters, and detailed descriptions of how these speculative worlds function. These narratives and scenarios help participants immerse themselves in the future being explored.
3. Research Probes Leading to Inclusive, Critical, and Engaging Reflections: Speculative design functions as a research tool to investigate reactions to disruptive technologies and potential future scenarios. Designers may create prototypes, simulations, or other interactive tools to offer participants a glimpse into the speculative future. Gathering feedback and reactions from users or participants can yield valuable insights into how people might respond to and interact with new technologies, behaviors, or societal changes. Speculative Designers aim to provoke thoughtful discussions about the ethical, social, and cultural implications of potential future changes. The approach stimulates meaningful dialogue and invites individuals to contemplate the multifaceted nature of the future.

Collectively, these methods enable speculative designers to explore and challenge potential futures in a creative and thought-provoking manner. By employing these techniques, they can push the boundaries of design, inspire discussions, and prompt deeper reflections on the complex and multifaceted nature of the future.

Creative Visions of the Future: 30 Remarkable Speculative Design Initiatives/Projects/Ideas

Below is a brief description of the 30 speculative design projects listed, categorized by their respective themes:

Theme 1: Government & Society

1. Facestate by Metahaven (2011): “Facebook now has so many users, that if it were to be a country, its number of inhabitants would only be second to India and China.”?Facestate envisions a dystopian future where Facebook has become so powerful that it becomes an independent state, controlling social processes. It includes the creation of speculative artifacts like Facestate passports and ID cards. https://walkerart.org/magazine/metahavens-facestate
2. United Micro Kingdoms by Dunne & Raby (2013): This project reimagines the United Kingdom as four distinct ideological counties, each with its own speculative designs for transportation, governance, and infrastructure. It explores how different social and political structures could shape the future. https://unitedmicrokingdoms.org/ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/may/05/united-micro-kingdoms-design-museum-review
3. Mitigation of Shock by Superflux (2019): This project depicts a speculative future London apartment in 2050 that has adapted to the challenges of climate change, offering insights into how humans might adapt to issues like food shortage in the face of environmental changes. https://superflux.in/index.php/work/mitigation-of-shock/#

Theme 2: Technology & Surveillance

Projects by Simone Rebaudengo: Simone Rebaudengo is a designer specializing in future products and interactions, including machine-generated and human-designed items, AI-driven creative tools, and in-car experiences. He is also recognized for his work in speculative design, where he explores possible futures through design fiction and thought experiments. https://www.simonerebaudengo.com/ https://www.designative.info/2020/11/13/watch-everything-is-someone-simone-rebaudengo/ https://designmattersplus.io/seeing-reality-from-an-objects-perspective-can-help-us-design-for-the-future/

1. Addicted Toaster by Simone Rebaudengo (2014): Among his notable projects is the Addicted Toaster, an IoT device that craves attention from its owner.
2. The Teacher of Algorithms by Simone Rebaudengo (2015): delves into the future of education and surveillance, featuring a robot teacher using facial recognition and technology to monitor students and offer personalized feedback.
3. Alias by Bj?rn Karmann (2018): Alias is a parasitic device that aims to give users more control over smart home assistants. It questions our relationship with AI technology and the privacy concerns associated with it. https://bjoernkarmann.dk/project/project_alias

Theme 3: Biotechnology & Nature

1. Natural History of the Enigma by Eduardo Kac (2003-08): This project genetically engineered an organism called the "Edunia" flower, merging a petunia plant with human DNA from the artist's own blood. https://www.digiart21.org/art/natural-history-of-the-enigma
2. Deliver a Shark by Ai Hasegawa (2013): This project proposes using biotechnology to allow women to give birth to endangered animals instead of humans, addressing the issue of overpopulation and offering a unique perspective on reproduction. https://aihasegawa.info/i-wanna-deliver-a-shark
3. Neo_Fruits (2020): Neo_Fruits is a speculative technological design project, by industrial designer Meydan Levy, that explores a future scenario where humans will create food artificially. In this project, artificial fruits are designed and printed, to offer a nutritious and vitamin-rich alternative to familiar fruits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeydwfUmyoY&t=12s

Theme 4: Future Living

1. Foragers by Dunne & Raby (2009): Foragers looks at how humans could extract nutritional value from non-human foods by using a combination of synthetic biology and new digestive devices inspired by other mammals, birds, fish, and insects.?https://www.iconeye.com/design/dunne-raby-s-future-foragers
2. Uninvited Guests by Superflux (2015): At the heart of this project are three questions that explore possibilities of co-existence with smart objects integrated in our daily lives. -As?physical objects?in the home become embedded with increasing smartness and autonomy, what relationships do we form with them? -What role does human agency play in a world where mundane objects and environments begin to gain a level of agency and?autonomy? -How will smart objects and devices influence the rhythms and routines of our lives, and ours to theirs, and how will this in turn change our cultures, beliefs, and preferences?? https://superflux.in/index.php/work/uninvited-guests/#

Theme 5: Habitats, Cities, Environments

1. Vertical Village by Luca Curci Architects (2011): This project proposes a speculative vertical city structure with stackable modular hexagons that can extend infinitely upward, offering a unique approach to urban design and architecture. https://lucacurci.com/architecture/vertical-city.html
2. Next Nature by Koert van Mensvoort (2012): We debate saving nature, we dream about escaping to nature, but rarely do we ask “What is nature?”. The Next Nature book radically shifts your notion of nature. Where technology and nature are traditionally seen as opposed, they now appear to merge or even trade places. With our urge to design our environment, we cause the rising of a next nature that is as unpredictable as ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3pUfj639hM https://nextnature.net/about
3. Anthropic Park (2014-15) by Francisco Leiva: Wounds to the countryside inflicted by humans are being healed in the small locality of Saline Joniche in southern Italy. The intervention could serve as a worldwide reference for the sustainable reuse of disused industrial sites. The intention of the proposal by AutonomeForme and Grupo Aranea is to restore the natural balance of the largely destroyed landscape and to gradually undo the damage caused by human hands. https://www.holcimfoundation.org/projects/anthropic-park
4. Floating Oceanix City by Big (2019): Sustainable Floating Cities offer to solve pressing challenges faced by coastal urban areas and inspire cross-disciplinary collaboration. The United Nations has expressed support for?further research into floating cities ?in response to rising sea levels and to house climate refugees. A speculative proposal, Oceanix City, was unveiled in April 2019 at the first?Round Table on Sustainable Floating Cities ?at UN headquarters in New York. The Roundtable had two major outcomes, the agreement to: a) Build a prototype sustainable floating city in collaboration with a host government; and b) Create a braintrust of thought leaders, partners, and cities to increase the understanding of the opportunities. https://oceanix.com/technology/
5. Local2030 Islands Network (2022): is the world’s first global, island-led peer-to-peer network devoted to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through locally driven solutions by encouraging engagement amongst and between islands to share experiences, spread knowledge, raise ambition, promote solidarity, and identify and implement best practice solutions.?https://www.islands2030.org/

Theme 6: Fashion & Materials

1. Microbial Skin by Suzanne Lee (2014): This project involves clothing and textiles created with bacterial cellulose cultivation, proposing future intersections of biotech and fashion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9u_m_QzXSI
2. Bio-based material experiences by Elvin Karana (2015): https://nextnature.net/story/2019/interview-elvin-karana
3. Spider Dress 2.0 by Anouk Wipprecht (2015): The Spider Dress 2.0 is a robotic dress with spider-like appendages that react to external stimuli, serving as an exoskeleton to protect the wearer's personal space, highlighting the intersection of fashion and technology. https://www.arch2o.com/the-spider-dress-anouk-wipprecht/ https://vimeo.com/114828162
4. Spray-on fabric (2022): Spray fabric directly from a bottle on your body, create a seamless T-shirt sprayed instantly from a can and have the ability to spray clothing easily from a spray. Fabrican is a patented instant, sprayable, non-woven ? Spray-on fabric, based in London, at the?London Bioscience Innovation Centre . https://www.fabricanltd.com/

Theme 7: Food & Sustainability

1. Algaerium Bioprinter by Maria Sawa (2013): The bioprinter provides a process whereby algae cells can be ruptured and their nutrients readily absorbed, while at a macro scale, it envisions an immediate future where algae farming forms a significant part of urban agriculture while reinforcing food safety in our cities. Essentially the algaerium functions as an ink reservoir that contains superfood microalgae such as chlorella, spirulina, and haematococcus.?https://www.designboom.com/technology/algaerium-bioprinter-by-marin-sawa-digitally-yields-health-food/
2. Experiments in Indoor Farming by Superflux (2017-19): From Aeroponics to Fogponics, Kratky to Permaculture, this project presents a glimpse of various indoor farming experiments, methods, and prototypes developed for Mitigation of Shock.https://superflux.in/index.php/experiments-in-indoor-farming/#
3. In Vitro Meat Habitats by Next Nature (2018-ongoing): This project speculates on "meat" grown in a lab as the future of sustainable food, considering how this shift might impact cultures and habits surrounding food. https://nextnature.net/projects/meat-the-future https://vimeo.com/305779344 https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/23/business/lab-grown-meat-explainer/index.html https://www.veganfirst.com/article/indias-first-lab-grown-clean-meat-project-launches-in-hyderabad
4. Packaging for Lab-grown meat: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023643822011276

Theme 8: Objects & Interaction

1. Audio Tooth Implant by Mibec (2012): The Audio Tooth Implant is a radical new concept in personal communication. A miniature audio output device and receiver are implanted into the tooth during routine dental surgery. These offer a form of electronic telepathy as the sound information resonates directly into the consciousness. https://vimeo.com/7485316 https://auger-loizeau.com/toothimplant.html
2. Cloud Series by Richard Clarkson (2016): The Cloud Series includes a series of Lighting systems inspired by clouds fitted with sound-reactive and ambient lamp modes, and a Bluetooth speaker https://www.rclarkson.com/collections/clouds
3. Ritual Machine by Mohannad Shono (2018): This interactive work is a speculative series of personal machines that perform rituals on our behalf through mundane repetitive movements. https://muhannadshono.com/a-ritual-machine

Theme 9: Warnings & Danger

1. Ten Thousand Year Warning by Human Interference Task Force (1980): This project explores how to design warnings about radioactive waste that will be understood by humans 10,000 years in the future, addressing the long-term risks associated with nuclear waste storage. In 1980, the U.S. Department of Energy established the Human Interference Task Force (HITF) to investigate issues related to marking a nuclear waste repository after it's been filled. The HITF's responsibility was to develop a method for warning future generations not to disturb or drill at that location unless they fully understood the potential consequences. To minimize the chances of human interference over the span of 10,000 years, they needed to create an effective and durable warning system.
2. Long-term nuclear waste warning messages:?People are trying to find ways to communicate about dangerous nuclear waste for a long time. In 1984, two writers, Fran?ois Bastide and Paolo Fabbri, suggested that domestic animals could be bred to change color when they approach radioactive materials. For example: You visit a new house to see if you want to buy it; you bring Tuffy in her carrier; Tuffy turns from gray tabby to spinach green; you sprint to your car and call the realtor from a safe distance. Cancer averted. Or, less facetiously, if everyone in town begins to notice their cat turning green, they can alert the proper authorities, who will find and dispose of the waste.?https://www.grunge.com/734534/the-fascinating-story-of-the-ray-cat-solution/
3. Unknown: Killer Robots (A Netflix documentary directed by Jesse Sweet, 2023): AI-powered robots are changing the face of warfare, and increasingly making their own decisions on the battlefield. This film follows the soldiers and scientists racing to build these technologies, and the activists on a mission to expose their dangerous potential. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsSzNOpr9cE

Other initiatives, projects, and Ideas:

https://blog.depositphotos.com/speculative-design.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDleQz1BJk

Conclusion:

As we navigate the fascinating landscape of speculative design, these imaginative projects beckon us to peer into possible futures, each with its own set of challenges and opportunities. What role will technology play in reshaping our world, and how will society respond to these innovations? How might these speculative scenarios influence our daily lives and the way we interact with the environment, objects, and each other? The uncertainty and ambiguity that speculative design thrives upon invite us to ponder the profound implications of these creative visions.

In the end, it's not about embracing a predefined future; it's about engaging in dialogue and exploration of the endless possibilities the future holds. What comes next remains, for now, an intriguing enigma, waiting to be unlocked by our collective imagination and ingenuity.