Unit 4

Speculative
Design
Dr. Will Kurlinkus

Jaemin Paik, When We All Live to 150

A Note on the Visual
Assignment: 4.16
Refresh Yourself on the readings
What is your final project?
•  Talk among yourselves—then share it with everyone.
•  Draw it on the board: problem, research, prototype
What is Speculative Design?

Using the idea of possible futures as a way to “better

understand the present and to discuss the kind of future
people want, and, of course, one people do not want. For
us futures are not a destination or something to be strived
for but a medium to aid in imaginative thought—to
speculate with.”
—Anthony Dunne and Fionna Raby
IDEO Designs On: https://
designson.ideo.com
Sample RSA Briefs: Group Choose 1
—  Working Well: Design a vision and business case for a way to
promote greater wellbeing when people are at work,
wherever that work takes place, that will contribute to higher
productivity and better overall mental health.

—  Sleep Matters: Design a product, service or system to improve

health and wellbeing by encouraging and/or enabling better
sleep.

—  Eat, Share, Live: Design an inclusive and accessible and multi-

generational kitchen space or kitchen component that works
for all ages, as well as for disabled and non-disabled family
members, so they can prepare, cook and serve food,
entertain, engage in hobbies or work and enjoy life together.
What if…DNA collection, testing,
and eventual pregnancy were the
norm?
What if…
death were
thought of in
more natural
and
environmenta
lly-friendly
ways?
What if…
energy was
radically
rethought as
powered by
the humans
who use it?
Blood
drinking
machines?
What if…rather than speed and
change, technological innovation
embraced aging with grace and
repair? Slow Design
 The Assignment
In this assignment you will create a multi-page layout that either chooses a
concept, design idea, problem, or ideal in the present and extends it into a utopic,
dystopic, or simply atopic future. In doing so, you can choose your own current
concept (teacher's pay, Facebook tracking, black lives matter, urban farming,
advancements in food technology, the right to repair movement, etc.) or you can
respond to one of the sample design briefs found on RSA's (Royal Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture, and Commerce) website: here.
1.  Start with a well-researched and quoted/cited problem/idea narrative in the
present. What is the problem? Why? How? For whom? PointàEvidenceàAnalysis
2.  Expand the problem or ideal into the future--what do you speculate happening
in the future?
3.  Create a brief story (a user-persona, really) about an everyday interaction with
your design. Have a main character, setting, plot, etc. How is the everyday
world changed for this person?
4.  Include at least 3 designed images with textual descriptive paragraphs, labels,
and captions for each.
—  Photoshop image of your design labeled and out of context.
—  Image of your design in context and in action with people or nature.
—  Image of some other optional tweak or expansion of your design system--what else might
happen with your design?

—  Take Dunne and Raby’s website and IDEO’s designs on as textual inspiration.

—  You might also imagine your future from a piece of fiction (and teach it that
way, too).
What to do?
1.  Work on your design brief: due today at midnight.

2.  Work on + get my feedback on your image portfolio.

3.  Start thinking about your speculative design.