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Speculative design
Speculative design is a design practice concerned with future design proposals of a critical nature. The term was popularised by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby as a subsidiary of critical design. The aim is not to present commercially-driven design proposals but to design proposals that identify and debate crucial issues that might happen in the future. Speculative design is concerned with future consequences and implications of the relationship between science, technology, and humans. It problematizes this relation by proposing provocative future design scenarios where technology and design implications are accentuated. These design proposals are meant to trigger debates about the future rather than marketing products.
Dunne and Raby, the researchers who coined the term speculative design, describe it as:
“an activity where conjecture is as good as knowledge, where futuristic and alternative scenarios convey ideas, and where the goal is to emphasize implications of “mindless” decisions for mankind.”
— Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Speculative design is used to challenge preconceptions, raise questions and to provoke debate. It opens the door for designers to imagine possible futures.
James Auger claims speculative design "combines informed, hypothetical extrapolations of an emerging technology’s development with a deep consideration of the cultural landscape into which it might be deployed, to speculate on future products, systems and services”.
Speculative designers develop alternative presents to ask why things are the way they are so that they can project the future. James Auger explains that these alternative presents can make radical interventions to the current practices and evolving technologies by applying different ideologies and practices.
Speculative design emphasizes the “philosophical inquiry into technological application”; it tends to take the discussion on technology beyond the experts to a broad population of the audience. The resulting artifacts often appear subversive and irreverent in nature; they look different to the public, and this is the key behind triggering discussions and stimulating questions.
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Speculative design
Speculative design is a design practice concerned with future design proposals of a critical nature. The term was popularised by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby as a subsidiary of critical design. The aim is not to present commercially-driven design proposals but to design proposals that identify and debate crucial issues that might happen in the future. Speculative design is concerned with future consequences and implications of the relationship between science, technology, and humans. It problematizes this relation by proposing provocative future design scenarios where technology and design implications are accentuated. These design proposals are meant to trigger debates about the future rather than marketing products.
Dunne and Raby, the researchers who coined the term speculative design, describe it as:
“an activity where conjecture is as good as knowledge, where futuristic and alternative scenarios convey ideas, and where the goal is to emphasize implications of “mindless” decisions for mankind.”
— Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Speculative design is used to challenge preconceptions, raise questions and to provoke debate. It opens the door for designers to imagine possible futures.
James Auger claims speculative design "combines informed, hypothetical extrapolations of an emerging technology’s development with a deep consideration of the cultural landscape into which it might be deployed, to speculate on future products, systems and services”.
Speculative designers develop alternative presents to ask why things are the way they are so that they can project the future. James Auger explains that these alternative presents can make radical interventions to the current practices and evolving technologies by applying different ideologies and practices.
Speculative design emphasizes the “philosophical inquiry into technological application”; it tends to take the discussion on technology beyond the experts to a broad population of the audience. The resulting artifacts often appear subversive and irreverent in nature; they look different to the public, and this is the key behind triggering discussions and stimulating questions.