Lecture about design approaches to explore the future

1. DESIGN OF TRANSHUMAN SYSTEMS
Spring 2019
University Wide Arts Studies
Exploring the Future
Through Design

2. 1. About Design
2. Taxonomy of Futures
3. Design Approaches to the Future

3. -1-
ABOUT DESIGN

4. “Design is the ability to imagine that-which-does-not-yet-exist, to
make it appear in concrete form as a new, purposeful addition to
the real world.”
Nelson & Stolterman, 2003
1.1 About Design

5. “Our efforts to develop a work-oriented design practice are based in
the recognition that systems development is not the creation of
discrete, intrinsically meaningful objects, but the cultural production
of new forms of practice.”
Suchman, Blomberg, Orr i Trigg, 1999
1.1 About Design

6. “Design makes futures. What designers make becomes the futures
we inhabit.”
Tonkinwise, 2015
1.1 About Design

7. -2-
TAXONOMY OF
FUTURES

8. 2.1 Taxonomy of Futures
• Possible Futures
• Preferred Futures
• Probable Futures
• Plausible Futures
Image: Adapted from Voros (2003)
https://singularityhub.com/2017/02/23/how-leaders-dream-boldly-to-bring-new-futures-tolife/#sm.000009va8ab6jbd9pzm83herw2jer

9. -3-
DESIGN APPROACHES
TO THE FUTURE

10. 3.1 Design Approaches to the Future

11. 3.2 Design Futures
DriveWave (MIT Senseable City Lab, 2015)
http://senseable.mit.edu/wave/
DriveWAVE explores the ways in which
"digital traffic controller" can become a
reality in cities.
An interactive installation allows visitors
experience how intelligent intersections
would control urban traffic in the future.

12. 3.3 Design Fictions
Teacher of Algorithms (Rebaudengo, 2019)
Image: http://www.simonerebaudengo.com/project/teacher
“Design fiction is about bending the rules. It’s
about asking “What if?”, and using the remains
to probe the edges of our changing world”.
https://www.postscapes.com/internet-of-things-award/design-
fiction/

13. 3.4 Critical Design
“Instead of thinking about appearance, user-
friendliness or corporate identity, industrial
designers could develop design proposals
that challenge conventional values.”
Dunne & Raby, 2001
Teddy Bear Bloodbag Radio (Dunne & Raby, 2009)
Image: http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/projects/512/0

14. 3.5 Speculative Design
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.
Audio Tooth Implant (Auger–Loizeau, 2001)
Image: http://www.auger-loizeau.com/projects/toothimplant

15. 3.5 Speculative Design
A B
Affirmative Critical
Problem solving Problem finding
Provides answers Asks questions
For how the world is For how the world could be
Makes us buy Makes us think
Excerpt from A/B manifesto (Dunne & Raby, 2013)

16. References
Auger, J. (2013). Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity, 24(1), 11-35.
Dunne, A. (1999). Hertzian tales: Electronic products, aesthetic experience, and critical design.
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2001). Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. Springer Science & Business Media.
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press.
Hales, D. (2013). Design fictions an introduction and provisional taxonomy. Digital Creativity, 24(1), 1-10.
Malpass, M. (2013). Between Wit and reason: defining associative, speculative, and critical design in practice. Design and
Culture, 5(3), 333-356.
Nelson, H. G., & Stolterman, E. (2003). The design way: Intentional change in an unpredictable world: Foundations and
fundamentals of design competence. Educational Technology.
Suchman, L., Blomberg, J., Orr, J. E., & Trigg, R. (1999). Reconstructing technologies as social practice. American behavioral
scientist, 43(3), 392-408.
Tharp, B. M., & Tharp, S. M. (2019). Discursive Design: Critical, Speculative, and Alternative Things. Design Thinking, Design Theory.
Tonkinwise, C. (2015): Just Design. Being Dogmatic about Defining Speculative Critical Design Future Fiction. In Medium.
https://medium.com/@camerontw/just-design-b1f97cb3996f