Speculative Design

A few days ago, we had our sixth class of contemporary design. In this class, we focused on looking at speculative design and what it meant. The class kicked off with a brainstorm and suggestions being fired as to what it was. In short, the whole idea of speculative design revolves around designing with no boundaries and constraints. It requires you to let your imagination run wild and design for any possibility rather than designing for what is happening or more than likely going to happen. Personally, the concept was new to me having never thought about designing for what seems like the impossible, in a way the idea offers some comfort to the world of upcoming designers giving them scope to follow their wildest dreams and create something entirely new.

As a general concept, I could find myself incorporating it into my design although not full on wild so to speak. In my design process, I could imagine throwing out all my ideas whatever they may be and however unrealistic they appear. Once I can get all of them out of my head and onto a page it can allow me to grab hold of the wildest ideas and bring them back to reality perhaps shining new light towards a viable solution to whatever the task may be.

I also believe that in order to truly delve into speculative design, one must not only focus on creating solutions and new ideas but they must also consider creating a problem whether it be assuming the absolute worst or imagining something that nobody would never even dream to think about. Speculative design allows us each to be creative in our own right and can be unique to each individual. When I said that there is no constraints, that is to be taken literally, you can let your mind flow in any direction you choose, there is no right and wrong which is what gives the whole concept a fascinating feel to it

Once we had gained a bit more of an understanding, we formed groups to practice what we had just learned. Together we came up with random possibilities and situations, some bizarre and some seemingly impossible. Once we had completed this we hung them up on the wall and formed new groups based on which topic we chose to design for. Decided to go for moving to a new world which left an unlimited amount of room to explore. We came up with scenarios and problems and solutions from travel to housing and to wildlife. Having tested the concept out really helps get your head around just how broad speculative design really is and just what you can achieves, especially f the new world has a few dragons.