Speculative Urban Futures (SUrF)
Speculative Urban Futures (SurF) is a pedagogical project that investigates the role and purpose of design in the 21st century.
Max Mollon: Let’s move beyond the limits of critical, speculative and fictional design
James Auger and Ivica Mitrović talk with Max Mollon, organizer of Parisian speculation, design and debate communities about his research in designing for debate.
Beyond Speculative Design: Past – Present – Future (THE BOOK)
The book is the main outcome of SpeculativeEdu project and represents a comprehensive reflection on our work within the project.
Dash N’ Dem: Speculative Design needs to become more accessible
Sara Božanić talks with SpeculativeEdu team member Dash Macdonald and his partner Demitrios Kargotis on the importance of critical thinking and design activism.
NeoRural Futures Summer School MONOGRAPH
Our Italian project partner HER has published a documented case history of the SpeculativeEdu NeoRural Futures Summer School from 2019.
Sohail Inayatullah: We see the future as a learning journey, not as a site of prediction
Sara Božanić talks with Professor Sohail Inayatullah on the methods and the importance of futures oriented education and practice.
Phil Balagtas: Speculation has never been more alive
Ivica Mitrović talks with the founder of The Design Futures Initiative, home of the Speculative Futures meetups and PRIMER conferences.
Ingi Helgason: Speculative Design is being integrated into education in diverse ways
Sara Božanić talks with SpeculativeEdu team member Ingi Helgason about Speculative Design in research and education.
Salvatore Iaconesi & Oriana Persico: We’ve transformed ourselves into a Speculative Design project
Sara Božanić talks with SpeculativeEdu team members Salvatore Iaconesi & Oriana Persico about the state of Speculative Design in Italy.
Paolo Cardini: Cultural determinism as an alternative to technological determinism
Sara Božanić talks with Paolo Cardini about the importance of responsible Speculative Design education and practice.
Francisco Laranjo: We don’t need Speculative Design education, just better design education
Francisco Laranjo, editor of the design criticism journal Modes of Criticism, reflects on Speculative Design practice.
Interview: Maja Grakalić
Maja Grakalić, an interdisciplinary design practitioner and researcher from Croatia based in London: “you can only change the system from within”.
Trojan Horse: Concrete actions are not necessarily a grandiose intervention
Ivica Mitrović talks with Trojan Horse, an autonomous educational platform from Helsinki, about alternative models of design education.
Julian Hanna: Manifestos are also critiques of the present
Sara Božanić talks with SpeculativeEdu team member Julian Hanna about manifesto writing, crossing disciplinary boundaries, and Speculative Design.
Enrique Encinas: Criticism has been a very constructive force for Speculative Design
Sara Božanić talks with SpeculativeEdu team member Enrique Encinas on the methods, tools and education in Speculative Design.
Case Study: Back From The Future
Large scale participatory futures research project by ouishare dealing with urban futures.
Case Study: Supervised Machine Learning Trainer 3607A
Student project at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design dealing with the future of work.
Case Study: Imagine Future of Jobs
A masters research project dealing with the design of a learning experience about the speculative future of jobs for the next generation.
Case Study: From Fiction to Action — Design in a state of exception
Classroom project experience from the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein in Halle.
Case Study: From A to B: Hands-on Speculative Design
“Critical & Speculative Design” course experience from IDC Herzliya’s Human-Computer Interaction MA program.
Case Study: Communicative Machines Speculating on Death
Classroom projects speculating on the theme of “death” from the School of Design at Politecnico di Milano.
Case Study: Technologies of Human Waste
Karey Helms creates a speculative space to explore designing with intimate and somatic data.
Interview: Nik Baerten
Nik Baerten, co-founder of the Antwerp-based foresight and design studio Pantopicon: “sometimes the speculative simply gives birth to the real.”
Case Study: Peek, a game for future storytelling
A collaborative, speculative storytelling game by Evan Raskob.
Case Study: Equine Eyes
A speculative project by Alan Hook dealing with the inter-species connections via a set of design prototypes.
Deepa Butoliya: There is no prescriptive way to do Speculative and Critical Design
James Auger interview with Deepa Butoliya, researcher and assistant professor at Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan.
Interview: Yin Aiwen
Yin Aiwen, designer, researcher, theorist and strategist teaching at AKV | St. Joost: “design is always obligated to communicate with the present”.
Case Study: Designing an Internet for Dogs
Andrés Lucero and Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas (Aalto University) present a speculative co-design workshop aimed to critically probe what it would mean to be a dog on the internet.
Jimmy Loizeau: Speculation needs to be inclusive or it risks being bourgeois and elitist
Sara Božanić talks with SpeculativeEdu team member and Speculative Design pioneer Jimmy Loizeau on the importance of responsible practice.
Case Study: Plasticful Foods
An interdisciplinary speculative project developed for the University of Amsterdam and Hogeschool Amsterdam’s “New Waste Vision”.
Case Study: Circular Geology
A Speculative Design student project about the human impact on Earth by Pauline Alt.
J. Paul Neeley: After the speculation is where the real work begins
James Auger talks with London based designer and researcher J. Paul Neeley about “closing the loop”.
Case Study: Evolving In Vitro
A student project at Holon Institute of Technology, Israel dealing with cultured meat.
Speculative Design and Education in (and Beyond) Troubled Times (ONLINE DISCUSSION)
A SpeculativeEdu panel discussion at Uroboros online design-art festival on Friday, 15 May at 19:00 (CET).
Søren Rosenbak: We need to see pata-designers coming out of education
Ivica Mitrović talks with Søren Rosenbak, designer, researcher and educator, about the present pandemic and the current state and future paths of Speculative Design.
Case Study: Pink Chicken Project
Colouring all chickens pink with a CRISPR gene drive and re-occupying the rock strata by Nonhuman Nonsense.
Interview: Design Friction
Léa, Estelle and Bastien from France based design practice Design Friction: “Practising this type of design is always political”.
Interview: Hyphen-Labs
Carmen and Ece from Hyphen-Labs, an international collective working at the intersection of technology, art, science, and the future: “Speculative Design moves away from a ‘one size fits all’ design school model.”
Case Study: Speculative Development of Bratislava
Speculative projects dealing critically with urban development in Bratislava by Lenka Hamosova.
Matt Ward: All design is speculative
Sara Božanić and Petra Bertalanič talk with SpeculativeEdu partner Matt Ward about Speculative Design education and the SpeculativeEdu project.
Interview: Petra Lilja
Swedish industrial designer and curator: “designers need to start dealing with other temporalities than those of shortsightedness linked to over-consumerism”.
James Auger: Design essentially needs a revolution
A talk with James Auger on the importance of Speculative Design practice and ways of moving it beyond educational environments and galleries with Sara Božanić and Petra Bertalanič.
Scott Smith: The best way to deal with grim futures is to stare them in the face
Julian Hanna talks with Scott Smith, futurist and founder of Changeist.
Michael Smyth: Our challenge is to convey passion through the materials we produce
A talk with SpeculativeEdu partner Michael Smyth with Sara Božanić and Petra Bertalanič on key challenges and benefits of Speculative Design practice.
Interview: Theo Ploeg
Design and media sociologist from Heerlen: “Speculative Design should be able to translate possible futures to the now”.
Call for Case studies! (CLOSED)
SpeculativeEdu open call for contributions of exemplary practices.
Reconstrained Futures: SpeculativeEdu Exhibition at BIO 26
SpeculativeEdu exhibition at the 26th Biennial of Design in Ljubljana showing projects developed in an educational context.
Case Study: Black Future Heritage Spaces
Ladipo Famodu, a SpeculativeEdu workshops participant, describes the outcomes of a workshop he led recently based on his experiences in Maribor and Rome.
Ana Jeinić: The tendency to read the potential of “salvation” into disaster is questionable in many respects
Ivica Mitrović and James Auger talk with the independent architectural researcher, educator, curator, and utopianist based in Graz and Banjaluka.
Interview: FoAM
Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney, founders of the transdisciplinary network FoAM: “Design can provide ways to change, circumvent or adapt an unsustainable status quo.”
SpeculativeEdu partners meeting in Rome
As part of the NeoRural Futures SpeculativeEdu event in Rome the third partners meeting was held on 5th of September.
Cameron Tonkinwise: Creating visions of futures must involve thinking through the complexities
James Auger talks with Cameron Tonkinwise, one of Speculative and Critical Design’s fiercest and most insightful critics, about future paths of the approach.
New Reflections on Speculativity
Overview of the Speculative Design approach with the reflections on the personal practice by the SpeculativeEdu coordinator Ivica Mitrović.
Benedikt Groß: Speculative and Critical Design were always kind of an outside position
“Antidisciplinary” Speculative and Computational Designer from Germany talks with James Auger and Ivica Mitrović.
Interview: Fara Peluso
Italian artist/designer based in Berlin: “Speculative Design is a great learning tool which analyses and studies our society”.
Interview: automato.farm
International design and research group based in Shanghai: “we never really labelled our work “speculative”, but probably it partially is.”
SpeculativeEdu Survey: first indications
Ingi Helgason sums up early indications from our SpeculativeEdu survey on the Speculative Design education landscape.
SpeculativeEdu NeoRural Futures Workshop in Rome (CALL)
Speculative design for rurality in global scenarios workshop from 2nd to 6th of September 2019.
Tobias Revell: Speculative Design has become separated from its critical origins
The artist, designer and educator at London College of Communication talks with James Auger and Ivica Mitrović about Speculative Design.
Interview: circumflex.studio
Speculative Design practitioners – Michaela and Konstantin from Basel-based circumflex.studio: “Speculative Design should be an informed projection that brings into question the reality we ground this projection on.
Interview: Tina Gorjanc
Speculative Design practitioners – Tina Gorjanc (Slovenia/UK): Investigating the consumer vs. citizen paradox present in each individual.
Jan Boelen: Formulated and decontextualized futures can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
Artistic director of Z33 House for Contemporary Art and educator at Design Academy Eindhoven talks with James Auger about the state of Speculative Design.
Nicolas Nova: We are interested in mundane situations to express futures
The multi-disciplinary researcher and member of Near Future Laboratory talks with James Auger and Ivica Mitrović about Speculative Design today.
Martin Avila: Speculating is a duty rather than a privilege
The designer, researcher and Professor of Design at Konstfack in Stockholm talks with Ivica Mitrović and James Auger about the state of Speculative Design.
Interview: Susana Soares
Speculative Design practitioners – Susana Soares (Portugal/UK): Technologically Fluent Citizen, towards a critical technological fluency via speculative practice.
SpeculativeEdu Future Friends Event in Maribor: Let’s make a better future together!
Future Friends in Maribor hosted 120 people from around the world.
SpeculativeEdu partners meeting in Maribor
As part of the Future Friends SpeculativeEdu event in Maribor the second partners meeting was held on 16th of April.
Interview: The Constitute
Speculative Design practitioners – The Constitute (Germany): The workshop is still the centre of the our studio.
Matt Malpass: Critical practice should always challenge disciplinary hegemony
Author of “Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practice” and educator at Central Saint Martins talks with Ivica Mitrović and James Auger about Speculative Design today.
Speculative Design education in Europe SURVEY
Are you a design educator in Europe? Do you use speculation about possible futures in your design education? Please participate in our survey on the current and future state of Speculative Design education in Europe.
Interview: Markéta Dolejšová
Speculative Design practitioners – Markéta Dolejšová: Our aim is to shift the “Bohemian Speculative Design” from its current non-quite-yet state towards a real thing.
Interview: Nonhuman Nonsense
Speculative Design practitioners – Nonhuman Nonsense: Working in the embryonic stages of system transformation, in the realm of social dreaming and world-making.
Interview: Andrew Friend and Sitraka Rakotoniaina
Speculative Design practitioners – Andrew Friend and Sitraka Rakotoniaina (London): Exploring ways to democratise the narratives that make up tomorrow’s visions.
Interview: Time’s Up – Laboratory for the Construction of Experimental Situations
A series of interviews with Speculative Design practitioners: Time’s Up, Austria.
A Kick-Off Discussion About the State of Speculative Design
An excerpt of a discussion about the state of Speculative Design practice from the view of project partners, held at the project kick-off at The Museum of Fine Arts in Split on 22 October 2018.
Daniel Kaplan: Design is a powerful way of mobilising and rejuvenating imaginaries
James Auger talks with Daniel Kaplan, French futurist and entrepreneur, about his new Plurality University initiative and design’s relation to future imaginaries.
Superflux: Tools and methods for making change
Anab Jain and Jon Ardern of Superflux (“a studio for the rapidly changing world”) talk to James Auger about their approach, their recent projects, and their educational activities.
Looking for Speculative Design educational programs in Europe
Are you a Design Educator in Europe? Please take part in our Speculative Design Education survey.
SpeculativeEdu project launched
Let’s talk about speculative design practice – Launch of the “Speculative Design – Educational Resource Toolkit” project.
