During this lecture we looked at the future of design, and how we can design with the future in mind.

Speculative Design

Speculative design is a design practice that explores possible futures by creating hypothetical scenarios and artefacts that challenge the status quo.

Zeitgeist Project

We were also tasked to get into groups and dream up a concept for a speculative future issue.

Our zeitgeist project led us down the path of what if the outside world was uninhabitable? We were inspired by the lecture that mentioned futures where the environment is too harsh to survive in.

With this in mind, we wanted to create something positive for people surviving in this world, in order to keep their spirits and mental health up.

Since going outside wouldn’t be possible- neither would holidays. This is usually what individuals look forward to most in modern times, so in future times would this excitement not exist? To bring back this feeling of looking forward to getting away, which is something these individuals would benefit from, we wanted to create a holiday experience with the use of VR/AR.

This would entail specialised holiday rooms, where users can pick their destinations and visit the peak time of that location- pre-apocalypse. This could also serve as a history lesson, where users can experience and learn about historic locations before everything was destroyed.

We introduced a tier system, where the user can get a full holiday room installed in their own living area if they have one, or a shared holiday room for living quarters, where users have to book the experience.

To develop the idea, we created mind maps to help with the initial ideation and storyboards to visualise the final idea.

The main point behind this exercise was to learn to think and design without modern constraints and what is “possible” in the current age, but instead with imagination.