This week’s lecture was all about speculative design and how it helps us imagine different kinds of futures rather than trying to predict them. I found the idea of preferable, probable, plausible, and possible futures really interesting — it showed how designers can explore not just what might happen, but what should happen.
Speculative design encourages creativity and pushes us to think beyond current technologies. It also challenges social, political, and ethical norms, which I think is what makes it so powerful. I liked how we talked about using “what if” questions and creating future scenarios or artefacts to get people thinking and talking about potential outcomes.
What stood out most to me was that it’s less about finding solutions and more about starting conversations and preparing for change. It made me realise how design can be used to question the direction we’re heading in and imagine alternatives — something I’d love to explore more in future projects.
After our speculative design lecture, we took part in a short group exercise where we revisited a topic from the Zeitgeist list but reimagined it as a problem set in the year 2050. My group chose recycling, with the assumption that by 2050 it would be a fully embedded expectation possibly even mandatory, yet still facing new challenges.
The exercise pushed us to think beyond present-day solutions and imagine how environmental issues might evolve over the next few decades. We discussed how increased consumption, new types of materials, and population growth could complicate recycling systems, even if society is more sustainability-focused by then. We also considered behavioural aspects, like how people might engage with recycling when it’s no longer optional, and what kinds of systems or technologies might support them.
Working within a future scenario encouraged us to think more broadly and creatively. Instead of relying on existing approaches, we had to imagine what recycling could look like — whether that meant more advanced waste-sorting technology, built-in household systems, or smarter infrastructure that reduces friction for people. It connected well with the lecture’s message that speculative design isn’t about predicting the future, but opening up possibilities and prompting new ways of thinking.
Overall, the task helped me understand how speculative design can be used to explore long-term social problems in a way that’s imaginative but still grounded in real human needs.