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Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby 2013 12 references
Use when designing speculative proposals, critical design objects, fictional scenarios, or any work that uses design to catalyze debate about alternative futures rather than solve immediate problems.
speculative-design critical-design futures design-fiction social-dreaming worldbuilding
Overview
The Core Framework
- Design should redirect its fiction-making capacity from commercial problem-solving toward speculation about how things could be
- Speculative proposals catalyze public debate by populating the space between reality and the impossible
- Design for debate, not solutions — proposals should open questions, not close them
- Operate at the level of ideology and worldviews, not just products and aesthetics
- The goal: seven billion micro-utopias emerging from the bottom up, not one master plan
Quick Lookup
| Situation | Do This | Avoid This |
|---|---|---|
| Starting a speculative project | Use PPPP cone — work in "possible" zone | Defaulting to probable/predictive futures |
| Designing a speculative object | Build a prop (synecdoche for a whole world) | Making a prototype (implies production intent) |
| Calibrating unreality | Find the too-weird/too-normal sweet spot | Photorealistic CGI (kills speculation) |
| Engaging an audience | Invite make-believe, not belief | Trying to convince or persuade |
| Choosing visual style | Match fidelity to rhetorical intent | Defaulting to slick renders |
| Working with science/tech | Design about science (implications) | Design for science (illustration) |
| Exhibiting work | Use conceptual window shopping frame | Standard gallery white cube presentation |
| Addressing social issues | Generate compasses, not maps | Prescribing specific solutions |
The Key Insight
"Design can give experts permission to think freely, give ## people permission to demand alternatives, and give designers permission to break free of the present." — Dunne & Raby, Chapter 9
References
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