Sustainable future
16/03/2023
Animated by Juan R. Hernandez
Future service designers were tasked with swiftly imagining and designing a future scenario in the first Service Design DF session, and nearly every group drew out worries about humanity's sustainability, underwater cities, floating islands, and emigrating to an alien planet.
The fact is that in addition to causing our destruction, people are also entirely responsible for the devastation of the environment and natural resources.
We are accountable for influencing not just our destiny but also the survival of other species.
So, it is our responsibility to undo the damage we have caused ourselves.
Animated by Juan R. Hernandez
The remedies we now have are more comparable to "patch fixes," which just postpone patient death without addressing its underlying causes.
We urgently need to offer a comprehensive remedy that will stop the daily foolishness, if not turn the system around.
Given that all life on earth is interdependent, how does this relate to design, and more specifically, planning the future?
For instance, sustainable cities, climate action, clean energy, sustainable food, and hunger and poverty are important issues that need to be tackled right now. We need deeper-rooted engagement with government agencies to rethink urban future development strategies to at least preserve the environment etc. from any more negative effects in addition to welcoming and promoting input from many disciplines to achieve a stronger answer. We may also shift from a centralised to a community-based and localised civic support system, forging a solid local bond between people and their lives as well as between people and their surroundings.
In essence, more thought must be given to how we relate to and are responsible for our relationships with our environment, communities, cities, and the rest of the world. Every decision we make today has an impact on the future, therefore we should consider how to steer clear of undesirable outcomes.
A de-anthropocentric future
13/04/2023
We've been trained to create "human-centred design" as design students. Even when energy efficiency and environmental concerns are taken into account, everything is still designed for humans.
Yes, no matter how you look at it, human values are at the top of the hierarchy. We tend to evaluate everything as a matter of our own self-interest.
However, in such a future, we have no attachment to the world we live in. Are such people capable of having a future? Is it worth having a future?
The author recently participated in a workshop by Dr Kay Sidebottom named "Learning from more-than-human Teachers and reimaging education." We evaluated and re-envisioned our relationship with the natural world through this. We shared what we had learned from animals, plants, and even inanimate objects.
Workshop: Learning from more-than-human Teachers and reimaging education
Regardless of how excellent we think we are, we are all part of a natural system. The reverence ethic calls for us to regard and appreciate all living things as beings on par with ourselves, and to learn from them. the expansion of human ethics beyond humans to include all other living things, both plant and animal.
Design a future that benefits not only us but also a larger ecology. Perhaps such a future is more deserving of our imagination.
Reference list
Carson, R. (1962). Silent Spring. London: Penguin Books.
Schweitzer, A. (1969). Reverence for life. New York: Harper & Row.
Designing a Future with a Twinkle in the Eye:Reflections on Speculative Design
11/05/2023
We are living in a fascinating time where the fundamental norms we once took for granted are being challenged, and changes are happening faster than ever before. This could be a game-changer for social justice, inclusiveness, and equity. But how can we as humans respond to these changes, and how can design help us shape the future?
The idea behind speculative design is to make people aware that the present is not only a product of the past but can also be influenced by the future.
For designers, speculative design poses two significant challenges:
First, it's about finding something that is genuinely "good for people." Every design has externalities, unintended consequences, and potential impacts. As we solve one problem, we often create a new one. It's like what French cultural theorist Paul Virilio said: "When you invent the ship, you also invent the wreck." So, we need to be mindful of unintended consequences and keep looking for ways to improve.
The second challenge is to strike a balance between fantasy and pragmatism. If we're not careful, we can fall into the trap of creating future scenarios that are too far-fetched or unrealistic, making everything seem like a sci-fi movie full of hormones and spaceship elements. We need to keep it real and relatable.
Once we've tackled these challenges with care and imagination, we can unleash our creativity and embrace uncertainty. We can experiment with various prototypes, test our ideas, and see where the process takes us. As Nick Foster says in his design approach for "The Future Mundane," we should aim to create designs for everyday people, not just superheroes and villains.
Image 1: Our design aims to help ordinary residents who dream of having a child but are worried about the financial burden.
Our vision for the future involves embracing "brokenness" and imperfection, as this allows us to create more believable and tangible designs. The future won't be perfect, and we need to acknowledge that. We should also embrace legacy technologies alongside new ones.
Image 2 ：Government Funded Child Care Service Policy
Image 3 ：Metro Newspaper
Image 4: A handwritten letter from a child who has run away from home due to hopelessness and sadness about the service.
In summary, designing should be a way of life, and speculative design can help us see, think, and engage with the world of the present and the future. In the process, we need to be willing to kill our babies (our favorite ideas) and keep creating new ones with curiosity and creativity.
Appendix: Documentation of killing babies (metaphorically, of course!).
Bibliography
Buchanan, Richard. "Design Research and the New Learning." Design Issues, vol. 17, no. 4, 2001, pp. 3-23.
Foster, Nick. "The Future Mundane." Near Future Laboratory, 17 June 2014, https://nearfuturelaboratory.com/2014/06/17/the-future-mundane/.
Pohl, Frederik. "Science Fiction: A Personal View." The Craft of Science Fiction, edited by Reginald Bretnor, Harper & Row, 1976, pp. 3-17.
Virilio, Paul. "The Information Bomb." Verso, 2005.
Haque, Usman. "Why Speculative Design Is More Important Than Ever." Real Life, 5 June 2019, https://reallifemag.com/why-speculative-design-is-more-important-than-ever/.
Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press, 2013.
Manzini, Ezio. "Design, Ethics and Sustainability: Guidelines for a Better World." Design Philosophy Papers, vol. 1, no. 1, 2003, pp. 9-26.
Berg, Martin, et al. "Design Fiction: A Method Toolbox for Design Research in a Complex World." ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), vol. 23, no. 3, 2016, pp. 1-37.
Dunne, Anthony. "Design and the Question of History." Design Issues, vol. 15, no. 2, 1999, pp. 56-63.
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