Speculative Design
Speculating about the future and translating it into design. I imagined working in a solution-oriented way, creating products for the future, and, most of all, designing a lot. That was my expectation at the start of this minor. In hindsight, I couldn’t have been more wrong — and I’m so glad I was.
01
A Philosophical Approach
Speculation turned out to be much more philosophical than I anticipated. And design? Yes, there was plenty of it, but not in the way I expected. We weren’t designing solutions. Instead, we created designs that challenged my fixed mindset of always aiming for a solution. Speculative design opened my eyes to a completely new approach, encouraging me to rethink how design can be used to explore possibilities, rather than simply solve problems.
02
Exploring the Possibilities of the Unknown Future
The beauty of the future is that it’s unknown, and with that uncertainty, anything becomes possible. After analyzing trends and conducting research on waste management, my team and I developed several future scenarios—some utopian, others dystopian. We ultimately brought one of these scenarios to life as an immersive experience. The purpose? To push the limits and explore where the boundary lies between invading privacy and finding potential solutions to the waste problem at the HvA.
03
Key Findings and Recommendations
The reactions kept coming in, and the most striking discovery was that, despite initial hesitation, people eventually accepted the idea—so long as it was only visible to them. Along with other key insights, we translated these findings into actionable recommendations, which we then presented to
