Speculative design designs objects, services, or scenarios not to put them on the market, but to make possible futures tangible and open up the debate on those we want, or those we reject.
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (Speculative Everything, 2013) theorized this shift: design does not only serve to solve problems, it can also serve to raise them. Alongside design that responds to a need, critical design creates artifacts that question our technological and social trajectories. Design fiction, a term popularized by writer Bruce Sterling, goes further: it creates "diegetic prototypes," credible objects from an imagined world, to make a future debateable before it actually happens.
This is a complete reversal of posture. Ordinary design aims for control: a defined result, optimized usage, a solution that works. Speculative design aims for emergence: it doesn't control an answer, it creates the perfect conditions for collective thinking. Its deliverable is not a solution, but a much more informed conversation. And that can be beautifully uncomfortable for organizations accustomed to measuring a project's value purely by its deployment.
The risk is well known: speculation can easily turn into a gallery exercise, brilliant but without impact, designed only for insiders. The useful question to ask is therefore not "is it deployable?" but rather "did this make us decide differently?". A future made tangible that shifts a strategic trade-off today has produced a very real and powerful effect.
Our approach: we leverage fiction and foresight not simply to dream, but to explore exciting areas of opportunity in light of megatrends and permacrises, spark decisions that analysis alone just cannot trigger. Giving shape to a future is to make it negotiable. It is, in its own way, a wonderfully concrete path to shaping the present.
What's happening elsewhere: design fiction (its narrative variation), strategic exploration and foresight, transition design (moving the system over time), scenarios, and creativity.
References: A. Dunne & F. Raby, Speculative Everything (2013); B. Sterling, concept of design fiction.
Rémi
Gréau
Director of Design
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Transition design guides long-term systemic change toward sustainable futures (Carnegie Mellon). Paving the way for decades to come, when everyone else is focused on the next quarter.
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A scenario illustrates a future use case to make it imaginable (Carroll). But a truly great narrative persuades without needing proof: we tell stories to inspire thought, and we test to make the final call.
Creativity: how constraint unleashes our potential
True creativity delivers ideas that are both fresh AND highly relevant, not just merely original. In fact, contrary to popular belief, well-defined constraints stimulate innovation far more than absolute freedom. By framing the challenge beautifully, we liberate the extraordinary.
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