Design Futuring Report 2020There was no fieldwork or ethnographic component to the 2020 UTS Design Futuring Report The design researchers did not conduct any workshops, interviews, design probes or participant observation as part of their work—we couldn’t do that kind of research justice in the timeframe with all the other content. Constraints due to COVID-19 added further complications. The last thing we want is to create a generation of designers who think they are geniuses working in isolation from other forces. One of the significant shortcomings of the subject in this sense is that the designers worked in relative isolation from the insight generating resistance of empirical situations. Hopefully bracketing out these other important and challenging aspects of design research allowed the designers to focus more fully on the key theoretical and practical focus of their work.
Framing and responding to problems from narrative and visual perspectives does not always mesh happily with thinking through problems from a scientific perspective. Creating plausible futures and rigorous attention to the relationship between scientific data and modelling and complex socio-cultural forces were not focuses of this futuring work. As a result, some of the visualisations and supporting rationales may at times seem fanciful and without grounding in the likely complexities of real world situations. Future iterations of research activities informing this report will attempt to more directly and thoughtfully address the tension between speculative and imaginative thinking directed towards aesthetic and narrative ends, and thinking and experimentation directed towards framing good explanations for plausible future events.
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[19] Connection: How do I feel?
[20] Welcome to Surburbia
[21] Connection: Or a story of community, the environment, Betty and an oncoming storm
[22] An Eco Social Future
[19] Connection: How do I feel?
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[20] Welcome to Surburbia![]()
[21] Connection: Or a story of community, the environment, Betty and an oncoming storm![]()
[22] An Eco Social Future![]()
[20] Welcome to Surburbia
[21] Connection: Or a story of community, the environment, Betty and an oncoming storm
[22] An Eco Social Future