Leveraging Speculative Design to Re‐Imagine Product Roadmaps

Within the paradigm of the smart and playable city, the urban landscape and street furniture have provided a fertile platform for pragmatic and hedonic goals of urban liveability through technology augmentation. Smart street furniture has grown from being a novelty to become a common sight in metropolitan cities, co-opted for improving the efficiency of services. However, as we consider technologies that are increasingly smarter, with human-like intelligence, we navigate towards uncharted waters when discussing the consequences of their integration with the urban landscape. The implications of a new genre of street furniture embedded with artificial intelligence, where the machine has autonomy and is an active player itself, are yet to be fully understood. In this article, we analyse the evolving design of public benches along the axes of smartness and disruption to understand their qualities as playful, urban machines in public spaces. We present a concept-driven speculative design case study, as an exploration of a smart, sensing, and disruptive urban machine for playful placemaking. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, we expand on the potential of urban machines to partake an increasingly active role as co-creators of play and playful placemaking in the cities of tomorrow.

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Conceptuality in the modern design practice

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg State University of Culture ◽

10.30725/2619-0303-2021-1-70-74 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 70-74

Author(s):

Galina N. Lola ◽

Keyword(s):

Creative Process ◽

Digital Technology ◽

Main Idea ◽

Mental Process ◽

Design Practice ◽

Modern Design ◽

The Real ◽

Speculative Design ◽

Scenario Methods

The main idea – concept is key point for creative process in design practice, which includes intuition, fantasy, spontaneous decisions. Digital technology leads to formalization of creative process, algorithms, so the real question concerns how the rational ideas and intuitions are harmonize in design. The method «creative navigation» maintains creative freedom of designer and at the same time streamlining of mental process. The method «creative navigation» considered in comparison with «scenario methods» and the theory of speculative design. This article explores semiotic aspects of the method. The author gives considerable attention to approbation of method «creative navigation» in real design practice.

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Measuring-up in timber: a critical perspective on mid- and high-rise timber building design

Architectural Research Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s1359135514000268 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 20-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Patrick Fleming ◽

Simon Smith ◽

Michael Ramage

Keyword(s):

Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽

Building Design ◽

Structural Timber ◽

Practical Reasons ◽

Critical Perspective ◽

Laminated Veneer Lumber ◽

High Rise ◽

Current Shift ◽

New Perspective ◽

Speculative Design

Architects, engineers and researchers alike often cite practical reasons for building with wood. Since the development of curved glulam beams and columns over a century ago, the widespread use of massive structural timber elements has allowed architects and engineers to design and build in wood with unprecedented speed and scale. Moreover, rising concerns of climate change and the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with construction encourage the use of wood as a viable alternative to steel and concrete, due to CO2 sequestration in trees.In mid- and high-rise buildings, the current shift from steel and concrete towards massive structural timber elements like glulam, laminated-veneer lumber (LVL) and cross-laminated timber (CLT) is evident in a number of recently completed timber buildings in Europe, ranging from seven to nine storeys. Several speculative design proposals have also been made for ‘timber towers’ of thirty, fortytwo and even sixty-five storeys, recognising that designing with massive structural timber elements in high-rise buildings is still in its infancy. This paper offers a new perspective on building with wood at this scale, beyond carbon sequestrationand construction.

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