Integrating culture in future speculation: Speculating Chinese wedding futures

Futures and design are intensively collaborating with each other in the field of experiential futures, with critical design as a source of inspiration. Rather than focusing on the imagination and speculation of future technology as most critical design genres do, this paper examines critical design from a cultural perspective and explores approaches through which future as a way of life is speculated. Special attention has been paid on Design for the Speculative Future (DSF), a culture-centred critical design approach that describes future scenarios in design languages. A framework for integrating cultural resources in the future speculation process has been proposed, taking Chinese weddings as an exemplary case study. Two DSF studios were conducted online in a Chinese social-cultural context to formulate and examine this framework. The proposed framework will benefit both design beginners at a practical level to adopt it in the process of speculating futures, and researchers at the intersection of design and futures to examine how critical design links the present and future and has an impact on futures through construction of future scenarios.

Automated summary

This paper examines critical design from a cultural perspective and proposes a framework for integrating cultural resources in the process of speculating futures. Through two online critical design studios conducted in a Chinese social-cultural context, using Chinese weddings as a case study, the effectiveness of the framework is validated. The proposed framework will benefit both design beginners in speculating futures and researchers at the intersection of design and futures.