Speculative designs in educational settings: Tension-patterns from a (mostly) European perspective

The study of speculative designs such as futures, critical design alternatives, or catalysts for reflection is well documented in the design research community. The literature is also profuse in approaches for designing speculations, but it lacks attention to speculative designs as objects in the service of a pedagogical practice. This paper reports on a two-year cross European research project investigating speculative designs in higher education contexts. We describe a broad data set including interviews, surveys, case studies and workshops undertaken with educators and students. Drawing on the results of this study, our contribution is eight tension-patterns, each an interplay between opposing tendencies that educators and students need to address, more or less explicitly, when creating speculative designs. We then discuss how these tension-patterns can support the design and analysis of speculative designs in educational settings while accommodating different disciplinary, methodological and material constraints. Finally, we conclude with a brief note on two important challenges: balancing creativity and criticism and moving beyond specialized courses.