RCA/Futuring; A decade of future(s) research at the Royal College of Art

Abstract

Building from a preliminary study, we state that Design has become indistinguishable from the future. In this paper we present ten years of research at the Royal College of Art at the intersection of this paradigm via a comparative study between five different design future approaches emerging from the College; Speculative Design (SD), Co-Speculative Design (CoS), Cybernetics Design (CyD), Prospective Design (PrD), and Xenodesign (XnD). In this study, we outlined diagrammatically their propositions, as well as the fundamental areas of enquiry; projection understanding, participation, and change.