From projecting futures to projecting otherwise : an anticipatory archaeology of emerging design epistemologies

Abstract

How to overcome design ‘defuturing’ effects? Design scholarship argues that design’s adverse contributions stem from its limited projective capacities to reflect about what design designs and the inherent power structures it conceals. Several design approaches emerged to equip designers with philosophical and social science frameworks and overcome design’s ‘defuturing’ effects. Yet, the ability of these theoretical frameworks to fundamentally change design remains debated. This paper contributes to this discussion by exploring the epistemological underpinnings of five approaches – Transition Design, Mission-Oriented Design, Speculative Design, Pluriversal Design, and More-Than-Human Design. We develop an ‘anticipatory archaeology’ of these theoretical formations to study how the epistemic discontinuities introduced to overcome prevailing modes of doing and knowing in design reconfigure the design’s object, agency, and process altering the world. We argue that overcoming defuturing effects by design depends not only on new projective capacities for designer, but on rethinking what projecting means within design practice itself.