This was a semester long project split over two assessments.

Assignment one (the process) was a world building exercise using a mix of research and speculative design tools, examining socio-technical themes to imagine a possible future scenario for Queensland in 2080.

Assignment two (the outcome) asked us to design an interactive artefact that the people of Queensland in 2080 who were presented in our first assignment might interact with. This artefact was to be presented in a collage aimed at provoking a contemporary audience to consider their actions in regards to the socio-technical themes explored in assignment one.

• Introduction to the context

• Background research (desktop & literature review)

• Exploration of inspiring designs

• Analysis of relevant current technologies

• Rich Picture

• Four Corners of Possibility brainstorms

• Ideation sketches

• Moodboards

• Colour board

• Future world description / narrative

• Future world visual mockup

• Identification of socio-technical themes

Introduction to the context

(in Speculative Design) Who are you designing for?

It is tempting to think that we are designing for the people of Queensland in 2080 but this is not strictly true.

In creating critical or speculative designs we are designing for people in the present day. In the words of Dunne and Raby “What we are interested in, though, is the idea of possible futures and using them as tools to better understand the present and to discuss the kind of future people want, and, of course, ones people do not want.” (2013).

We are designing for the people of today, for the designers, innovators, decision makers and even the everyday person. We are designing to provoke them, to encourage them to consider the impacts of their choices and to “open up spaces of debate and discussion” around what type of future world we would like to create (Dunne and Raby, 2013).

Socio-Technical Themes

Throughout this assignment I will be exploring the socio-technical themes of:

• Climate Change / Sustainment

• Implications of Technology (on manufacture & design)

• Economic Systems
  
  Through a lens of fashion and textile design. These themes will be outlined in depth in Section 5: Themes.

Background Research

I conducted a mix of literature reviews and desktop research exploring:

• Current State of the Fashion and Textile Industries - Queensland

• Current State of the Fashion and Textile Industries - Australia

• Climate Change - Queensland

• Economics - Queensland

Inspiring Designs

I looked at both speculative design pieces and designs that are actively seeking to change the way we interact with our clothes.

Relevant Current Tech

I explored a number of emerging and existing technologies relevant to the socio-technical themes I had identified. These included:

• Blockchain

• Design for disassembly

• IDEO’s Circular Design Guide / Toolkit

• Recycled natural and synthetic fibres

• Biosynthetic textiles

• Closed loop manufacturing / factories

• Digital only fashion

• Augmented reality

• Digital fashion design tools

• 3D printing

Rich Pic

Rich pictures are similar to a brainstorm with the addition of sketches to further highlight and convey key concepts and ideas.

Four Corners of possibility

When we think about potential futures there is tendency to consider futures that are either unrealistically idealistic or terrifyingly bleak. The Four Corners of Possibility are a speculative design tool to add nuance to our future casting by asking the designer to consider four different scenarios:

• What would happen if society continues on its current trajectory? What would enable / stop this?

• What would happen if society were to collapse? What would the cause be? What would the effects be?

• What would happen if society became more disciplined (was more carefully directed)?

• In what ways could society change completely?

Ideation Sketches & Colour Board

Climate Change & Sustainment

Tony Fry in his book Design as Politics (2011) predicts that we are entering a period of global instability. This instability will be brought about primarily through the impacts of climate change. Reduced access to resources (water, food) and increases in natural disasters (which will make many regions inhospitable) will lead to political instability (war) and displaced populations (climate refugees).

Fry describes our current period as one of defuturing, where planetary boundaries are pushed beyond their limits. Currently, we make “feeble attempts” at repairing climate change through sustainability. This however is not enough. Instead, Fry proposes that we need to move to a period of sustainment, which will not repair the damage done but will buy humanity time to work towards repair. The future I envision of Queensland in 2080 sits in this period of sustainment.

Through a fashion lens this would look like drastically reduced patterns of consumption, a return to craftsmanship and quality and considered design for every stage of the garment life cycle.

Implications of Technology

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is being embraced by the fashion industry (Spaihu et al., 2021). It focuses on digitisation and virtualisation of manufacturing and design processes.
There is also a lot of research being conducted in the areas of new fibres and post consumer waste (Bailey, 2021).

Historically advances in technology in the fashion industry have led to a speeding up of fashion cycles (originally two seasons, now sometimes daily drops) and changes to styles and silhouettes (e.g. athleisure with the advent of flat seam, or seamless performance knits) (Seo, Kim & Lee, 2015; World Economic Forum, 2021).

Both the fashion industry and consumers have recognised that the speeding up of fashion cycles and increased consumption is not sustainable. And yet many still consume in an unchanged manner. Perhaps one implication of future technologies will be advances in textile waste management to allow for this rate of consumption.

Economic Systems

Kate Raworth in her book Doughnut Economics argues that our current economic models based on capitalism are not sustainable (2017). Current economic systems rely on constant consumption and never ending growth.

However as Raworth points out growth can only continue so long as there are resources to feed it. But the world has finite resources, what Raworth defines as the planetary boundaries. Doughnut Economics is a model for living and creating inside these boundaries

Another system that works well with this is the concept of Circular Economies as outlined by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book Cradle to Cradle Design (2002). This is an area gaining interest in the fashion industry but is still in its infancy (Brydges, 2021).

Another economic system that may be well established by 2080 is the Peer to Peer Economy. This economy may operate through sharing or direct financial transactions, both of which have become easier through digitisation (Bauwens, Kostakis & Pazaitis, 2019).

Queenslanders in 2080 have come to understand the need to live within planetary boundaries and that the planet’s resources are finite. The state is currently in a period of sustainment. This began in the 2060s, where all non-essential industries, including the fashion and textile industry, were stopped globally, to try and give the atmosphere a chance to recover from greenhouse gas emissions; which had not been cut sufficiently in the preceding decades.

The sustainment included a halt on the generation of new, virgin materials and a cut back on global goods transport. It became virtually impossible to buy new clothing due to scarcity of garments to stock fast fashion stores and the resulting increases in the cost of garment production by hand. Despite the limits on production of new garments people still craved clothing that represented their identity and the desire for newness and novelty seems embedded within human nature.

As fast fashion brands failed, home sewers transitioned to a new model of visible mending, clothes flipping and recycling. Innovations in green technology (as well as the millions of tonnes of textiles generated by fast fashion consuming previous generations) have allowed for on-shore and cottage industry clothing production from recycled fibres reclaimed through urban mining.