Chris Woebken / Richard The

The image of the city of New York is significantly defined by technologies. From Edison’s
electricity grid enabling artificial light at night, to elevators enabling skyscrapers, to Uber
drivers enabled by smartphones to navigate the city without knowing the streets by heart.
How might we guide developments of future systems and technologies to influence how we
experience New York in the future?
The class will start with an introduction to speculative design methods and a rapid
prototyping sprint based on students’ own observations in the city. This introduction is
followed by a workshop with experts touching on societal, economic , environmental and
ecological issues relevant to NYC today. Using this research as a basis for extrapolation,
students develop speculative prototypes of potential future technologies addressing these
issues. The speculative prototypes investigate possible tomorrows from a conceptual, critical
and aesthetic point of view. These speculative concepts will be “tested” by placing them in
real world situations in the city today to create a forum for discourse and debate.
The process will be informed by a field trip and lectures by relevant research organizations,
a crit with external designers, short workshops, weekly readings and a final exhibition.