What if your next design challenge wasn’t restrained by Earth’s gravity, atmosphere, or cultural norms? Challenge Card 014 from the Arplaytecture deck invites you to enter the unknown:
What if your design was on another planet?
This speculative exercise forces you to let go of assumptions, reset your thinking and embrace creativity with a playful, fresh perspective. By placing yourself in a speculative scenario, you can reimagine your design process from the ground up.
Let’s explore how to apply the card to some design process stages to tackle this out-of-this-world challenge.
Empathise: Understand the Users and Environment
The first step in designing for another planet is to dive into its unique context. Begin by asking questions like:
Who are the inhabitants? Are they human, alien, or something else entirely?
What are the environmental characteristics? Is the planet rocky, icy, gaseous, or covered in oceans?
What challenges do these inhabitants face in their daily lives? Is gravity stronger or weaker? How do they breathe, eat, or move?
For example, imagine a planet with an atmosphere dense with swirling, colourful gases and inhabitants who are bioluminescent creatures who navigate using light.
Empathising with your users means understanding how their physical and non-physical traits and culture influence their needs. How can your design enhance their lives within this environment?
Define: Frame the Problem in Context
You’ve immersed yourself in the speculative environment. Now, it’s time to focus on the design challenge. Avoid Earth-bound assumptions and frame the problem in terms of this new planet. For example:
Instead of asking, “How do I design a comfortable chair?” you might ask, “How do I design a seating solution for creatures who hover in midair?”
Instead of “How do I create a building for shelter?” try, “How do I create a structure that adapts to extreme temperature shifts and shelters beings who live underground?”
By redefining the problem, you open yourself to solutions aligning with the planet’s story and users’ needs.
Ideate: Build a Story and Brainstorm Solutions
This is where the fun begins! Create an imaginary backstory for your design. Define the culture, behaviour, and aspirations of the inhabitants. For example:
If the planet’s gravity is low, can you design floating structures tethered to the ground?
Imagine the inhabitants rely on light to communicate. Can your design integrate glowing pathways or colour-changing surfaces?
Here are a few techniques to unleash your creativity:
Speculative Sketching: Draw the planet’s environment and its inhabitants. Think about how they would interact with your design.
Mind Mapping: Brainstorm wildly different ideas—gravity-defying homes, wearable habitats, or ecosystems built into the planet’s natural features.
Challenge norms: Ask, “What would be impossible on Earth but essential here?”
Prototype, option 1: Stay in the Imaginary Planet
Now, it’s time to give form to your speculative design. Stay within the context of the imaginary planet, creating prototypes that test how your design could function in this fantastical environment. For example:
If your design is a floating shelter for a low-gravity planet, create a model that explores how materials and structures could adapt to buoyancy rather than weight.
If your concept is a network of bioluminescent pathways for nocturnal inhabitants, build a prototype that simulates how light flows and responds to movement or sound.
If your design features a modular architecture that grows organically from the planet’s native resources, construct a speculative diagram showing how these materials might self-assemble.
Prototyping in a speculative context allows you to experiment without the constraints of Earth-bound physics or materials. The goal is to fully embrace your imagined planet and explore how your design interacts with its inhabitants, unique challenges and opportunities.
Prototype, option 2: Translate Your Design to Reality
Once you’ve envisioned your speculative solution, you can playfully translate it into practical solutions for real-world challenges. For example:
If your design is a floating shelter for low-gravity environments, how could this idea inspire lightweight, modular housing for disaster relief on Earth?
If you’ve imagined colour-coded pathways for communication, how might this concept inspire wayfinding systems in large architectural spaces, such as airports or hospitals? Could colour-coded corridors guide users intuitively to their destinations, reducing reliance on signage and enhancing spatial clarity?
Prototypes don’t need to be perfect; better yet, they should be as rough as possible so you don’t get attached to them!!! Use sketches, models, or simulations to bring your vision to life. Focus on capturing the essence of your speculative design and adapting it to the realities of your original challenge.
Why Design for Another Planet?
This exercise isn’t just about creating fantastical designs; it’s about breaking free from assumptions and rediscovering creativity. As Card #14 explains,
Placing yourself in a speculative space makes you set aside what you know and your assumptions. It makes you start from the beginning.
By immersing yourself in an imaginary planet, you can uncover fresh perspectives and solutions that might never have emerged otherwise. Whether you’re designing for Earth or a faraway galaxy, this process inspires innovation and pushes the boundaries of possibility.
So, what’s your next design challenge? Take it to another planet and see where your imagination takes you!
Cultivating Surprises Through Cross-Pollination
Wearing the lenses of a Cross-Pollinator transforms this challenge into an exploration of how seemingly unrelated ideas and practices can inspire innovative solutions for speculative design. While the card invites us to venture into the unknown and imagine a new planet, the Cross-Pollinator role emphasises the connections we can draw between speculative contexts and real-world applications.
Broaden Inspiration Across Domains: The Cross-Pollinator draws ideas from various fields. For instance, studying how coral reefs grow and adapt could inspire designs for modular, self-assembling living units on a low-gravity planet. Similarly, the bioluminescence of deep-sea creatures might inform the development of communication systems for the inhabitants of your imaginary planet, who rely on light.
Apply Lessons from Earthly Challenges: Speculative design flourishes when freed from constraints and existing paradigms. The Cross-Pollinator asks, “What unexpected inspirations from other fields or challenges could spark entirely new possibilities?” For instance, the adaptability of coral reefs could inspire dynamic habitat designs that respond to extreme planetary conditions without relying on Earth-based assumptions. This perspective broadens the challenge by emphasising creativity and uncharted potential rather than just adaptability.
Examine Parallels in User Behaviour: Even in speculative scenarios, the behaviours of imagined inhabitants can reflect those of users on Earth. The Cross-Pollinator encourages designers to consider how existing human challenges—such as navigating crowded spaces or conserving resources—might arise on another planet. For example, wayfinding strategies used in large airports could inspire the creation of bioluminescent pathways for nocturnal creatures.
Transforming Constraints into Catalysts: The Cross-Pollinator is skilled at converting limitations into opportunities. Constraints such as limited resources or extreme environments can inspire innovative solutions on an imaginary planet. For instance, considering how architects on Earth design vertical farms in urban areas could lead to the development of floating agricultural systems for a water-covered planet.
Translate Insights Back to Earth: The Cross-Pollinator connects speculative and practical design by turning imaginative concepts into real-world applications. For instance, a floating shelter designed for low gravity could inspire the creation of lightweight housing for disaster-stricken areas. Additionally, adaptive architecture intended to change planetary landscapes might inform the development of more resilient structures on Earth.
Wearing the lenses of the Cross-Pollinator allows us to tackle the imaginative challenge of designing for another planet with a sense of wonder. This perspective helps transform speculative ideas into practical solutions for real issues on Earth. The Cross-Pollinator demonstrates that speculative design is not solely about creativity; it also involves identifying connections, fostering innovation, and expanding possibilities in any context.
