Heaven is Real: Speculative Critical Design (SCD)
as a Tool for Creating Participatory Futures

Heaven is Real is my undergraduate dissertation that I wrote to obtain my BDes in Product Design degree.

In this dissertation, I show how Speculative Critical Design (SCD) can be used as a tool for creating Participatory Futures. In today's world, Western capitalist ideology has created the illusion that the future is predetermined and that only those in positions of power have the ability to influence, and thus, decide our collective, future trajectory. By referencing ‘The Three ‘Laws’ of Futures’ and the Participatory Futures field, I will show how the masses have been misled and how the future is much more malleable than we assume. From there, the dissertation will introduce Speculative Critical Design (SCD) and its most popular criticisms to show areas in which it currently fails to reach its full potential, mainly due to its inaccessible nature to those outside of the field. Finally, this dissertation will show how Speculative Critical Design can be used to democratise futures-thinking by using Auger- Loizeau's Audio Tooth Implant, Superflux’s Future Energy Lab and Environmental Health Clinic by Natalie Jeremijenko as case studies. The aim of this dissertation is not to suggest that Speculative Critical Design is the only way or a perfect way of creating Participatory Futures, but rather to show the potential the discipline has to experientially represent possible futures and make these visions accessible to the masses.

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