Aren't All Futures Speculative?

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Speculative futures are a suite of design tools for creating high resolution visions of potential realities. They can be a way of helping us challenge that status quo thinking and using that possibility space as an area to test out alternative trajectories. For some people writing a science fiction story, it's totally what they need in order to get into the details of a potential future. So really honoring the different ways that people explore information is a big part of what speculative futures can offer us.

Cities are incredibly important to modern life, and their importance is only growing. As Geoffrey West points out, the world is adding urban areas equivalent to the population of San Francisco once every four days. How those areas get designed and structured is a complicated interplay between top-down planning and the collective choices of millions of inhabitants. As the world is changing and urbanization increases, it will be crucial to imagine how cities might serve our needs even better. Johanna Hoffman is an urbanist who harnesses imagination to make cities more sustainable and equitable.

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Johanna Hoffman received an MLA in landscape architecture and environmental planning from UC Berkeley. She is the co-founder and Director of Planning at urban futures firm Design for Adaptation. She has won fellowships from the European Futures Observatory and the Berggruen Institute, and served as Artist in Residence at the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Her new book is Speculative Futures: Design Approaches to Navigate Change, Foster Resilience, and Co-Create the Cities We Need.

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