LAB students explore speculative design and foresight

The studio brings together design, business and technology to explore how innovation and learning can evolve through creative experimentation and strategic foresight. The module was built around strategic foresight scenarios, inviting student teams to examine futures through “What if?” questions and the Futures Cone framework (preferable, probable, possible, plausible). Each team designed two artefacts set in 2040, envisioning how research, development and innovation (RDI) could manifest in students’ everyday lives across di[erent roles and contexts.

The approach draws on the work of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, pioneers of critical and speculative design. The field traces its origins to Dunne’s 1999 doctoral thesis Hertzian Tales and later evolved into a distinct theory taught at the Royal College of Art and developed further in Speculative Everything (2013). The exhibition invites visitors to reflect on how learning and innovation systems are imagined — and who gets to design them.

Learning Futures

• Open: 28 October – 9 November 2025
• Venue: Lahti campus, Auditorium Exhibition Space (Mukkulankatu 19)