students explore the future of urban life through speculative design exhibition
By Hector M N
Ideas Para Después (IPD) is a design laboratory led by Héctor Montes Nicolás that combines critical design, democratic design, and foresight methodologies to investigate possible social, technological, and environmental futures. Presented as an exhibition, the project brings together more than 20 proposals developed by emerging designers and students, examining how design can be used to explore long-term challenges affecting contemporary cities.
Following more than a year of research, workshops, and collaborative development, the exhibition presents a series of speculative projects that consider topics including climate change, urban isolation, and technological dependence. Rather than proposing predictions, the projects use design to construct plausible future scenarios that encourage discussion around changing patterns of everyday life and the built environment.
domestic bioreactor by Irene Badía | all images courtesy of Ideas Para Después (IPD)
Ideas Para Después (IPD) exhibition is organized around three speculative frameworks informed by scientific research and futures design methodologies. AMPHIBIA examines the consequences of an altered water cycle, imagining a future in which climate change transforms Valencia into an arid landscape and requires new relationships between citizens, land, and natural resources. ECOS addresses environmental and social challenges through proposals centered on care, biodiversity, and the collective management of shared urban spaces, envisioning cities where ecological systems become integral to everyday life. NO SIGNAL explores a scenario of technological disruption, considering how communities might adapt to the loss of permanent digital connectivity through localized, analogue, and resilient infrastructures.
Across the exhibition, objects, installations, speculative prototypes, infographics, and visual narratives function as design tools for examining potential futures. Together, the projects position speculative design as a framework for questioning contemporary urban conditions and expanding the discussion around how cities may evolve in response to environmental, social, and technological change.
modular system to convert rooftops into active community spaces by Alejandro Garrido and Andrea Herrera
two chairs and a table by Adán D. Modesto
detachable accessories made with biomaterials by Helena Pérez and Oihane Molinero
This article was originally published by Designboom.