Office for Speculative Spatial Design

research-led speculative spatial design contributing to policy change, towards a more just and inclusive society.

What is Speculative Spatial Design (SSD)?

SSD is the near future study and critique of emerging transitions in humanity and society and their relationship to space; specifically its potential near future implications on daily inhabitation, spatial requirements and emerging programmes of use.

SSD shares methodological roots with critical design, speculative design, design fiction, design futures and futures studies. SSD is, like its critical and speculative design relatives, focused on critiquing intention, process and outcome, unlike many other design-based disciplines which are driven by a commercial need to solve problems.

SSD is not about as-yet unrealised design, but is instead the use of [spatial] design as a tool to identify and debate possible crucial issues in/for the future [Dunne & Raby, Speculative Everything].

In short SSD is a research driven design exploration of the spatial possibilities, probabilities, plausibilities and potentials of a future yet to begin.

Offering: research, design, and insights - expert interviews, round-table discussions, one-off consultations, long-term collaborations

A combination of creative and analytical skills ranging from worldbuilding and creative writing, to academia, design research and peer-review. We apply our unique speculative spatial design methodologies called ‘experimental realism’.

Our research focuses on human behaviour and its changing interrelationships with space, via three core themes;

  • futures of relationships & interaction

  • futures of pleasure & entertainment

  • futures of genders & identities.

We use the insights generated to study the potential impacts on spatial requirements, culminating in the exploration of possible emerging programmes of use and new spatial typologies.

Gem Barton

Gem is an author and senior academic specialising in the interrelations between human behaviour, speculation, and spatial design. Currently teaching at the Royal College of Art, she was awarded a coveted National Teaching Fellowship in 2019, is Senior Fellow of AdvanceHE, and founding chair of QuEAN - Queer Educators in Architecture Network. Gem’s work in the future(s) space comes to life through her advisory, research, teaching and leadership of superFUTURES at the RCA, her directorship of the Experimental Realism platform and consultation services offered through her Office for Speculative Spatial Design (O-SSD).

Former founding member 2021-24 Amelia Jane Hankin world builder, educator, performance designer [studio AJH / Royal College of Art]