“FOUR FUTURES” DESIGN STUDIO

“Four Futures” Design Studio

Second year graduate interiors students at Drexel take a required conceptual design studio, in which the pedagogic goal is to introduce novel form and material exploration, and develop new ways of thinking about interior spatial volume. In 2018 we decided to ground the formal exploration in a text that articulated four future environmental scenarios. The goal was to expand the exploration in a way directed at engaging socio-economic and environmental contexts.

We used the book Four Futures by Peter Frase, a work of “social science fiction” that speculates on how society may change as a result of two global forces: automation and ecological disaster. From his discussion of these forces, he develops a matrix in which the possibilities of abundance or scarcity are crossed with equality or hierarchy, creating four possible combinations: exterminism, rentism, socialism, and communism. The text introduced opportunities to learn about, imagine, and make tangible the long-term consequences of current political, economic, and environmental trends.

The “exterminist” scenario depicts a world of hyperinequality in which the wealthy elite retreat to secure enclaves while the “masses” are repressed and ultimately exterminated. It is a future of scarcity and violence, intensified by dwindling resources and the detachment of the socio-economic elite.

“Rentism” imagines a future that amplifies many current socio-economic conditions of private property. In this scenario people pay “rent” for objects and services they want, while others own and profit from intellectual property rights.

“Socialism” is a story about how society can adapt to the climate crisis by re-making our relationship to nature. The projects in this scenario contemplate an egalitarian society, constrained by scarce resources, that must work together to rebuild infrastructure, manage consumption, and reconstruct daily life.

The fourth scenario, “communism,” imagines a society in which people can freely choose the lifestyle and activities they find fulfilling. What emerge are questions of identity, and a focus on what experiences are most valuable, delightful, or meaningful.

After each student was assigned a future scenario from Frase’s book they created conceptual collages of their envisioned future, expressing the social and material conditions of these future environments. In addition to the collages, students were asked to develop a materials palette that would be representative of the future scenario they were beginning to imagine. Next, we dove into an iterative process of material exploration through physical model building. Their study models explored the conditions of what they believe will exist in their assigned future. What materials will be available and how will things be fabricated in the future? Will these fabrications involve high or low technological means? Will built forms look familiar, or become radical for reasons outlined in the text (sustainability, expression, security, etc.)?

The work in the design studio is supported by a seminar course in which students research precedent projects from design, film, literature, as well as science and science fiction. The seminar assigned students to address five broad interior typologies: “Archive & Display,” “Buying & Selling,” “Healthcare,” “Travel & Leisure,” and “Work.” Students researched a precedent from each category and then created concept collages of how they envisioned the typology might look like in the future. The goal was to consider how these standard typologies might change or be impacted by future social and environmental conditions.

The research from the seminar was brought into the studio as students developed narratives around their future scenarios and worked to create specific contexts for their projects. Upon completion of their initial collage work and material exploration, students were asked to design a series of spatial experiences: 1) Portal, addressing threshold and conditions of inside/outside, 2) Procession, incorporating movement, sequence, and ground plane, and 3) Repository, which added a collection of items to archive or display. In developing these formal and experiential moments, students were continually asked to consider the material and social conditions and articulate those as part of their narrative of the future. In particular, the Repository was intended as a place to house and display an item or collection that had significance in their future.

See below for more information and projects responding to each of the Four Futures scenarios.

Environments and Lifestyles of a Communist Future

Of the futures described by Frase, the one he terms “communism” is the most optimistic. This scenario imagines a society in which people can freely choose the projects and activities they find fulfilling. Frase elucidates Marx by highlighting that the ideal society in his philosophy would give everyone the freedom and opportunity to do what they love. This presentation helps imagine what a future might be if society can stabilize the climate, find sources of clean energy, and develop technologies to meet all of humanity’s day-to-day needs. Frase suggests that this narrative “dwells on the way we construct meaning when life is not centered around wage labor and what kind of hierarchies and conflicts arise in a world no longer structured by the master narrative of capitalism.” What emerge are questions of identity, and a focus on what experiences are most valuable, delightful, or meaningful. While “work” becomes unnecessary, social issues may not be eliminated as new value systems based on esteem or expression replace those based on wealth. The projects responding to this scenario highlight the creative expression and environmental experiences possible when resources are unlimited and opportunities unconstrained by hierarchical power structures. It is a delightful future—one worth imagining.

Environments and Lifestyles of a Socialist Future

In Frase’s view, “the story of socialism is a story about the climate crisis and our need to adapt to it, but also about…seeing how neither the fetishization of the natural world nor the hatred of the market is necessarily sufficient, or even relevant, to the attempt to construct an ecologically stable world beyond capitalism.” If society can stave off climate catastrophe, and transform society to something more egalitarian, humanity will still be dealing with ecological consequences of capitalism. It will be necessary to reconstruct cities, transportation networks, power grids, and lifestyles. The projects in this presentation contemplate an egalitarian society, constrained by scarce resources, that must work together to rebuild its infrastructure and relationship to nature. Taking clues from historic examples like the Shakers and the contemporary “sharing economy,” and drawing upon the scholarship of Bruno Latour, these projects look at the material conditions of a re-made human-environment relationship. These projects consider how to integrate renewable energy, manage consumption, and reconstruct daily life.

Environments and Lifestyles of a Rentist Future

These projects respond to a future that amplifies many current socio-economic conditions of private property. In this scenario people must pay “rent” for the objects and services they want, while others own and profit from the “patterns.” Artificial scarcity is maintained through class structure and state power, despite automated production and resource abundance. These projects look at how the power and influence of the 1% is magnified by holding rights to the patterns necessary for production and consumption. As Frase notes, “the depiction of rentism is largely a reflection on intellectual property and what happens when the private property form is applied to more and more of the immaterial patterns and concepts that guide our culture and economy.” While the ownership of intellectual property is a growing contemporary concern, Frase contextualizes it with a discussion of the enclosure of the English commons in the 18th century, showing how the elite manage to secure private ownership and use of what could otherwise be shared resources. These projects address specific questions related to class status and socio-economic relations: What would people do to earn money in a society where production is made unnecessary? How would the owners of intellectual property preserve social control, enforce intellectual property rights, and maintain effective demand?

Environments and Lifestyles of an Exterminist Future

This is the darkest of the futures imagined by Frase. The exterminist scenario depicts a world of hyperinequality in which the wealthy elite separate themselves from the superfluous, poor masses, and move from policies of repression to genocidal extermination. Frase discusses how automation and mechanization can ease moral discomfort of extermination, and the projects in this presentation examine this possibility in detail. It is a future that makes 3rd world scarcity and violence a reality for everyone because resources and energy are too scarce to allow everyone a high standard of living. The privileged elite retreat to secure enclaves and the “superfluous masses” are repressed and ultimately exterminated. Frase builds this scenario from contemporary conditions and technologies such as remote warfare involving drone strikes, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s analysis of the U.S. incarceration system that effectively eliminates large numbers of people from society. These conditions, intensified by dwindling resources and the detachment of the socio-economic elite, lead to an extreme, but all too imaginable future. These projects make vivid the unhinged possibilities of growing inequality and asks us to consider if there aren’t better options forward.

Collaborators: Sarah Lippmann; Various Students

Related Projects: Utopia/Dystopia Theory, Design Fundamentals, “Escapist Interiors”

Related Materials: Slides from IDEC Pecha Kucha Presentation