"With the onset of cataclysmic climate change and the sixth mass extinction, organised human life is presented with a bleak future. Even in our collective imagination we are forced to comprehend the self-reinforcing loops of dystopian thinking. This project proposes an exploration in speculative industrial design through both process and artefact-making for the purposes of creating a more resilient, hopeful narrative of the future and subsequently provide alternatives to our current predicament. The specific speculation focuses on the context of solar energy but the project could just as well be applied in diverse ways to a number of inquiries of the future(s). From an interdisciplinary lens, this project attempts to trigger a discourse through industrial design, ways in which we can think about a long term future that is sustainable for future generations in the age of the Anthropocene. In so far as it enables for visualising scenarios and as a tool for collaboration, a speculative future fiction in VR was also explored as a means to ‘time-travel’ where the designed artefact from the future could be interacted with and brought back to the present. As a manifestation of that future transposed back to the present, an artefact, a 3D printed optical solar cell was proposed as a potential alternative to existing solar cells. The designed artefact here draws on existing technology as means of agency, enabled by industrial design to create a framework of climate action that this project proposes is critical to long term futures thinking and sustainability. The exploration of the process also poses the question “what if” to the ways in which industrial design can serve society today and how it could strive towards visions of better, more thriving paradigms as we head into an uncertain future."​

Coral Bricks Ecosystem

BECO is a Modular artificial reef that can be used for underwater planting. The first thing it can do is plant coral reefs. Nowadays the coral is facing a serious threat. Because of global warming and rising ocean temperature, coral reefs bleach in many areas and die as a result of this phenomenon. At the same time, the creatures which rely on coral reefs also can not survive. An effective way to save the coral reef is planting and transplanting.

Because they grow on the hard substrate, we first need to put an artificial reef in the ocean.BECO's standard parts can make sea transporting more effective. On the other hand, BECO can be assembled underwater which means splitting up the original heavy artificial reefs and reducing the demand for boat crane equipment to make planting boats can sail into the shallow sea of coral reef life.

Besides, BECO broadens the possibilities for an artificial reef, it can be assembled into various functional forms to adapt to the environment and create value. And can be used for other marine organisms even make a tiny ecosystem underwater.

The cities are developing fast in the BRICS countries. In China, there is over 100 villages are dying everyday, we call them “no people” villages. The creatures and plants were hit by human activities. Bees as one group of those animals who are gonna perishing. The alternative would have been an environmental catastrophe. So it is extremely important to design a product which can keep the balance between bees and human.

The BEE Astronaut APP is that help people much easier using product. It has four functions:Setting up a honey-making plan - choose the flowers you prefer and decide the ratio of nectar，Reminder for changing the queen excluder and add medicaments for bees,Check the honey-making process in your phone,Scan QR Code to take honey out.

While walking on the streets of Changsha, in the heat and humidity, I realized that instead of appreciating the uniqueness of the new environment, all that I wanted to do was to find a place with air condotion as quickly as possible.

According to World Meteorological Organization, 2017 is set to be the warmest year on record (without an El Niño influence), and during this year both us and our planet have been facing extreme weather including droughts, wildfires and major heatwaves.Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.Researchers predict that the number of heat-related deaths will increase by 66% in the 2020s.

Human body in order to cool down uses mainly 2 mechanisms: vasodilatation and sweating.The blood vessels under your skin get wider; this increases blood flow to your skin where it is cooler because of evaporating sweat. However on days with humidity above 90%, evaporation is not possible and human body is not able to cool. Such weather leads to heatstroke that is a condition caused by your body overheating. This can occur if your core body temperature rises to 40oC or higher. Untreated heatstroke can quickly damage your brain, heart, kidneys and even cause death. Most vulnerable to heat are elderly, infants, outdoor laborers and people with heart problems.

China, I felt overloaded with information and observations. I needed a space to rest my mind. This resulted in B earth. A Virtual Reality experience for exhibitions, where the goal is to understand that your behavior and awareness does matter. China could possibly be a mirror of how Norway and Europe will be in the future. Chinese cities suffer from being overpopulated, with masses of people trying to get from A to B. This can lead to a stressful state of mind, creating discomfort. It is natural to seek personal spaces for our minds to retreat. Today, this is often phones or other screens, where we scroll and read small snippets of current affairs. As a result, we create a fragmented state of mind and lose the sense of physical connection with others.

This behavior is resulting in noise, starting in our mind, then extended to our climate.By practicing mindfulness, being aware of our breathing, we can connect to ourselves and make better decisions. We are not using our resources as mindful as we should. Climate change is a product of over-consuming resources, without a critical and reflecting mind.

Desertification is one of of the main global problems. Caused by climate change and accelerated by human activities like cattle farming and wood chopping. Droughts is a huge and growing worldwide problem which leads to abundance of populated territories. Millions of people are suffering from water lack and predictions tell us that more will suffer in the near future.

Gobi desert is fastest growing desert today, which we happen to fly over during our trip to China. This view made a big enough impression on me to want to contribute to the solution of ongoing problem.

Some governments are actively fighting back the desertification by using huge amount of workforce. Firstly to prepare the landscape by tractors and buldosers, than drilling and digging, than planting trees and using solutions like Cocoon and Groasis. I decided to go for design of a product that will autonomously give everything the plants need in order for them to grow healthy and will not require huge amount of workforce for the installation.

The product I've design is a combination of several natural inspirations. The form of "UNDO" is a taken from a maple tree seed natural design. It's a seed formed as a wing that rotates while it falls down from a tree. This principle was taking further and converted into a different type of seed form which will be dropped from a plane in high quantity over an arid zone.

Through our research we found out that it can be hard for teenagers to relate and care about environmental issues. In the lessons in school they are mostly presented with distant doomsday narratives about climate change. Per Espen Stoknes, a climate psychologist, says this type of climate communication makes us feel detached, confused and trigger our inner defense system that leads to avoidance and inaction.

In conversation with a natural science teacher we found out that teachers have to be careful not being moralising about this topic. The natural science class is structured in a lot of reading, writing and talking but little hands-on experience. The teacher mentioned that the students would like to do more practical tasks and see the link to the real world. This opportunity areas are the starting point for this project.

Teenagers spend their time at school, doing hobbies, hanging out with friends, playing mobile games and using social media. Through SHIFT, a playful interactive and hands-on experience introduced and integrated in middle schools, we want to reach out to teenagers through the channels they use and in the context they are.

"Orja is an open source energy movement that through a decentralised and connected direct intervention, redefines the means of universal energy access. It is meant to help remote societies transition to a more "real" and tangible renewable energy future. In its early form it is deployed as a "DIT: do it together" kit that reconnects the notion of energy back to its natural source. In later years, our understanding of energy systems evolves into a form of holistic symbiois. Orja then transforms into an algal and microbial fuel cell that nurtures energy loops of our future biomes into a symbiotic energy paradigm."

Open grow is a speculative future scenario of vitro food production in an urban community context, inspired by a mix of makers spaces and breweries. One of the largest contributors to the environmental crisis we face is the meat and dairy industry as it is today. Today, vitro meat, or lab grown meat is being looked at as something that can reduce this industries environmental impact, as well as help solve the global food crisis with consumer products being predicted as early as 2018 or 2021.. Vitro food requires 90% less water, 90% less greenhouse gases, 90% less land and 40% less energy than today's practices. Vitro food is grown in supervised environments, which can ensure cleaner food with less animal prone diseases and it has the possibility to have a more realistic taste and texture than say soy, or bugs.

The goal of this project was to use interaction design and illustration in order to tell the story of sustainable concept for the not-so-distant future. The work aims to introduce the foreign idea of vitro food by reflecting some current attitudes and practices to food and food production, as well as using community as a catalyst of change.

After a month of field research and concept development in China, I came to the conclusion that urban food growth needs to become normalized not only now, but in the future. This will become especially prevelant with increasing urban areas, such as we observed in China.

This project has been concerned about the effects of climate change and urbanization on our food systems. The green agricultural revolution and genetically modified plant varieties has helped feed an increasing population, but it has taken its toll on biodiversity. Today, roughly 100,000 global plant varieties are endangered due to climate change, market integration and cultural changes (e.g. dietary habits). However, seed exchange networks across the globe are making efforts to keep varieties alive by sharing and growing seeds in their community. Some are even experimenting and developing new varieties that can survive changing climatic conditions.

The Seed Vault 2.0 is a digital service that promotes urban food growth and the exchange of seeds within an international network. It combines global and local efforts, and uses the Svalbard Seed Vault as a metaphor for its name. By collecting data on all the varieties in the network, it can keep track on both existing and newly discovered types of culinary vegetables. It also offers resources to encourage seed saving initiatives in cities. Once registered, project groups can send and receive seeds that are allowed to be shipped internationally. These groups could for example be a community garden team, or a local seed exchange set up in a public library. The concept is built on the assumption that that these groups in turn would spread knowledge and spark an interest for urban farming in their local community, and at the same time contribute to the conservation and adaptation of our common seed resources.

Unlike other systems for sharing seeds, the Seed Vault 2.0 takes sensory attributes into account. Landrace and heirloom variants has an amazing specter of colors, tastes and textures. By allowing these data points to the database, it adds an extra layer of information that communicates the benefits of growing and preserving varieties that are not available in the mainstream market.

The concept would require a great collective effort between different stakeholders and across country borders. However, the design aims to show how such a network could look like, and encourage further discussions on the possibilities of a global in situ seed conservation network.

Carbon-Negative Composite Reefs of the Sundarbans

These electrified carbon-negative composite coral reefs get their name from their distinctive carbon-black structures made from the carbonization of organic fibers that behave as electrodes for the cathodic aragonite deposition of seawater. Known as the “biorock” method, it is also used for making carbon-negative structural composites or socially useful production. As a regenerative strategy, it shows possibilities for recovery of coral reefs at incredible rates, even if damaged beyond repair, by combining with traditional ‘seeding’ and coral nurseries and aiding in their rapid recovery, making possible highly resilient and accelerated artificial reefs to also be scalable. These mangrove-coral sea walls are designed to protect from intense hurricanes and more energetic storm seasons in regions most vulnerable to climate extremes by absorbing the energy and the subsequent storm surges and sea level rise. These reclaimed ecosystems, like the climate resilience zones (CRZs) on land, are meant to rehabilitate coastal communities by stemming storm energy but also provide sanctuary for corals to survive bleaching events, revive fisheries and sustenance to coastal communities while also reviving marine biodiversity.

Read More: Page 95-99 of Chapter 3, Beyond Vaporware: Remembering the Blue Reparations Programs in The Open Journal of ReFuturing (2131)

Symbiotic Mutualism in the Pan-Indigenous Autonomous Zones

The SymFab pods are designed for localized, ecological forms of hi-tech production and consumption of advanced composites employing “symbiotic manufacturing.” The carbonization of organic matter and fibers are applied to create effective alternatives of high-performance composites from organic sources for socially useful fabrication systems, which are carbon sequestering by integrating into local industrial production for advanced technological applications. When processed as bio-composites, the pyrolytic carbonization of these natural fibers is produced from organic fibers with in-situ processing of plant-based resins that can even be used to create high clay-based ceramic electrodes. Much of this is possible with new discoveries in symbiotic computing interfaces termed ‘symbitronics.’ These interfaces mediate the interactions between these fabrication infrastructures to maintain and nurture the ecological processes.

Read More: Page 57 of Chapter 2, Becoming Terrestrial: Of Climate Resilience Zones, Symbiotic Fabrication and Ecosystem Regeneration in The Open Journal of ReFuturing (2131).

Guerrilla Agroforesters of the Mombasa Climate Resilience Zone

Climate Resilience Zones (CRZs) first emerged in Mombasa as practiced by guerrilla agroforesters called the The Walezi Wa Msitu. They use forest seeding devices that make ‘seed balls’ that use a carbonized biochar medium ‘supercharged’ with biologically sourced nitrogen and phosphorous and inoculated with selective mycelium spores native to old-growth forests. The mycelium aids in re-establishing healthy root-soil microbial relations, enhancing the availability of nutrition, and rejuvenating the soil microbial health for these old growths to flourish. These seeding operations are spread in randomized patterns using ‘creative’ and resilient forms of seeding old-growth forests for faster biodiversity recovery with the forest seeders. Over time, these CRZs regenerate the terrestrial ecosystems, complementing conservation efforts, including biomass production from agriculture and forestry, storage, filtration, and transformation of nutrients and water, biodiversity habitats, ecologically sourced material resources, and carbon sinks for a long carbon drawdown. On a long enough timeline and with its global reach, the development of CRZs starts to blend into each other, eventually transforming into Pan-Indigenous Autonomous Zones.

Read More: Page 54 of Chapter 2, Becoming Terrestrial: Of Climate Resilience Zones, Symbiotic Fabrication and Ecosystem Regeneration in The Open Journal of ReFuturing (2131)

Autonomous Forest Seeders deployed at Regeneration Festivals

Over the second half of the 21st century, Climate Resilience Zones (CRZs) get expanded using autonomous seeding devices called Fireflies. The citizen science groups in the Hong Kong CRZs, inspired by the Walezi wa msitu, take the concept of old-growth ecology seeding to the next level with automation practices that are also more useful where more delicate regeneration strategies are needed. These autonomous seeders are cheekily called 'fireflies' (螢火蟲) in a period when insect declines coincide with continued 6th mass extinctions. Under exacerbated and unpredictable climate cycles, these assisted seeders offer the possibilities for migrating and regenerating vulnerable terrestrial ecosystems to suitable climate zones by restoring soils and freshwater ecosystems through human efforts in the various regeneration festivals that have become widespread. In the 21st century, these ‘fireflies’ are busy planting new old-growth ecosystems in regions where the heat death of forest ecosystems has occurred. However, this is only done under desperate attempts to preserve biodiversity and relieve these ecosystems of climate stressors, as disruptive climate patterns disrupt ecosystems worldwide.

Read More: Page 55 of Chapter 2, Becoming Terrestrial: Of Climate Resilience Zones, Symbiotic Fabrication and Ecosystem Regeneration in The Open Journal of ReFuturing (2131).

Symbio-metallurgical Devices for Biomining

Biomineralisers become a means to refine rare earth minerals from their ores using biological processes of biomining and bioleaching. Biomineralisers also apply these methods combining them with wastewater electrolysis for bioremediation of contaminated effluent sites left behind after centuries of mineral exploitation. Together with biochemical processes of microbial growth, the bioactive carbon medium provides a proven, effective, and cheap means to clean up nitrates, phosphates, and heavy metals from freshwater ecosystems. The yield quantities are low but are in sync with the need for slow fabrication processes that have become the norm for producing many rare-earth-dependent high-tech goods. Certain strains of fungi and species of plant organisms known to biologically leach minerals from ores are applied here, working together with metabolic systems. In addition to copper and gold production, biomining can also be operated on local scales to refine elements such as cobalt, nickel, zinc, and uranium. Biomining has also been applied in processing sulphide and uranium ores, showing remarkable opportunities for remediating soils and water bodies.

Read More: Page 89-91 of Chapter 3, Beyond Vaporware: Remembering the Blue Reparations Programs in The Open Journal of ReFuturing (2131)