IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION A

Abstract

Architectural education must prepare graduates for Barnett’s ‘world of supercomplexity’, where interpretive frames are constantly tested (Barnett 2000). The 2023 UNESCO–UIA Charter likewise urges programmes to ready architects for the grave and complex challenges of coming decades. Recent scholarship further highlights the need for graduates who can navigate unknown trajectories beyond current horizons (Rødne & Hokstad 2022; CIDA 2021). Curricula should teach not only best practices but also ways to think about alternative futures. Design fiction addresses this need. By deploying speculative artefacts and narrative worlds, it ‘shifts design from solving today’s problems to world-building for tomorrow’ (Bleecker 2009). Sterling presents it as the strategic use of speculative artefacts to suspend disbelief about change (Sterling 2005), while Morrison links it to futures literacy and alternative pedagogical reflection (Morrison 2015). This study explores how a design-fiction elective supports critical and divergent thinking. Delivered in Autumn 2025 at a Turkish research university, the 14-week elective course will enrol up to twenty second- to fourth-year students who, through scenario writing, speculative prototyping and peer ‘dystopia/utopia’ panels, investigate alternative futures. Data sets will include (1) weekly free-association sketchbooks, (2) concept-map measures of problem analysis, (3) Creative Product Semantic Scale ratings and (4) post-course focus groups. The analysis will examine students’ problem definitions, idea diversity, and perceived capacity to act amid uncertainty. Findings are expected to illuminate the pedagogical value of speculative design and guide curriculum developers seeking to align architectural education with indeterminate futures.