Abstract

Coffee cup reading is a popular social activity in some cultures and seen as a playful way of speculating on a person's past, present and future life. If we think of coffee cup reading as a way to envision futures, can we use this practice as a method for creating speculative design fictions? This paper proposes a workshop in which 10 people living in Venice will enact future inhabitants of the city and read each other's coffee cup in pairs to create speculative design fictions that envision Venice in 2030. The workshop will result in a catalogue of design fictions comprising text and drawings produced by each pair that will present different future visions for Venice. After the exhibition, this catalogue will be exhibited in a dedicated online space to present the design fictions and photos and/or videos created during the workshop as well as visitors' feedback. The workshop aims to provide insights about how coffee cup reading as a traditional way of looking into possible futures could be used as a low-threshold design activity to reveal urban inhabitants’ visions and concerns towards uncertain futures as well as today's challenges.

Citation

Acknowledgements

This publication is part of the “Sustainability means inclusivity: Engaging citizens in early stage smart city development” project funded by FORMAS, Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development. Project number 2019-01281.

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