FREDERIK
DESCHUYTTER
WORK
ABOUT
METHOD
MATERIAL
DESIGN
WHY
With a focus on technology and ecology, Frederik's work addresses complex issues, engaging a broader audience with topics typically confined to expert circles. Design becomes a tool to explore, research and visualise what is still intangible - demystifying topics by creating a shared language that fosters dialogue both about what our future might look like, and how this recalibrates our view on the present.
HOW
Although the approach is subject-specific, Frederik’s design process can typically be divided into three phases - explore, imagine, and make - with different steps that weave them together.
Subjects are drawn from personal fascinations in the field of technology and ecology, from driverless vehicles to interplanetary living. Research provides a solid foundation. Understanding the systems, relationships, and tensions surrounding a subject ensures the work is rooted in facts to stay connected to reality.
Within this research, frictions emerge when values clash, creating discomfort. Identifying these tensions becomes the starting point for speculation. These frictions are extrapolated into potential futures to explore how ideas, objects or technologies might manifest under speculative narratives.
Assembling all gathered research, a coherent world can be built where a certain change has happened. Materialisation makes this world tangible, creating a shared language that connects with a broad audience and bridges the gap with industrial and academic bubbles.
WHEN
Speculative design doesn't point to a specific date. Instead, it specifies the position an idea occupies within a potential future - how likely, how far from current reality, and how recognisable it still feels.
Frederik positions his work in the imaginable future, crossing into the expected and hypothetical. Staying close to the expected grounds the work, while tiptoeing into the hypothetical sparks curiosity and wonder.
By imagining what our future might look like, speculative design recalibrates our view on the present - the values, systems, and choices we take for granted.