Speculative Futures #05 - November Meetup

Elon Musk was right, its time to move to Mars

Guys, I think we might have outdone ourselves this time. After the amazing session from the grandfathers of Speculative Design vHM Design Futures we really had to search far and wide for something to top it. Therefore we needed to go beyond… even our own planet….. So we are going to Mars.

The next session we are excited to have Xavier De Kestelier, Head of Technology and Innovation at Hassell architecture. He will discuss how they built a prototype for a habitat on Mars for the latest Mission to Mars exhibition at the Design Museum London. Diving into how they collaborated with everything from designer Christopher Raeburn, a space anthropologist, 3D furniture printing and identifying what materials will work in the Mars atmosphere.

Join us on an amazing trip for the imagination (or just to better understand our potential of new home)

***Due to the overwhelming success of our meetups we are going to have to be tighter with the invite list. We only have a small group available at this event so please sign up only if you can make it.

Our Lovely hosts this time will be the great team at Designit

Doors open at 630pm for a 7pm start

Xavier De Kestelier
Xavier is the Head of Design Technology and Innovation at HASSELL, where he leads design technology across all disciplines and regions.

An industry leader for the past decade in the field of parametric design, digital fabrication and additive manufacturing. He was previously the co-Head of the Specialist Modelling Group, which is Foster+Partners internal research and development team. There he worked on projects such as Apple HQ, Kuwait Airport, Beijing Airport, Yachtplus and the NBK HQ

Director of Smartgeometry, a non-profit educational organisation for computational design and digital fabrication. Their annual workshop and conference has taken place in Cambridge,Toronto, Munich, New York, San Francisco, Barcelona, Hong Kong, and Copenhagen, and has grown to become an independent worldwide network for computational and digital design specialists.

Xavier has held academic positions at the Syracuse University (London), University of Ghent (Belgium) and The Bartlett (London). He is also a member of the RIBA’s Research and Innovation Group.

Hassell
HASSELL is a leading international design practice with studios in Australia, China, South East Asia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

About Speculative Futures

Started in 2015, Speculative Futures is an international community bringing together those interested in using design as a vehicle to explore potential and alternative futures. Our desire is to create a space to exchange ideas and create conversation.

We invite our audience to cast a critical eye over the norms of today, respond to our context and develop a perspective on how things could be.

We aim connect industries, fields of practices, ideas and people. We’re open anyone who operates in any field that looks into the future, to join us in this endeavour.

This includes but is not limited to: speculative and critical design, discursive design, business strategy, strategic foresight, futurism, architecture, writing, cinematography, art, technology, science, and any other field fits within these characteristics.