Complex technological, educational, and societal challenges require interdisciplinary collaboration to foster innovation. In fact, working across disciplines opens the potential for new ways of understanding and knowing while negotiating epistemological differences between actors from academia, industry, and society. This article proposes speculative co-design as a method for navigating these frictions and productive tensions by building shared imaginaries, while overcoming cross-institutional and hierarchical boundaries. In this regard, I’m drawing on my experience as a practice-based researcher and interdisciplinary designer working at the intersection of experiential media, learning and participatory design. In my work, I explore the question: how speculative co-design methods not only spark creativity but enable meaningful transfer across institutional boundaries? For this, I use participatory and playful imagination methods that assist transdisciplinary teams in collaboratively envisioning future learning environments while flattening real or fictional hierarchies.
Speculative co-design is an approach that combines the participatory practices with imagination tools from speculative design. It invites collaborators to explore existing problems through the lens of imagined futures and in doing so, reflect on current conditions. Rooted in the belief that design can prefigure new realities, speculative co-design opens spaces that are plural, and reflexive (Dunne & Raby, 2013).
In this article, I am referencing the joint project Immersive Intelligenz! between the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW) and the Studio für Unendliche Möglichkeiten, funded under Germany’s Innovationsprogramm für Geschäftsmodelle und Pionierlösungen (IGP). The project brings together academic and industry partners to co-develop a data-secure, multi-user Open XR platform for education and research. To support the cross-disciplinary collaboration of the project partners, I recently facilitated a co-design workshop with both institutions.
The aim of the workshop was to surface divergent expectations between partner institutions and align them toward a shared, future-oriented vision. Concretely, the outcome offered a first view of the Open XR platform features, however, rather than aiming for only technical refinement, the workshop created space for speculative exploration and value alignment. Hosted on the video-conferencing software Zoom and the online collaboration whiteboard Miro, the workshop lasted approximately 2 hours and encompassed two exercises, as well as time for reflection and discussion. The first exercised was framed as a crowd-sourcing exercise in which attendees could share their individual expertise, while the second exercise consisted of an imagination game to facilitate collaboration, creativity and value-alignment.
The workshop began with a collaborative exercise to gather existing examples and use cases across categories such as “Usability & Accessibility,” “Social & Interaction Design,” and “Knowledge Construction & Imagination.” Participants from both HTW and Studio für Unendliche Möglichkeiten posted pictures, links and quotes to a shared Miro board, drawing from their respective experience and knowledge. In a second step, participants read and reviewed the examples posted and voted for features and best practices that each deemed valuable. This part of the process made visible the intersections at which the divergent members met and aligned. It also laid the foundation for the speculative structure that followed, which created further room for imaginative convergence.
Inspired by The Thing From the Future card game and my earlier workshop at Bits & Bäume Berlin (Speculative Co-Design, 2022), participants were guided through a prompt-based imagination game. In groups of 2–3, they combined cards across three categories—Object, Materiality, and Process—to speculate on a feature, scenario, or tool that could support learning in immersive VR spaces. The format prioritized intuition, humor, and vision over feasibility. This deliberate shift from problem-solving to worldbuilding helped flatten hierarchies, foster trust, and stimulate genuine dialogue.
Therefore, the speculative outputs of the workshop primarily serve to establish a shared frame of reference, however, they also help to envision future version of the project’s Open XR platform. We went beyond an initial exchange of best-practices to co-imagining features and futures. This aligns with recent scholarship emphasizing that successful knowledge transfer depends not just on institutional mechanisms but on creating spaces for "knowledge co-production" (Jasanoff, 2004; Jahn et al., 2012). In this workshop, the speculative co-design method facilitated this by bridging disciplinary notions and preconceptions through play and storytelling.
From a methodological standpoint, speculative co-design offers a number of benefits:
• It surfaces values and assumptions: Rather than hiding epistemological differences, the speculative format foregrounds these, thereby encouraging reflection and negotiation.
• It levels hierarchies: By prioritizing imagination over expertise, it enables all participants, whether technical or non-technical, academic or industry-based to contribute equally.
• It supports mutual learning: Co-creating speculative futures fosters shared understanding and empathy, essential for successful interdisciplinary work.
It is important to note that speculative co-design does not replace more conventional project planning or evaluation but complements it. In Immersive Intelligenz!, the speculative workshop laid the groundwork for an open exchange of expertise, as well as aligning overlapping work packages across institutional deliverables. It helped collect use cases and generate enthusiasm, thus supporting not only creative ideation but also pragmatic coordination.
In conclusion, speculative co-design can serve as an adaptable method for navigating the complexities of interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge transfer. At the same time, it isn’t the only powerful method, and I would like to use this opportunity to invite an exchange. If you are interested in imagining and enacting new ways of working together and cross-institutional knowledge transfer, I hope to hear from you!
