Autumn 2026
Design Futures: From Anticipation to Aspiration
Design is always anticipatory. New tools, technologies, and socio-cultural shifts open possibilities that design works to interpret, shape, and extend. Good design depends on anticipatory practices — ways of attending to what might be — and is, in that sense, always bound up with futures. Yet anticipation alone is not enough. To build preferable futures, we also need to cultivate aspiration as a core capacity of designing.
In this DRG we will explore futures and futurity in design through texts and artifacts that surface both registers — what we can anticipate and what we aspire toward. Participants will respond to shared materials through short design pieces of their own, and build toward a small final project that articulates their own working understanding of aspirational design.
Apply via this Google Form by 5 p.m. Friday, September 18, 2026 (Pacific). Invitations to participate will be sent on a rolling basis, with a deadline of Friday, September 25, 2026.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: Mondays, 4:30 - 6 p.m.
- Credits: 2
- This DRG does meet the research requirement for PhD students.
- Who should apply: Students who have some experience in design (518, 302/303, etc.)
- To apply: Complete this Google Form.
- Application deadline: Friday, September 18, 2026, at 5 p.m.
- Anticipated notification date: September 25, 2026
- Questions? Contact Tyler Fox at foxt@uw.edu
Dr. Fox's Research Group Archive