Future Design

Future Design looks at the very cutting edge of technology and its impact on everyday life, from radical projections for shaping the planet over the next thousand years to changes taking place right on the end of your street tomorrow. Examining real objects including a DNA sequencer, the Facebook drone, a 3D printer that works in space, and UC Berkeley's Laundry Robot, this book explores the fears, hopes, and dreams embedded in each, the designers motivated to create them, and the consumers using or avoiding them.
Published to accompany a major exhibition at the V&A in London, experts from different fields examine and debate diverging paths of future development in relation to the body, the home, the everyday, the city, governance, the planet, the universe, and the afterlife.

Design plays an ever-increasing role in every aspect of our future. From our DNA to the cosmos, from our planet to our desks, our futures will be mapped by the objects we use and the people who build them. This book explores the diverse paths of future development, from corporate products to alternative bottom-up strategies imagined by individuals or small groups.

Looking at real objects being developed today--including a UAV (or drone) created by Facebook designed to beam the internet from space, to a robot developed by UC Berkeley that will do laundry--expert authors show how design and technology impact every level of life, from sub-microscopic aspects of the human body to the entire planet. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, it asks how we can use technology to shape the future of our world. The staggering developments featured here are happening now, and although many seem to be straight out of science fiction, the fact is that we have the opportunity to learn about each one and have a say in shaping our own futures.

The book accompanies an exhibition on view at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, May 19 - November 4, 2018