Speculative design for climate adaptation: Imagining coastal management strategies in Singapore's future waterfronts through postcards from the future

Abstract

With rising sea levels, coastal cities are expected to adapt to flooding and changing shorelines in the coming decades. With a growing interest in participatory planning and coastal management, it is key to develop new platforms to involve communities, decision makers and scientists alike in debates about climate adaptation. This article discusses the untapped power of speculative design in allowing society to envision future scenarios of climate adaptation and coastal protection. We draw on the experiences of the project “Adapting Waterfronts: Postcards from the Future, Singapore 2122” to interrogate how speculative visions about the future of waterfronts can support resilience building. The project consists of an exhibition, a virtual reality tour and a subsequent workshop, which provided opportunities for collective discussions on climate change adaptation. Exploring multiple types of knowledge, such as historic archives and scientific projections about sea-level rise, the project constructs new narratives about the political, social and biophysical aspects of coastal management. We discuss how the approach contributes to important debates in coastal management, including how it can (i) bridge historic barriers between different disciplines that are involved in urban planning and coastal management, (ii) foster speculative thinking through the use of augmented reality and (iii) reshape the relationship between researchers and society. This exploration of speculative futures – and the visualization of their implications in the city – has the potential to reshape how we conceptualize, analyse, and design coastal landscapes. Building on these experiences, we highlight gaps and important questions for similar projects aiming to promote scientific communication and education on coastal management strategies. We propose future lines of investigation on how speculative projects can offer opportunities for diverse audiences to connect with the science of climate change and, in doing so, promote collective debates on the topics of climate adaptation and coastal management.