Abstract
This paper explores speculation otherwise by tracing how speculative potential emerges from the very first encounters of design research. Rather than viewing speculation as a designer-led projection of possible futures, we propose a shift toward understanding speculation as something to be recognized within already unfolding worlds. Drawing on Tsing’s notion of contamination and Ingold’s concept of correspondence, we show how design engagements evolve through entanglements with speculative forces circulating in the everyday: through material residues, infrastructural rhythms, social negotiations, and more-than-human relations. Through slow alignments, tentative invitations, failed funding applications and walks through neighbourhood sites, we describe how our own imaginaries became entangled with worlds of urban transformation. We argue that what is often framed as a pre-project phase is already a site of speculative formation. Speculation otherwise thus positions design as attuned participation in unfolding situations, engaging not by projecting futures, but by corresponding with speculative possibilities already in motion.
Keywords
speculation otherwise, contamination, correspondence, design engagements
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2040
Citation
Sesay Wehlitz, A., and Binder, T. (2026) Toward speculation otherwise: Correspondence and contamination in design engagements with urban renewal, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2040
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Toward speculation otherwise: Correspondence and contamination in design engagements with urban renewal
This paper explores speculation otherwise by tracing how speculative potential emerges from the very first encounters of design research. Rather than viewing speculation as a designer-led projection of possible futures, we propose a shift toward understanding speculation as something to be recognized within already unfolding worlds. Drawing on Tsing’s notion of contamination and Ingold’s concept of correspondence, we show how design engagements evolve through entanglements with speculative forces circulating in the everyday: through material residues, infrastructural rhythms, social negotiations, and more-than-human relations. Through slow alignments, tentative invitations, failed funding applications and walks through neighbourhood sites, we describe how our own imaginaries became entangled with worlds of urban transformation. We argue that what is often framed as a pre-project phase is already a site of speculative formation. Speculation otherwise thus positions design as attuned participation in unfolding situations, engaging not by projecting futures, but by corresponding with speculative possibilities already in motion.