Speculative Devices explores the intersection of design research, medical technology, and future possibilities. Through concept studies, prototype showcases, and collaborative research, we examine how hardware design shapes healthcare and practice.
Concept development, hands-on workshops, and collaborative research into the medical devices of the future.
Speculative design explorations into future medical devices, emerging healthcare scenarios, and technology-human interaction models.
Working prototypes, proof-of-concept builds, and functional mockups demonstrating innovative hardware design directions.
Design journals, methodology documentation, and research findings from ongoing studio investigations and experiments.
Conference talks, panel discussions, and presentations on speculative design, medical device innovation, and research methodology.
Hands-on design workshops, student collaborations, and educational programs introducing speculative hardware design methods.
Media requests, licensing inquiries, exhibition proposals, and collaboration opportunities with designers, institutions, and brands.
Design essays, studio updates, and field notes from April 2026.
Speculative design is a serious method for asking better questions before committing to answers. Rather than optimizing an existing product, it builds objects that dramatize possible futures so that people can react to them — a practice formalized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby in Speculative Everything (MIT Press, 2013). Applied to healthcare hardware, the payoff is foresight: a well-made speculative device can expose ethical, usability, and access questions while they are still inexpensive to address, long before manufacturing tooling or regulatory submission. The studio process is structured and iterative — research, scenario-building, physical prototyping, and rigorous critique — the same design-research discipline collected and exhibited by institutions such as the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and MoMA. Understood plainly, it is a way to think with your hands, and to think early.
Sources: MIT Press — Speculative Everything (Dunne & Raby) · Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
One of the studio’s concept studies has been chosen for a design-research anthology, a signal that speculative practice belongs in the medical-hardware discourse alongside engineering and clinical research. The selected work uses a deliberately crafted object to pose a question the field has yet to settle, then opens it to critique — exactly the critical-design approach Dunne and Raby argued for. Getting the work published moves it from private studio to shared discipline, where clinicians, ethicists, and designers can stress-test its premises. The practical stakes are real: speculative studies routinely surface consent, equity, and usability issues early, when they cost a conversation instead of a recall. As always, these are provocations and research artifacts, not cleared medical products; any real device would demand thorough validation and regulatory review.
Sources: MIT Press — Speculative Everything (Dunne & Raby) · Museum of Modern Art — Design collection
Six months inside the studio is where a speculative concept proves whether it can stand up. This diary follows a single device from its first rough sketch through a working prototype and, finally, exhibition — the demanding middle stretch that drawings alone never reveal. The rhythm mirrors established design-research practice: diverge and sketch widely, converge through scenarios and critique, then prototype iteratively until the object begins to answer back. Recording the missteps as faithfully as the wins is part of the method Dunne and Raby championed, because the questions a process raises are as valuable as the artifact it yields. Exhibition completes the cycle, turning an audience’s reactions into fuel for the next version — and proving that a patient, disciplined studio can turn a provocation into something people can genuinely reason with.
Sources: MIT Press — Speculative Everything (Dunne & Raby) · Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Research partnerships, speaking invitations, exhibition proposals, and commissions — let's explore together.
Send Inquiry →Charging technology signals we're tracking in our research this year.
In 2026 Megawatt Charging Systems (MCS) enter commercial deployment, delivering over 1 MW to recharge 200–600 kWh heavy-duty batteries within a 45-minute break — a new frontier for hardware design. (Ekoenergetyka / EGBatt, 2026)
At megawatt power levels, currents of 1,000–3,500 A demand liquid-cooled cables and connectors to manage heat — a materials-and-thermal design challenge shaping next-gen charging hardware. (EGBatt, 2026)
The Rocsys M1, unveiled in May 2026, is the first hands-free multi-bay charging system for robotaxi fleets: an overhead robotic arm with computer vision and a 99.9%+ plug-in success rate. (industry reports, 2026)
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We have active engineering projects in development and we are looking for electrical engineers, PCB designers, firmware developers, and makers to help build and test them. Explore the projects below and reach out if you want to collaborate.
A modern solid-state reconstruction of a historical radionics instrument, with full KiCad schematic and PCB. Historical/experimental.
A modern, safe, documented programmable frequency-generator reconstruction inspired by Rife's historical instruments. Experimental/educational.
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