Sky Supply

I recently embarked on a journey in the janky time machine to an alternate reality we call the ‘big city’. There, condos appear significantly smaller than what we're accustomed to today. The escalating population density in urban areas has necessitated drastic changes to our conventional living spaces. Big appliances are virtually nonexistent, and with such limited square footage, owning a refrigerator seems like an absurdity. Consequently, we've outsourced our food storage. Instead of hoarding food in our homes, we dispatch and store it in the cloud… quite literally.

Thanks to advancements in battery storage and solar efficiency, a novel breed of perpetually airborne drones have come into existence. These specialized food storage machines store perishables up in the sky, at altitudes that maintain varying degrees of cool to freezing temperatures. It's akin to geo-thermal cooling, but suspended high in the atmosphere.

After a lively pizza party last night, I dispatched the remaining slices to hover near a cumulonimbus cloud, keeping them chilled until my craving kicked in at breakfast. Now, if only there was a way for them to drop it from such an altitude that atmospheric re-entry might warm it up to an even more appealing temperature.

A note from the primeline:

This artefact was discovered in 2017 when I was teaching P535 - Product Design from the Future at Miami Ad School. I coached my students through a process designed to come up with a disruptive product design that we could develop into a design fiction prototype. Below are some behind-the-scenes context.

The initial spark for ideation began with a brief to develop a product that addresses increasing population density. I introduced a generative thinking tool not commonly used in the world of advertising. Teaching them to map out and extrapolate consequences using a futures wheel. This helped them plot first order effects, followed by second order effects, and so on. I asked them to continue the exercise with the goal of using a third order effect as inspiration for their product.

Futures wheel set 10 years into the future, exploring High Population Density and its effects.

An unexpected trajectory was uncovered, leading to smaller living spaces and questioning the role and existence of large appliances. After some fun ‘what if’ interrogation, we discovered a black hole¹ with the refrigerator.

The above Design Fiction entry is a fresh interpretation of the my students’ efforts during my time at Miami Ad School in 2017.