This research project investigates the future possibility of humans living in the ocean through speculative design. Through a design project, I speculate on the future through the imagining of a city. To be specific, the design of the city framework, artists' renditions of the city, and a map of its construction outline the marine city. Then, I explore this future speculation further through sign design, using my skills as a communication designer. I researched on how the sign and wayfinding systems of an underwater city could give us clues about how humans have adapted to this environment.
This survey is conducted through my design practice, more specifically, in the practice of speculative design. I chose speculative design because before the project started, it was still a field in which I had little experience, and it was a field in which I would like to practice in the future.
In the next 50 years, without inventing innovative new technologies, humans may have to look for alternative habitats due to sea-level rise and population overcrowding. All kinds of practical problems cause people to no longer fantasize about the future. People pay more attention to how to build a human habitat in the ocean and create an underwater city in the Abyssal Plain in the Pacific Ocean. In the face of resource shortage, environmental degradation, overpopulation, and other problems, people cannot solve those complex problems by using conventional concepts. Therefore, I tend to apply speculative design theory to create a fictitious underwater city and use it to inspire the audience to imagine the future of mankind together.