THE EXAM
Avery was about to finish the Bureau exam, when this image popped up. Avery instantly remembered this from years of study. It was from the auteur Zeno Bianchi, deep in their Neo-Rococo phase, who was known for their unique and nostalgic take on subway entrances. Built in the ’30’s, these entrances were immensely polarizing – Zeno wanted to create structures that would be both modern and practical, with a nod to the bold, futuristic designs of the past. While their vision did not align with the tastes of the general public, they went on to create a number of other futuristic structures that were both functional and visually stunning.
THE DROP BOX
Avery was new at the Highland Bureau, having secured the spot from gramps, and wasn’t sure this was a life calling, but tried to do the best job possible. The first assignment to redesign the street side collection boxes for the new district to provide letter service, but also sending digital assets. NFT’s were so last decade, but the commissioner was stuck in the past, and didn’t realize that people were operation off-chain. Avery hoped these initial ideas would be approved, but knew that every design became too bulky and big for the new District, and hoped the requirements document would be updated.
THE HYDRANT
Avery looked over the Jobs to Be Done board for the new district and saw a new requirement was added late last night: redesign the fire hydrant for both water and Halon. It took a few moments, but then they realized what was happening: the new district had a mixture of induction and plug-in chargers, and the prototype in the neighboring District did not go well. The local fire brigade had trouble putting out fires caused by the new system, and this new District needed to provide additional, and different firefighting capabilities for all the possible new EV’s.
THE TRAFFIC LIGHT
Avery’s next assignment was for a new traffic light. Now that the EV induction chargers were installed in the new District and the water/halon hydrants were in production, the bureau needed to think through how to safely manage traffic flow. The design documents did not confirm if the new District’s streets were going to be mixed traffic, or if it was going to be autonomous vehicle-only. As usual, the design department was forced to move faster than the policymakers. Avery was sure this was going to end back on the Jobs to Be Done board in a month. Avery decided on submitting two designs which satisfies the design requirements list as-is but allows for policymakers some room to choose. Avery knew that these prompts forced policymakers to choose, and wasn’t sure the District was ready for such a change in traffic light design. But for now the designs were submitted to the planning department for prototyping and testing.
OK… so what is this?
I’m… not sure. I’ve been playing around with large language models and text-to-image tools since they first came out. These vignettes are little design challenges I’m coming up with, combining Design Fiction and ML/AI. It’s been fun crafting and thinking about what design problems our near-future designer Avery has to contend with, as they go about their career journey.
More to come - and a full read out on their journey can be found here:
Avery’s Journey
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