Speculative Stuff
2023 - 2024 - 2025 - 2026 Student Works
* The intellectual property rights of each work are owned by each student.

Well-behaved child



YUNHEE BAE
 The low birth rate is causing children to disappear gradually.

At the same time, even the children living in the present era are not properly welcomed. Children experience exclusion from society through anti-kids zones. Adults who are used to living in a culture where mistakes are not tolerated frequently judge children’s unpredictable conduct only by adult norms.

Is it permissible to prohibit the entry of all children at workplaces due to issues caused by a child?

Is the virtue of a child simply being well-behaved?

Can we predict in advance whether a child is good or bad?

If the current trend continues where the interaction between children and adults decreases, and adults are losing their inclusiveness towards children, how will adults treat children when they are born in the future?

As fewer people produce kids in 2053, it will be extremely uncommon for people to see genuine kids. They will only come into contact with kids through the media, where they will only see their good, polite, and adorable traits. Regardless of their originality, it will be the aim of child education to raise kids who are charming, meek, and obedient to adults. To manage children, a Ministry of Children will be established that will resemble the Ministry for National Heroes, and the educational program will be adjusted as necessary. Children are only permitted to eat food that is neither hot nor cold and is provided in unbreakable plastic dishes in restaurants and cafes. A child will be seen to be a good child if they can sustain a specific decibel level for a whole hour as determined by a decibel test.

Children who fall short of these requirements will be categorized as “ordinary children,” while children who are animated and active will be stigmatized as “bad kids.”





2023


Speculative Stuff



Speculative Stuff is a public archive of speculative design works developed through Yonsei University’s Integrated Design courses, 
led by Hyunjae Daniel Shin (Associate Professor) and Eun Sun Park (Lecturer).

The platform documents how undergraduate students begin with small everyday questions — discomforts, contradictions, awkward moments, and social habits we often overlook — and transform them into speculative objects, future scenarios, and critical narratives.

These works are not predictions of the future. They are invitations to look again at the present. By using comedy, exaggeration, absurdity, and preposterous worldbuilding, the projects make familiar systems feel strange and open up alternative ways of imagining technology, culture, society, and the environment.

The course has been shaped by an ongoing pedagogical exploration of Speculative Critical Design, combining futures studies, design research, interactive workshops, and public engagement. It encourages students to move beyond solution-driven design and develop more critical, imaginative, and participatory ways of engaging with alternative futures.

The methodological background of Speculative Stuff is further informed by Eun Sun Park’s doctoral research on the Preposterous Comedy Approach for Speculative Critical Design, which examines how comedy techniques, preposterous futures, and speculative artefacts can support critical thinking, public engagement, and future-oriented design education.

Read the dissertation HERE(EN) (KR)