Blurring Boundaries : Exploring public exhibition as a design research method for speculating on hospital-in-the-home futures

As designers work in increasingly complex contexts such as healthcare, methods are needed to engage diverse publics in collective futuring. This paper positions the interactive public exhibition as a design research method, using Blurring Boundaries as a research-through-design case to demonstrate how speculation can support collaborative inquiry across knowledge boundaries. Over five days, more than 80 designers, architects, clinicians, patient advocates, health-service leaders, students and visitors co-created artefacts through a three-act programme: Surfacing, Envisioning and Togethering. The evolving exhibition operated as both a public workshop and live research environment. Moving beyond dissemination and display, it used boundary objects to surface assumptions, reveal hidden implications and enable negotiation of values without requiring consensus. We contribute a (1) methodological account of exhibition-as-method, (2) empirical insights for more inclusive Hospital-in-the-Home futures, and (3) reflections on its transferability to other complex public-service settings.