Prompt for Microsoft Copilot: “In approximately 500 words, describe or narrate a scenario about a building found a century into a future in which order is deliberately coordinated or imposed. Your description should address issues related to family and elicit feelings of excitement.”
Response from Microsoft Copilot: The Harmonium Spire: A Century Ahead A hundred years into the future, rising above the skyline of a meticulously ordered city, stands the Harmonium Spire—a building conceived not merely as architecture, but as a living embodiment of deliberate coordination. Its design is a testament to humanity’s pursuit of order, where every curve, corridor, and chamber has been orchestrated to align with the rhythms of family life and the collective pulse of society. The Spire is not chaotic with individual apartments stacked haphazardly; instead, it is a vertical symphony of interconnected family units. Each level is arranged like concentric rings, with shared spaces radiating outward from a central hub. Families live in pods that open onto communal atriums, where meals are prepared collectively, children play under the watchful eyes of multiple generations, and elders share stories that echo through the acoustically tuned walls. The building itself enforces this togetherness—doors slide open at synchronized hours, kitchens activate simultaneously, and even the lighting shifts in harmony with the city’s master schedule. At first glance, such imposed order might seem restrictive. Yet within the Spire, it sparks excitement. Families no longer struggle to coordinate fragmented lives; instead, they are swept into a rhythm that magnifies their bonds. Imagine a morning where every household awakens to the same gentle chime, the scent of breakfast drifting through shared corridors, and children racing down spiral ramps to begin lessons in the communal learning halls. Parents, relieved of the burden of constant scheduling, find themselves free to engage in meaningful conversations, while grandparents guide the younger ones in traditions preserved through ritualized storytelling sessions. The building itself breathes with anticipation. Its walls shimmer with adaptive panels that display the collective achievements of its inhabitants—birthdays, milestones, artistic creations—all projected in real time. Families are not isolated units but threads woven into a larger tapestry, and the Spire ensures that no one is forgotten. Even disputes are resolved within designated “Harmony Chambers,” where mediators and kin gather to restore balance before the day’s rhythm resumes. Excitement pulses most vividly during the Festival of Synchrony, held once every lunar cycle. The Spire’s central atrium transforms into a dazzling amphitheater, where families present collaborative performances—songs, dances, and inventions—all rehearsed in perfect coordination. Children beam with pride as their voices rise in unison, parents cheer, and elders nod approvingly, knowing that their legacy is alive in this orchestrated celebration. The building itself amplifies the spectacle, adjusting acoustics, projecting holographic constellations across the ceiling, and synchronizing the heartbeat of the crowd with subtle vibrations in the floor. Yet beneath the order lies a profound truth: the Spire does not erase individuality, but channels it into collective excitement. Families discover that their uniqueness shines brighter when woven into a shared rhythm. The laughter of children, the wisdom of elders, and the aspirations of parents all converge into a single, exhilarating harmony. Standing at the edge of the atrium, gazing upward at the spiraling levels alive with coordinated motion, one cannot help but feel a thrill. The Harmonium Spire is more than a building—it is a promise that in the future, family will not be lost in chaos, but elevated through deliberate order into something extraordinary.
Reflection
For this task, I used Microsoft Copilot to explore a speculative prompt: “In approximately 500 words, describe or narrate a scenario about a building found a century into a future in which order is deliberately coordinated or imposed. Your description should address issues related to family and elicit feelings of excitement.” I chose the prompt about “excitement” because I was curious to see how Copilot could help me imagine a future that felt hopeful, positive, and utopian.
Copilot produced a narrative that centered on the “Harmonium Spire”, a multigenerational tower designed to cultivate communal harmony through shared meals, education, celebrations, and cultural practices. Although the spire served as the focal point, the narrative positioned it as a symbol of collective life rather than merely an architectural object.
I asked Copilot to generate images of the Spire, the Family Atrium, the Generational Gardens, and the Glowing Trees. Each image added depth and spatial clarity to the scenario, helping me visualize the speculative world more clearly. I added prompts to make the images brighter and more optimistic and I appreciated how it adapted to my feedback. The generated images provided spatial coherence and supported my visualization of the imagined future. Through iterative prompting, Copilot adapted to requests for brighter, more optimistic aesthetics.
I also asked Copilot about the governance of the Spire, and it introduced the Council of Kin, a deliberative assembly of family representatives, rather than one leader. It focused on leadership as stewardship, participatory decision making, storytelling, and transparent data flow. This addition strengthened the narrative coherence and aligned with themes of distributed order.
Although the output exceeded my expectations in detail and tone, the generative process revealed limitations. The system frequently repeated ideas with slight variations, suggesting a mechanical approach to speculative storytelling. Nevertheless, it served as a productive ideation partner, offering possibilities I might not have thought up independently. It gave me a starting point if I wanted to take this story further and speculate a future with harmony around the family unit.
Dunne and Raby’s (2013) concept of “social dreaming” was evident in the Harmonium Spire’s narrative function as a vehicle for imagining alternative societal arrangements. The scenario also echoed Vallor’s (2018) argument that AI acts as a “mirror” reflecting collective aspirations and anxieties, reminding us that the futures we envision are ultimately our responsibility to shape.
This exercise reinforced the value of speculative design as a method for interrogating social systems, ethical orientations, and future imaginaries. It deepened my appreciation for using speculative design as a way to explore what could happen in society, and also what we would like to happen. The Harmonium Spire prompted further questions that remain unanswered: Can highly coordinated societies preserve individual freedom? How might future architectures redefine family? And to what extent can design foster collective flourishing? What would some of the unintended consequences be for creating such a society? How would conflicts (which would be inevitable in any society) be handled? How would communal morals, values, laws, etc be followed? Clearly, there is a lot to consider when imagining our futures, but speculative design remains a powerful tool for revealing possibilities, questioning assumptions, and shaping more intentional paths forward for humans, science, and technology.
Images
Figure 1 – The Harmonium Spire: Dark image of the first draft of the Harmonium Spire (from MS Copilot)
Figure 2 – The Harmonium Spire: Here’s the brighter, more optimistic version of the Harmonium Spire – “now bathed in sunlight and surrounded by a joyful, vibrant cityscape” (from MS Copilot) 
Figure 3 – The Generational Gardens – Families stroll beneath glowing bioluminescent trees shaped in fractal patterns, sharing stories and laughter across generations. The symmetry and serenity of the space reflect the harmony and continuity that define this future world (from MS Copilot)
Figure 4 – An image of the close-up of one of the glowing trees; the radiant heart of the Generational Gardens (from MS Copilot)
Figure 5 – A Day in the “Harmonium Spire” (from MS Copilot)
AI Disclaimer
I used Microsoft Copilot to generate the text and images for the story prompt. I used ChatGPT to edit my work for clarity and grammar. All final edits on my reflection are my own.
References
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: Design, fiction, and social dreaming. The MIT Press. http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=7411587
Microsoft. (2024). Copilot [Large language model]. https://copilot.microsoft.com/
OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (GPT-5) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
Santa Clara University. (2018, November 6). Lessons from the AI Mirror Shannon Vallor [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40UbpSoYN4k&t=1s