The Sugar Detox Clinic is a sugar addiction detox clinic that is somewhere between a parody of the therapy industry and a futuristic dystopia of a society controlled by sweetness. The treatments, adapted to the profiles of different addicted consumers, are based on sensory studies that show that the perception of taste is influenced by the five senses: taste and smell, but also hearing, touch and sight. At Sugar Detox Clinic, addiction is treated with the product that probably best sums up our complicated relationship with sugar, the worst of the worst: Ominol. Designed in collaboration with BCC Innovation and the Food Hack Lab collective, the five gummies offered as treatments (one for each type of diagnosis) are both a prototype of food innovation and a small work of art within a work of art. As a sensory experience, gastronomy claims to be an art that combines creative skills and scientific knowledge. The kitchen space is also a social place and at the same time a domestic laboratory. In Sugar Detox Clinic, this diversity is cultivated through speculative design. If industrial design creates tools for the market, products that respond to a problem or need, speculative design explores concepts, proposing questions or experiences that broaden perspectives on that problem.
