This was the concluding workshop to a year -long collaboration between School of Humanities, RCA and the School of Design, Ambedkar University, to explore the productive relationship between design and uncertainty in the creation of utopias in a global present. The project was supported by a British Council Knowledge Economy Partnership Grant, to encourage pedagogical exchange between India and the UK. The paper considered the various 'roots' of critical design practice, in the context of post-1968 critical utopian thinking in architecture and speculative design.