“the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” Aspects of our future vision may already exist in the form of new projects, initiatives, practices, policies, technologies/innovations or ideas about or concepts for any of these.

Backcasting from long-term desired visions (that are based upon new paradigms) transcends current paradigms and imagines new ones. Backcasting brings the new paradigms into the present and asks what are steps toward these new ways of living, working, playing etc. Backcasting is concerned not with what futures are likely to manifest (forecasting)... See more

Kossoff’s Domains of Everyday Life framework is a systems/holistic approach for doing this.. The Domains framework places an emphasis on everyday life as the context within which people satisfy their needs and therefore the context within which future visions are developed.

Transition Design argues that it is necessary to develop visions of the future and interventions in the present that are grounded in integrated and contextualized knowledge. For this reason future visions are developed, and wicked problems addressed, in the context of everyday life, the level at which society reproduces itself from one day to the... See more

Environmentalist Michael Lockhart identifies four damaging forms of economic growth: “ jobless growth, where the economy grows, but employment doesn’t; ruthless growth, where economic growth benefits the rich; rootless growth, where economic growth starves people’s cultural roots; and futureless growth, where the present generation squanders... See more

Our economic system determines value and worth based upon quantities (usually monetary) rather than qualities (such as health of ecosystems and quality of life). Because economics is a highly abstract and decontextualized discipline it is unable to anticipate unpredictable systemic events such as economic breakdowns, or acknowledge the ecological... See more

What is the role of the designer in drawing together matters of concerns, rather than mere matters of facts, and help articulating individual interests in such a way as to constitute common interests? What would it mean for designers to embrace differences, even conflict, as inherent to the political project that is design?