Growing vegetables in your rooftop garden, soil+crop-leasing contracts with local farmers, vertical gardens, school gardens, … urban farming takes many forms. Amsterdam, Chennai, Detroit/Flint, Johannesburg, London, São Paolo … six cities exchanging ideas and experiences in the area of metropolitan agriculture. From 28-30 September 2010 the first Global Summit on Metropolitan Agriculture was held in Rotterdam (NL).

The event, and the MetropolitanAgriculture.com learning network as such, are an initiative of TransForum (& Reos Partners), a project-cluster partially funded by BSIK money which concluded its 5 year long series of activities at the end of 2010. TransForum focussed on the sustainable development of dutch agriculture in relationship to its urbanizing context.

The MetroAg Innoversity set out with joint scenarioplanning workshops “explore the opportunities for Metropolitan Agriculture based on contextual characteristics, assets and challenges in each city”, inspired by input from stakeholder interviews within participating cities. Later on, groups were formed to incubate ideas and draft prototypes. The summit gathered experiences and insights gained and looked ahead as how to scale and create enduring projects and processes.

At the occasion of the Summit, Jan Kees Vis, programme director of Unilever’s division of Sustainable Agriculture, used three words to sketch the pillars of his image of the future: “The right to food, ethics, metropolitan agriculture”. In the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, the company commits “to source 100% of [their] agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020.”

Via Ventiquattro

Future scenarios serve various purposes, one of which is to provide a contextual source of inspiration for new concepts for products/services/experiences. Throughout the years, working with scenarios as such in our participatory workshops brought to the surface many interesting insights.

For example, lately there appears to be an increasing tendency among people to stay away from the design of new physical objects as carriers of solutions for existing and possible future challenges. A few years ago, this still used to be different. Novelty, innovation, creativity used to be correlated rather unilaterally with new stuff. Now, the attempts of a growing number of participants in for example idea-generation or lo-fi prototyping/thinking-with-your-hands sessions that we organize, appear to be oriented towards trying to un-think ‘stuff’, to build further upon already existing ‘infrastructure’ or platforms for solutions, e.g. smartphones, social networks, etc.

A preliminary closer look at this phenomenon leads us to a series of possible explanations, which are most likely interrelated.

First, sustainability has become a top future challenge to most people, leading to a more critical stance when it comes to conceptualizing yet another physical object/product. Second, a paradigmatic shift has taken place in the way many of our technological tools have evolved: from mono-use type of objects, over multi-use, many of our tools have become platforms of/for solutions. Hence one can extend them, build upon them without the need for something completely new. Think apps, think modular hardware bodies combined with upgradeable software, open standards, etc. Third, thinking of solutions in terms of services is becoming more common. In many cases the services are the solutions without a new tangible product. Fourth, many of the major challenges identified when it comes to the future are increasingly complex and deal with designing for behavioural change, shifting focus to a people-based how? rather than an objects-based what?.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Social, cultural and economic context obviously also plays a role in whether people tend to focus on designing things vs. designing solutions.  Nevertheless these observations lead to interesting questions when it comes to a changing attitude of innovation, of design, and also of the  kind of skills and insights we would like tomorrow’s problem solvers and solution providers to have. Perhaps it is but a mere rediscovery of the notion of a solution, a broadening of its scope, beyond its most physical embodiment. A shift worth exploring further …

The Bank of America teams up MIT’s MediaLab to set up a Center for Future Banking. The new center will operate with a $3-5m annual budget for a period of five years and

“… explore new ideas in banking by inventing technologies that reveal and leverage insights across a wide range of physical and social scales, from one-on-one customer interactions to global transactions. Researchers will address such questions as: ‘How can every customer be empowered with the knowledge and tools to take better control of their financial futures?’ ‘How will banking interactions evolve as a customer’s physical and virtual worlds become completely intertwined?’ and ‘How will social networks and mobile platforms transform customers’ banking experiences, making it easier, more convenient, and better integrated with their daily lives?’.”

Prof. Deb Roy, Chair of MIT’s academic program in media arts & sciences who will lead the project, says:

“We will create a focus of intellectual energy that brings together researchers with radically different perspectives, including behavioral economists, social scientists, computer scientists, psychologists, designers, and others who share a passion for invention. It’s a recipe for producing unexpected new ideas that will trigger significant innovations in the world of banking.”

The world of banking is changing drastically, not only from within, but in major ways also under influence of external developments, which pose new challenges for existing players in the field as well as opportunities for new ones. For example, on the ‘cheap end of innovation’, discount banks popping up everywhere are forcing many players to change their businesses and offer added value in new innovative ways. Worldwide, local and networked communities are stepping up to fill gaps left by the business players and open new markets, introduce new (or redress old) models also in the banking sector. While still marginal now, initiatives such as Zopa, a p2p online loan bank, or community bank Umpqua (experience-designed by Ziba), but also initiatives such as the Grameen Foundation‘s microfinancing model (see also a previous post), the Children’s Development Bank by Butterflies in India, investing in kidpreneurs show the changing face of banking and the mechanisms behind it. As customers become pickier and more demanding, technology offers new possibilities and banks realize customer-centred reasoning pas off, many future-oriented initiatives of existing banks are focusing on improving the overall customer experience through better, more human-centred design of their spaces and products. See for example Deutsche Bank’s Q110 bank of the future. They also aim to enhance simplicity, flexibility and customer enjoyment.

Feel free also to check out this (slightly dated) IBM podcast on the future of banking (or read the transcript).

The UK government’s Foresight programme & the Government Office for Science recently published their full report on the theme of obesity, titled Foresight – Tackling Obesities: Future Choices.

“By 2050, Foresight modelling indicates that 60% of adult men, 50% of adult women and about 25% of all children under 16 could be obese. Obesity increases the risk of a range of chronic diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease and also cancer and arthritis. The financial impact to society attributable to obesity, at current prices, is estimated to become an additional £45.5 billion per year by 2050 with a seven fold increase in NHS costs alone. “

The study arguments for an integrative approach in tackling the issue and notes how the challenge bears resemblence to the societal shift needed to counter climate change. Also regarding obesity, multiple levels of societal scale need to be addressed, i.e. personal, family, community and national. “It requires partnership between government, science, business and civil society.”

Watch the video summing up the 4 future scenario’s here or check here for more background reading.

Benetton’s Research Centre on Communication Fabrica in Treviso (Italy) hosts the Stock Exchange of Visions. Molded after an idea by Gregor Kuschmirz, the “Stock Exchange of Visions creates a dialogue between world’s brightest minds and a broader audience interested in the future of our planet.” 

It consists of an interactive installation/knowledge experience, which has already been on show at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Trienale in Milan (and will travel onwards). Visions are categorized into 5 blocks: culture, economy, resources, environment and society. Visions are represented textually as well as in video-messages. Among the visionaries interviewed are Al Gore, Ervin Laszlo, Bruce Mau, Alan Cooper, Godfrey Reggio, Joep van Lieshout, Wolfgang Sachs, etc.

The future of agriculture is a much debated issue: eco-footprint, spatial footprint, bio-mass and bio-fuel production, …
A recent BBC article relaunched the idea of vertical farming. Think: skyscrapers built to grow and process food on location, e.g. downtown Manhattan (instead of importing it by land, sea or air). Columbia University Professor Dickson Despommier sees several advantages:

• Year round crop production in a controlled environment
• All produce would be organic as there would be no exposure to wild parasites and bugs
• Elimination of environmentally damaging agricultural runoff
• Food being produced locally to where it is consumed
• [...] vertical farming would allow some existing traditional farms to be returned to natural forests. Good news in a time of global warming.

Many people in the low countries will experience it as a kind of déjà-vu. The idea is reminiscent of the Dutch architectural firm Maas-van Rijs-de Vries’ (better known as MVRDV) pig cities.

Image courtesy of MVRDV

We all know that statistics can reveal interesting things. While their data might be revealing in itself, it is the information in terms of correlations and comparisons that best illustrate statistics added value. But the way in which we ‘communicate’ and ‘experience’ statistics makes all the difference.

Many books have been written on the topic of the visualization and communication of statistics, such as the marvellous works of Edward Tufte (e.g. the visual display of quantitative information, visual explanations: images and quantities, evidence and narrative). Statistics can tell stories and stories – because they contextualize, they bring closer and render abstractions tangible, experiencable – can influence actions, decisions.

In his second talk at TED, Professor of International Health at the renowned Swedish Karolinska Institutet, and co-founder of GapMinder (now part of Google Tools), Hans Rosling shows how statistics can tell their stories in a better way, touching heart and senses as much as mind and calculators.

Not only does he make use of his by now famous animated graphs (cf. Trendalyzer) showing the evolution of data and correlations over time, he also brings in a personal dimension by linking the data over time to for example family events, thereby enhancing the meaningfulness of the stats to its audience (cf. ‘grandma verified statistics’). Rosling also showed Dollarstreet, a project in which the annual income of families across time and the impact thereof on their life situation is brought to life. What does living on 1$ a day mean? How does it compare to 5$ or 10$? What does it mean? Look at the house, the sanitary conditions, the kitchen, the sofa … in the families’ houses and experience the meaning of sheer numbers.

From data and mind to sense and heart …
Image courtesy of gapminder.org

The city-tour foundation Antwerpen Averechts recently launched a new initiative called the cityLabo. CityLabo wishes to question people’s relationship with their city, to interact with and dialogue with them through various means. How do inhabitants and visitors of the city experience their city of the 21st century? Will it be a safe haven or a grim environment? What does the ideal city look like for a common urban dweller or an urban expert, planner, architect? What could these parties mean to each other?

CityLabo currently organizes an exhibition at the Permeke city library in Antwerp (Belgium), featuring the work of eight young graphic illustrators who draw their future city as they hope, fear, expect it to be.

While everything else seems to be going wireless, one of the few things that keeps us attached to cable and plugs is power. It has been a long-time dream of many to transfer energy from one location to another. Some see powerstations in space as a way to still our hunger for energy on earth by beaming it in. (space, table to recharge, kind of osmosis). But also on earth, in our kitchens and living rooms, we dream about powering electronic domestic appliances and gadgets without using power cords. A research team led by Professor Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo’s Engineering Department developed sheets of plastic, flexible electronics able to transmit energy to any appliance that touches its surface, provided it is equipped with a coil and energy-harvesting circuitry. One sheet senses where the appliance is, the other provides power directly and only to that location.

The age-old principle of electromagnetic induction allows electricity to travel over short distances between coils. Assistant professor Marin Soljacic and his team at the MIT’s Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics took it a bit further and looked into non-radiative energy transfer over larger distances. Now, as they recently succeeded in wirelessly powering a 60W light bulb over a distance of 2 metres without any contact, WiTricity was born.

The future starts looking ever more wireless, ever more ‘cloud’-like (cf. dataclouds, powerclouds, etc.).

Via Slashdot

People often associate memory with the past, yet memory also plays a central role in looking at the future. Not only do past experiences or knowledge thereof influence the way people look at tomorrow, also the memory of shared experiences during the process of exploring and/or (en)visioning futures plays a role in how people look at and act upon their views of the future.

At Pantopicon we go about futures exploration and (en)visioning in participatory ways. Time and again we realize how much added value(s) is to be gained in paying qualitative attention to documenting the participatory, often multi-stakeholder, process in various ways (cf. steps, atmospheres, ‘dramatic moments’, products, perspectives, different media, etc.), value for ourselves but most of all also for the client and participants. It allows to increase the group’s mnemonic grip upon the trajectory, makes certain group-dynamic related processes and events explicit, enhances learning (collaboratively and also in terms of methodology),  allows to capture valuable ‘working material’ for later reflection and/or use, helps to manage generated knowledge and share experiences with and beyond the group thereby increasing participatory motivation, strengthening common ground, common purpose,  etc. to name but a few. The trap of classical project management is often to limit documentation of the process to in-between deliverables, often also purely textual or ‘bullets-and-arrows’-prose as a friend calls it. Once beyond that barrier, the notion of ‘seeing is believing’ gets a whole new meaning.

The Ford Motor Company recently embarked on a journey in which the process’ ‘documentation’ was used in such a tool-like, purposeful fashion. FordBoldMoves.com documents a year of ‘open‘ futuremaking, “a year of meeting challenges and creating opportunities” at Ford Motor Company. ‘Open’ – in the contemporary fashion – because the company pulled back the curtain, gives people an in-kitchen view as well as a voice in their journey to answer the question “how can Ford be successful in the future?”

“Ford Bold Moves is a video documentary series that takes you inside Ford Motor Company as it attempts one of the largest corporate turnarounds in history. With candid interviews from Ford executives, employees, industry experts and even Ford detractors, Bold Moves approaches each segment from every angle and keeps asking the question: Will Ford succeed?

Bold Moves also involves you in the actual corporate decision-making process—allowing you to engage, debate and discuss what you think is relevant.”

Although the project received quite a bit of criticism (e.g. being overdesigned/window dressing, too Ford-centric, more campaign than open experiment, etc.), some rightfully, some not, do take a look at a fascinating experiment to document, show, envision, build capacity, involve stakeholders, etc.

The future of our world depends upon a variety of uncertainties, including the extent to which we will manage to lead more sustainable lives. Sustainability is no longer an academic discussion, but an actionable must for each and every one of us. There are various ways to go about it and part of the persuasion picture is definitely through social innovation.

Design of the time 2007 - or dott07 in short – is a project set in North East England which not only aims to shed light upon this but also to try and set things in motion by initiating and funding several real-world projects. Directed by John ‘Doors of Perception’ Thackara, dott 07 is …

“an initiative of the Design Council and the regional development agency, One NorthEast” … “[it] enables communities and individuals in North East England to collaborate with designers in real-life situations. These projects are small but important examples of what life in a sustainable region might be like.

Dott 07 projects set out to improve six aspects of daily life in practical ways. They deal with health issues, food, school, energy, tourism, and travel. “

The community projects aimed at opening up new sustainable futures are titled Urban Farming, Low Carb Lane, Design & Sexual Health, MoveMe, OurNewSchool, Alzheimer 100 and New Work.

Knowing John as a master networker and one of the best moderators out there, I can assure you that the twelve-day Dott07 festival which will sum up a year of dott07 in October of this year, will be an event to look forward to.

Design prototyping is an excellent way to bring imaginable future(s) to life, to make them visible, tangible, ‘experiencable‘ and allow people to deal with their meaning(s) in versatile ways. Prototyping – whether conceptual or physical – makes for possible contextual scenarios in the foresight-sense to give rise to possible scenarios-of-use in the user centred design-sense. As such, in foresight activities these designs not only help to evoke more in-depth qualitative reflections from stakeholders, they can also give direct leads as to how to take up certain strategic challenges posed by the scenario, thereby co-creating new value(s).

In ways reminiscent of experimental projects by Philips Design as well as the EU research project Designing for Future Needs (see also here), and with a time horizon of about 10 years, industry partners and students at Victoria University of Wellington School of Design in New Zealand envisioned future solutions in an initiative titled Design Led Futures.

Professor Simon Fraser started it in order to challenge students “to step back from the constraints of daily practice, to look beyond the immediate product, to look at it in context, and to investigate the broader issues that surround it – human issues, issues of society, culture and behaviour – including emotional issues that are fundamental to industrial design as a discipline.”

So far three projects have been concluded, in which the focus lay explicitly upon the overall experience rather than the mere object of design :

• domestic bliss: students were required to create a new understanding of the role that appliances (such as fridges, washing machines and cookers) might play in the architecture and culture of the home
• inside-out: project on the theme of outdoor living and the role that appliances might play in making this possible and pleasurable
• energising water: project to explore and create a new understanding of the base material of water by creatively applying existing or new, specifically developed technologies

Check out the fascinating concepts that students developed.

As part of their 75th birthday celebrations (congratulations!) the Dutch linguistic society ‘Genootschap Onze Taal‘ launched a kind of competition inviting people to share how they imagine dutch language to be in the future, time horizon: 2082. For the dutch-speaking readers among you, set your imagination in motion and give it a try.

It reminded me immediately of Michael Winterbottom’s unique scifi movie ‘Code 46‘ in which a future society is brought to life in very subtle ways. Instead of megabudget Hollywoodian visual effects, among other things the director played with the how language (e.g. vocabulary) could change under the influence of socio-cultural factors such as immigration, total surveillance, identity theft or technological ones such as biogenetics etc.

Thanks for the link Jan!

One of the beauties of the pantopical viewpoint is that it reflects the wonderful diversity of ways in which people look at the future of certain aspects of their lives and express them in terms of their dreams, nightmares, expectations, wonderings … As such, following our participatory approach, breathing life into the future by visualizing one’s views on it, is something we like to do – and find important to do so – also beyond the boundaries of our day-to-day projects with customers in the public and private realm.

Therefore, after a long hiatus we decided to kickstart our FFWD>> competition again to involve you (yes, also you) in showcasing this diversity of views on the future. So we would hereby like to invite all you photoshoppers, mattepainting fans and visually creative minds out there, to participate in a new series of FFWD>> events. Current theme: education. How do you think education might look 20 years from now? Share with us a look through your mind’s eye.

Feel free to browse previous entries in the FFWD>> archive.

Some of you might know Jan Chipchase from his blog Future Perfect, one that sounds like music to our ears for obvious reasons. At Nokia Design, Jan is involved in envisaging new product concepts with a timehorizon of 3-15 years.

In one of his recent blog posts, Jan writes:

“Delivered a presentation to the S.E.T. studio in Tokyo – in a funky, and funkily-wired building just off Harajuku’s Takeshita Dori – a working environment that also functions as a test-space for ‘living’ new ideas. “

This sounds like a wonderful ‘future room’ which we’d love to know more about.

Worth mentioning on the methodological front: recently Jan gave two presentations, wonderfully documenting some of his/their recent experiences with user-centred, field-based methods to scanning into emerging trends happening out there in the world and taking inspiration from these observations to think about possible alternative futures that might arise in time. However, the presentations appear to focus more on the design research part of the process, than on the part in which alternative futures are explored.

Via our friends at Putting People First