Futuring – The development of a transmedia toolkit (TAK)
This project aims to use the future as a compass in order to connect it with acting in the present. A transmedia toolkit is being developed for this purpose. It facilitates design-oriented future thinking together with stakeholders in social challenges. In this project the toolkit will be applied to accelerate energy transition in the built environment.
Objective
The aim of this project is to further develop the research method in a future-proof, online and offline form. This is called the transmedia toolkit. It facilitates stakeholders to use future thinking around a social issue to arrive at radical, widely supported innovations.
Results
A hybrid (online/offline) toolkit that can be used in education and in organizations, and in processes that also involve non-professionals.
Duration
01 December 2020 - 30 November 2021
Approach
Most vision building methods linearly extrapolate the past via the present to the future. Probing the future breaks with that continuity by taking a leap into the distant future. Imagination, reframing and speculative design are used to make a spectrum of possible futures imaginable.
Extra information
As systemic design thinkers at the Hogeschool Utrecht (HU), we have been using this future thinking as a research method for some time to work on complex issues. We do this together with governments, citizens and other relevant organizations, and in education we train Communication and Multimedia Design students.
Relevance
Professional practice requires methods that link participation in district-
oriented energy transition to other social challenges. We are looking for
ways to link the energy transition with working on a sustainable living
environment and also by residents themselves. There is a need for short-
term thinking. The challenge is to connect possible futures with acting in
the present, so that we achieve radical innovation.
Co-financing
KIEM.K20.01.037
Additional documents and referrals
HU researchers involved in the research
Collaboration with knowledge partners
The toolkit is being developed in collaboration with creative partners, Design Innovation Group and The Wrong Songs.
Validation will take place in a practical case of Energy cooperative Energie-U, "Utrecht residents who promote, organize and monitor sustainable energy at home, in their neighbourhood and in our Utrecht residents who stimulate, organize and monitor sustainable energy at home, in their neighbourhood and in our city.
