Future prototypes that raise thoughts about sustainable development

Experiencing the future before it is here can be difficult. How does it look? How does it feel? And what is the reaction when you get a glimpse into the future? Is it attractive or something to avoid? We want to raise these types of questions with the project that are now support in our call for proposals "Future prototypes".

In the projects, artifacts from the future will visit us in the present. Through these meetings, we develop our thoughts and feelings about various alternative futures, in aim to stimulate innovative ideas about how we best act today to accelerate the journey towards a sustainable common future. For the future is something we create together - nothing that just happens to us.

We received many exciting applications and last week we have read stories about many different futures, focusing on everything from intimacy to sustainable food production, a society without cars, overconsumption, global warming and urban planning.

Vinnova makes this effort to increase the innovation capacity of our key players through speculative design - a researched method for practicing the ability to think about different futures.

Funded projects project

Here is a short summary of the eleven exciting project that receive funding to develop their future prototypes. During the project, we will be able to follow them more closely and get more information about how they develop here on the blog.

The epic of mobile society captures thoughts about the future relationship to home, living environment, community, employment and community service in a changing world. What will be a society where a significant part of the population lives in mobility as a result of climate change?

We work, we share, we care ask questions about how our living environments will work, if cities and places develop a higher degree of autonomy and decentralized work.

The preventive clinic is trying to find answers about what future care may look like. The development with prevention and preventive measures can provide great benefits but at the same time have major consequences for us as individuals. Are we at all ready for a shift from treatment to prevention?

Signage for change is about a future where the boundaries of the city and communities change, perhaps due to weather effects or other influences. How should the city meet changing behaviors, new domesticated technologies and services to help citizens cope.

Preffi: Odysseus pacts in the supermarket ask the question of what can happen if you introduce (voluntary or mandatory) restrictions on consumption. Do we want the opportunity to introduce limited room for maneuver in order to contribute to sustainable change in this way, or does it give rise to new dilemmas?

The mark of the times begins with how we have historically communicated power, history, and progress. Various symbols have carried the meaning of, for example, technological achievements - can we include or transfer these symbols into the future as well?

Citizen Stake Stock uses the game format to access the choices we make. Artifacts such as new passports affect and enable access to places and functions. Here are thoughts about currencies but also aspects around increased direct democracy.

METACLUB asks the question of how cohabitation and intimacy can be experienced and shaped in a world where physical contact is impossible (such as during a pandemic).

The conversion hotel's marine allotment will test how we can use more environments in a blue conversion. Can we activate, clean and produce food in the oceans? The next generation of allotments may be underwater with the cultivation of algae and mussels.

Norra Matgårdsstaden - Our urban harvest festival 2052 examines the development of self-sufficient districts but far more developed than traditional urban cultivation. It is about industrial production in cathedral-like factories, with circulation of nutrients and energy that contributes to a future district where the cycle of food, energy, water, sewage also has consequences for social life.

A new urban life norm is based on changed behaviors around trade. Retail in stores has strongly contributed to the street scene we have today. Changed status norms and behaviors around consumption can therefore affect city centers. Does it lead to a different kind of local use or a division of surfaces?