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“Future Design,” a new movement among Japanese researchers and stakeholders, asks the following question: What types of social systems are necessary if we are to leave future generations sustainable environments and societies? Looking at the human activity impact on the global environment and society, I ask: Why is this society we live in generating a series of future failures that will cost future generations so much? I then argue that the source of such a society could be liberalism and that the market and democracy derived from it will not help avoid these future failures. To achieve this, one must design social systems that activate a human trait called futurability, where people experience an increase in happiness because of deciding and acting toward foregoing current benefits to enrich future generations. One method to study these is by employing “imaginary future generations”. Here, I present an overview of the theoretical background of this method, the results of relevant laboratory and field experiments, and the nature of relevant practical applications implemented in cooperation with several local governments.

This study explores a design fiction approach in an educational context by applying it to a third-year industrial design studio class. The Food Futures project is conducted with thirty students in the design studio. We approached the future of food using a design fiction approach since the combination of food and design is a highly complex and social issue that requires a systems-level change. The project started with a design fiction workshop to adapt the approach to the class. After the students had written their briefs in the context of the future storyworlds, the project continued with weekly critique sessions. The data is collected through the project outcomes, recordings, and questionnaires. A methodological discussion about using this approach in the educational context is presented based on the collected reflections. We argue that design fiction can be used in studio projects for research and idea-generation phases to support divergence processes through building storyworlds. Furthermore, we examined how this approach can be integrated into design education based on how students defined their limitations considering their visualisation techniques and design intervention levels (product, product-service-system, spatio-social) within future storyworlds. Imbued with the ability to envision socio-technical environments, we see design fiction as a useful tool for adapting industrial design education to emerging approaches such as systemic design and transition design.

As design evolves, language serves as a bridge between envisioned futures and the ontological elements of design that shape them. This manuscript presents an alternative glossary that gathers words from diverse disciplines and practices intersected by a decolonial lens that challenges hegemonical narratives. The glossary of the world to come results from a three-day workshop that focused on language as a formal, normative, and subversive tool capable of defining future behaviour and destabilizing the present. The terms are some among the many that exist to form this decolonial world.

Designers working towards social change have often focused on designing discrete solutions to social problems, rather than working within the long-term world-making practices of movements. This paper examines the potential of a more embedded design practice within prefigurative movements, where mutual aid networks, worker cooperatives, and other solidarity economy initiatives are already developing alternative systems in the present. What if we could design everyday tools with these collectives to embody their transformative visions? Yet it can be difficult to design for transformation collaboratively. Collectives include members with diverse visions that can conflict, as well as different ideas about how to create change. To explore these challenges, I discuss a project that guided local prefigurative collectives in articulating and sharing their visions of a future 100 years beyond the fall of capitalism by co-creating an illustrated map. The project achieved the collaborative articulation of transformed futures, and it also initiated a dialogue on how to design for these transformative visions today. Moving forward, the project raises questions about the risks of sharing diverging visions while attempting to build coalitions, as well as the opportunity to clarify where our dreams overlap and diverge, empowering collective members to take non-normative steps with confidence.

In an era where technology increasingly blurs the boundaries between humans and machines, artifacts have become crucial mediums for critically examining the technological, social, and ethical dimensions of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI). This study explores artifacts as a key yet underutilized medium for speculation in the evolving field of HCI from a systemic perspective. While artifacts increasingly enable HCI to move beyond optimizing user experiences towards critically and collaboratively envisioning futures, perspectives comprehensively examining artifacts across the speculative design process and their impacts remain limited. Through a literature review of 53 speculative artifacts within the scope of HCI, this research elucidates the roles of artifacts across intention, making, and impact. Four categories of speculative artifacts emerged—Reflective, Exploratory, Interventional, and Heuristic—demonstrating how artifacts employ material, ambiguous, functional, and provocative forms to shape experiences, behaviors, and social norms. This study highlights the need for HCI to increasingly recognize the capacity of artifacts to support critical, sustained, participatory speculation by providing tangible representations of alternative futures. Speculative artifacts thus serve as powerful mediums to engage in societal discourse around the ethics and values of emerging technologies and to envision and enact responsible innovation. The materialization of alternative futures through artifacts allows researchers to reimagine socio-technological relationships, pushing design into inclusive, controversial spaces where diverse stakeholders can collaboratively shape desired and undesired futures.

The unprecedented development of artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for computers to imitate and surpass human intelligence (HI). Hybrid intelligence is the result of the co-evolution of AI and HI and has huge application potential in promoting the sustainable development of human society. This study starts from the similarities and differences between biological neural networks and artificial neural networks, compares the cognitive foundations of human intelligence and artificial intelligence, highlights the difference and connection between AI and HI, and puts forward the necessity and inevitability of their co-evolution to achieve hybrid intelligence with complementary advantages. Hybrid intelligence stands to become the pivotal force driving purposeful and planned sustainable creative behavior in the artificial intelligence era. This study proposes a design cognitive creation model based on human–computer collaboration that considers computational design thinking as the central concept. Moreover, the paradigm shift of design under hybrid intelligence intervention are explored from five aspects: “tool evolution”, “response mode”, “output result”, “iterative optimization” and “system innovation”. Finally, this article constructs a creative intervention mechanism of design creation driven by hybrid intelligence and discusses its role playing in the design activities of sustainable multiverse construction in the future. The proposal of the multiverse model transcends the confines of the metaverse’s virtual worldview and embraces sustainable development for value guidance. It advocates a future trajectory for humanity that hinges on technological progress, fostering a prosperous, balanced, and harmonious coexistence between the natureverse, socialverse, and digitalverse. This approach is not only rational and scientific, but also inherently sustainable.

Coping with intergenerational conflicts is one of the fundamental keys to building a sustainable society. However, current decision-making systems tend to be inclined towards the preferences of present generations, simply because future generations do not yet exist and therefore cannot participate in present-day negotiating processes. In this paper, with an aim towards reconciling possible intergenerational conflicts, we present the first attempt at creating a participatory intergenerational deliberation practice by creating “imaginary future generation” groups to represent future generations and negotiate with present-generation groups regarding future visions and associated decision making. To accomplish this, a series of workshops were organized in a local municipality in Japan in which participating imaginary future-generation groups and present-generation groups first deliberated separately, and then worked together, to form a consensus over prioritizing policy measures associated with their separate visions of the municipality in 2060. We then analyzed deliberation and consensus-building processes used and observed a stark contrast in deliberation styles and priorities between the groups. For example, imaginary future-generation-group measures were primarily characterized by utilizing existing local resources, while the present-generation groups aimed more at solving current problems. Notably, the consensus-building processes resulted in choosing more than half of the measures originally proposed by the imaginary future-generation groups, thereby indicating that decision-making preferences had shifted to future generations. We contend that our approach, which is based on introducing imaginary future-generation groups as stakeholders, could provide indicators towards coping with intergenerational conflicts via present-day decision-making processes.

The three pillars of society—democracy, the market, and science and technology—are not systems that guarantee survival. This is because they will cause “future failures” that will eventually impose heavy burdens on future generations. Therefore, we need to design mechanisms to reinforce these three systems. This is called future design. Its basic concept is “futurability,” which is the ability of the current generation to prioritize the interests of future generations. This study examines the necessity of futurability, its background, and its relationship with intergenerational equity. In particular, using a simple numerical model in which the investment of the current generation affects the resources of future generations, this article shows that if each generation looks only to its own interests, humanity will face extinction. To ensure the survivability of humanity, each generation must demonstrate futurability, especially the importance of demonstrating futurability in a non-steady state.

A scenario approach is often used to envision sustainable futures. Several important scenario design factors are identified in the literature, which include the demonstration of deliberation and the participation of stakeholders; however, specific methodologies of scenario design are yet to be established. Accordingly, in this study, we demonstrate a series of workshops involving ordinary citizens for energy visioning in Suita city, Japan, and propose a new citizen-participatory scenario design methodology based on the combination of scenario design and future design approaches. It is shown that the inclusion of future generations in deliberation is effective for creating future visions in a specific context and deriving policy implications. Specifically, by analyzing the deliberation process and the proposed scenarios, it was confirmed that the scenarios proposed by future generations were proactive in terms of paying the costs incurred to facilitate the realization of policies toward achieving a long-term vision. Furthermore, even though the proposals made by the future generations imposed additional burdens for current generations, post-workshop scenario assessment revealed that current generations are supportive of these scenarios. It is concluded that the proposed methodology is effective since it can overcome uncertainties, include holistic scopes, and consider a long-term time horizon.