Future Pamphlet

In the face of the climate emergency, how can spatial practice think about the future in critical, imaginative, and projective ways?

Some histories and hopes for the future.

There are many ways of thinking about the future. As far back as the Oracle of Delphi, who gave her name to a modern-day method of forecasting, people have turned their attention to the future to prepare for, avoid, or attempt to alter what is to come. Thinking about the future can entail many methods and motivations. If we look at how the future has been imagined in the past, numerous histories emerge. Some tell stories of speculation serving financial growth, others of futures thinking being used to envision and enact social and environmental equity, still others of artistic projections for unbounded imagination.

This pamphlet studies how the future has been thought about historically, and looks at methods for thinking in critical, projective, and imaginative ways about socially and ecologically viable futures today. Two stories illustrate the potential for futures thinking to serve very different ends.

This pamphlet is offered as a provisional statement on the topic and we welcome any comments that may help develop the ideas and argument. An audio version of the pamphlet can be found here.