Analysing and prototyping future paradigms
by Giorgio Orsucci
Design helps craft products and services, sleek new buildings, smooth digital experiences, hip brands. Design-led companies are proven to outperform their peers. Design agencies, creative studios, and brand consultancies count in the millions.
“Design Thinking” has further expanded the role of Design to the business world, unlocking a wave of design-savvy, human-centred innovation.
Design is now growing as a tool to craft Systems and Futures too: design, broadly speaking, is being used to manage complexities (e.g. to design new transportation systems), create positive incentive systems (e.g. through policy design), or ideate whole new systems to ultimately improve human life (e.g. economic paradigms, urban design, sustainable transition).
However, there are many "walls" that hinder the use of design methodologies in systemic and future-studies domains — for example:
"Coordination Wall" — Designing future systems requires coordination among multiple stakeholders, both from the private and public sectors, and it involves an exceptional level of complexity. Easier for a national railway to innovate, than for a country to lead mobility innovation across all mobility solutions, for both passengers and freight, with present and future technologies, societal trends, and cascading effects in mind.
"Future Wall" — Long-term plans are hard to sell, particularly within time-constrained democratic systems or shareholders, bounded by limited long-term incentives, and proving their impact can be difficult.
The combo of both walls is a deadly mix for visionary, long-term, societal innovation projects. As a result, design is often seen as a cosmetic layer to spread on products and services, rather than a fundamental component of systemic paradigms and long-term incentive systems.
And yet, with higher global complexities and interconnectedness, is systemic long-term design becoming increasingly important? If yes, how to “breach” these walls?