A Life-centred Futures Project
A life-centred mattress from the future
A workshop set in 2030, where participants design with future tech, life-centred design, and a non-human persona to speculate a future life-centred version of an everyday product
About
In May 2023, I ran a Life-centred Futures Workshop with Speculative Futures Sydney.
The workshop was set in 2030, where participants designed with future tech, life-centred design, and a non-human persona to speculate a future life-centred version of an everyday product
In four teams, we explored a future where the world prioritises repairing and reusing over making new things by designing a future, life-centred version of an everyday, ubiquitous product that uses a lot of resources and creates a lot of landfill—mattresses.
Designing a sustainable and regenerative mattress and system
We used strategies from The Life-centred Design Guide and Future Scouting with future tech innovation and localised wisdom to redesign the manufacturing, supply, use, and reuse of mattresses, millions of which are made every year unsustainably and end up in landfill.
Non-human persona—protecting the River Systems
We also explored how the future life-centred mattress system could regenerate the non-human it impacted—the river systems that get polluted by its manufacturing and landfill.
Future speculations
With a mixture of future thinking, sustainability, regeneration, and humour, participants evolved and presented a spectrum of great ideas, including:
- Using biodegradable materials embedded with seeds and fish eggs so that at the mattress’ end of life they could be planted at the river’s edge to regenerate with new plant and fish life
- Using digital twin technology to show us the future environmental impacts of material choices so we can design better now
Thanks to everyone who participated
And to Speculative Futures Sydney ↗ for hosting!
Take the lead
Lead the way by redesigning your products and business to reduce environmental and social harm and regenerate the people and environments your system relies on.
“The ideas really resonated with me as I’ve felt this growing unease with human centred design’s echo chamber”
“Super helpful tools for designers… I’ll be sharing them with the students.”
“An amazing book about the topic.”
