Urban Heat Studio

Policy makers dealing with climate resilience have the difficult task of aligning diverse stakeholders to understand problems that will manifest 20 years from now. Experiential futures allow to step into radically different “worlds”, and critique today’s situations in light of desired future states. This design research explores how experiential climate scenarios might help climate practitioners to a) surface emotions about futures and b) openly investigate barriers and opportunities that underlie our assumptions about these futures. It applies research for design, involving a futuring process to develop a narrative scenario and qualitative interviews with resilience leaders to understand the use of narrative, visioning and experiences in policy and civil society. In research through design, it translates insights generated in the futuring process into an experiential future of a long-term transformation in the form of an immersive theater play, supported by sense making and community building activities in a two-day event for 30 climate resilience practitioners, policy makers and creatives. Experiential climate futures still need to gain trust among policy makers, so we offer a case study to communicate the value of the approach. Finally, we discuss experiential climate scenario approaches in the context of transformative governance, anti-discrimination, and the cultural and creative industries.

Publications:
HeatCon Case Study (Zine)

Downloads

Final report