What's "Abundance"?
Abundance is a nine-minute design fiction film that explores a day in the life of a regenerative designer living in a post-flood future London. Created by Arup's Foresight team (professional services company) for the London Design Festival 2022, the film extends research from Arup's Regenerative Design report into speculative scenarios, imagining what daily life might look like if regenerative design principles were applied at scale.
Who's it for?
This project was aimed primarily at Arup's global membership to provoke internal conversations about the value and application of regenerative design thinking within commercial practice. The work was also presented to public audiences at the London Design Festival, engaging designers, policymakers, and those interested in climate adaptation and sustainable futures. The film addresses anyone questioning what trade-offs might be necessary to shift from convenient, extractive systems to less convenient but more regenerative ways of living.
Approach
The project uses Design Fiction as its primary method, employing a 'what if?' approach to extend existing research into tangible future scenarios.
The team developed concepts, props, and narratives that visualised regenerative principles in everyday contexts, creating a design fiction that made abstract sustainability concepts relatable.
The work combined strategic foresight (a blend of future-thinking, design-thinking, and practical application) with world building techniques to create a vision of a post-flood London. The film format allowed the team to communicate complex systemic changes through accessible storytelling about daily life.
Contribution
Abundance shows that making regenerative futures tangible through everyday scenarios, rather than abstract principles, helps organisations and individuals understand what systemic change means for lived experience.
The project provides a model for using design fiction to make sustainability trade-offs visible and discussable within professional services contexts.
The project demonstrates how design fiction can function as a strategic tool within commercial consultancy contexts to provoke dialogue about long-term transformation.
The work also reveals challenges when using design fiction within commercial environments, where connecting exploratory futures work to immediate business needs requires careful navigation.
Why is it in the Observatory?
This project exemplifies how design fiction can bridge research and practice in commercial contexts, demonstrating that speculative methods have value beyond academic settings. The work is significant for showing both the possibilities and challenges of conducting design fiction research within consultancy environments, where demonstrating business value whilst maintaining critical, future-oriented thinking requires strategic positioning.
The project offers valuable learning for researchers interested in applying design fiction methods in commercial settings.