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Future of Making: reimagining our material culture
To become regenerative designers, we must first imagine regenerative futures. Future of Making aims to make a regenerative future tangible and emotionally real. It seeks to inform, inspire and instigate change.
There are many examples of regenerative design in action. However, applying the principles that sit at the heart of regenerative design at scale - in the making of places, spaces and things - requires a fundamental rethink of our entire economic and social systems.
What happens, for instance, if we embrace regenerative principles for our material flows? What if there really was no such thing as waste? If values change, practices are challenged; and engineers’ and designers’ operating contexts are radically reshaped.
Our exploration of the Future of Making brings to light the new cultural values, new skills and competencies, new processes and synergies that might appear if we reframe our understanding of ‘growth’, ‘waste’ and ‘resources’. What new kind of growth emerges when the line of extraction, production and consumption becomes a circle?
The output of our futures research programme is a collection of speculative fiction, artefacts and prototypes, evidence-based essays, case studies of emergent change and provocative prompts. They are designed to help you engage with possible futures and for us to collectively prepare for them. This is for you – as an individual practitioner or as an organisation – to develop your thinking and to become an active participant in shaping a regenerative future.
What might our future operating context look, and feel like?
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Future of Making is designed to inform, inspire and instigate change
Future of Making takes a ‘whole-system’ view, divided into six sections. Each section captures one stage in a circular future of making. As in all circular systems, there is no specific start or finish. You can enter at any point; all sections are equally important to ensure the function of the whole cycle.
Recovery – challenges the way we currently value materials, in their raw and processed state. It highlights the real cost of material extraction and disposal as well as the opportunities for extending material lifespans, thus extending their use.
Transformation – looks at processes of material transformation and manufacturing. It discusses new technologies that seek drastically to reduce energy requirements, new materials with minimal planetary impacts, and how nature can inspire both through biomimicry and bio-utilisation.
Design – focuses on intangible elements that have significant impact. How do stakeholder agendas and interests inform and preserve design practices? As nature becomes a rightsholder as well as a collaborator, it can fundamentally change how we make decisions.
Collaboration – widens the scale and looks at symbiotic relationships in the making ecosystem. It shows how collaboration among all participants can drive regenerative practices and increase efficiency. It builds on the notion that, in natural systems, one entity’s waste is another’s resource.
Logistics – investigates the movement of products at the urban scale, where the so-called ‘last mile’ has a disproportionate impact in the supply chain. Here, we challenge just-in-time logistics and the need for speed - a key measurement of efficiency but a root cause of environmental damage.
Completing the circle, Re-use – takes us back to value, this time of ‘product’. It examines how extending the lifespan of products and parts helps to achieve a more regenerative future. Preferring re-use and repair over recycle, this section focuses on new business models.
Bringing the Future of Making to life
The world of the Future of Making is designed to be experienced; it has been exhibited the Dubai Future Forum, Singapore Design Week and in Arup’s London offices in March 2025.
Foresight can help your organisation anticipate, and shape, better futures. Want to bring the Future of Making into your own space? Get in touch using the form below.
