From abstract ideas to experiential futures: Creating a tangible vision for a more sustainable and circular future
COMPANY
University of Washington
MY ROLE
Design Stategist
PROJECT TYPE
Master's Project
TIMEFRAME
10 weeks—2024
OVERVIEW
challenge
How do you transform abstract sustainability concepts into concrete, inspiring visions that communities can rally around and work toward together?
solution
Created a physical accordion book that translates complex sustainability research into an accessible, experiential community vision.
Team & Role
Lead Strategist: Led systems mapping, co-design workshop planning, and translating research insights into a design strategy
Worked with 3 Master's students, 2 design professors, and 5 sustainability experts
key skills
Systems thinking
Participatory design
Facilitation
Research synthesis
Complex problem articulation
impact
Created a replicable blueprint for translating complex systems challenges into community-driven visioning processes that other organizations can adapt and scale.
What if we lived in a world where sustainable living was the norm, where it was the more affordable, convenient, and fulfilling option?
What would this future actually look and feel like?
This is what we set out to answer…
CONTEXT
Transition Design is an emerging approach for guiding society towards sustainable, equitable futures through design-led systemic change.
This project was part of a Directed Research Group at the University of Washington, where we explored an emerging discipline—Transition Design— and systems thinking to understand the wicked problem of overconsumption in modern society.
the challenge
How might we help local sustainability organizations envision a better future to work towards, one that goes beyond overconsumption?
The process in a nutshell
What is the problem with overconsumption in the first place?
What does an alternative future look like, one without overconsumption?
How can we co-create a vision and bring it to life in way that helps people deeply experience this future?
The approach
Understanding and mapping the complex system behind overconsumption
Now, with a lot of information and visualizing connections… can I define this problem in a succinct way?
Why is it a problem in the first place?
What are the key contributing factors?
WHY IT's a Problem
Overconsumption depletes resources and worsens inequality.
Key contributing factors
Incentivized Overconsumption
Linear economy practices make unsustainable products cheap and accessible while sustainable alternatives remain expensive and inconvenient.
Profit from Excess Consumption
Companies profit from rapid consumption due to weak regulations, perpetuating unsustainable norms through manufacturing practices.
Lack of Policy and Regulation
Ineffective waste management and insufficient resource-sharing policies leave gaps in sustainable infrastructure development.
The fun part
How do we respond to the identified problems and translate insights into a realistic vision of a better future?
To ground the vision in realistic, evolving dynamics, we used a Signals, Trends, and Drivers Framework. I utilized this analysis to ensure that our vision of the future accounted for the signals and trends that we are already seeing play out in society.
Signals: Rise in minimalism and zero-waste behaviors
Trends: Circular economies reshaping product lifecycles
Drivers: Economic pressures and environmental degradation creating urgency
Co-design with sustainability experts and community members
We facilitated two co-design workshops with stakeholders from policy, non-profit, and community sectors. We wanted to learn:
What are the barriers to achieving a more sustainable/ circular future?
What are people's values when it comes to envisioning a better future? What kind of future do they actually want to live in?
Key Insights
Limited Accessibility: Circular practices remain difficult for many community members to adopt, due to time, resources, or money.
Collaboration Gaps: Insufficient partnerships between local communities and businesses make any real change difficult.
Missing Incentives: Few motivators exist for sustainable practice adoption, making people less likely to adopt.
Local Priority: Communities prefer local initiatives over tech-focused solutions.
Ideation
Exploring a variety of formats to communicate the vision
We initially considered various approaches to help people experience the vision:
a day-in-the-life video 20 years in the future
future business meeting storyboards
reimagined artifacts like redesigned coffee cups
We first landed on storyboards that demonstrated what a future business meeting might look like, with earth as a stakeholder in the room, speaking for itself.
However, this didn't land. The feedback we got was that it didn't resonate for people and we strayed too far from the local community values that people hold.
Pivot to community focus
We reframed our concept, grounding it in a future neighborhood where sustainable living is normalized because it's affordable, convenient, and fulfilling.
The final solution
An interactive accordion book that brings a circular economy vision to life
We chose a hands-on, interactive format that immerses users directly in this imagined world. Each page presents:
a short vignette about a "typical" scenario in a neighborhood
visuals to help readers imagine this neighbordhood
description of policies that would have to happen in order for the vision to be realistic
The impact
Providing a transition design blueprint
Empowering local sustainability organizations
Reflection
What I wanted to show you…
While this project isn't directly related to product design, it has shaped my thinking more-so than most projects I've done. It's given me a new perspective on problems, one that is broader and more aware of the contexts that it is in. I learned the importance (and challenge of) distilling complex findings and relationships into succinct problem statements.
What I'll bring with me to future projects…
Mapping Connections in a System: Complex problems require understanding interconnected relationships. My first inclination when solving a problem now is to always try to visualize it in some way to help me and others get unstuck and have breakthroughs in our thinking.
Experiential Prototyping: Abstract visions usually don't drive buy-in, but tangible, experiential artifacts can. People need to feel possibilities, not just understand them conceptually, and I always remember this when presenting my ideas.
Co-design should be fun!: When planning co-design (or other types of) workshops, even with internal stakeholders, make them fun. Or else they can start to feel extractive or a waste of time for people and who wants that.
see more of my work
More projects
Contact
I'd love to connect, share experiences, and grow together 🌱
Seattle, WA, USA
sstumme3@gmail.com
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