Abstract

There is a lack of futures studies addressing consumption and lifestyles at the level of everyday life. This article reports on the transformation of the policy-orienting scenario "Legato", developed by the Swedish Energy Agency in 2016, to a practice-oriented design speculation. The article describes the process of transformation and the resulting energy fiction "Vitiden". The transformation involved three acts of translation. First, the scope of the transition was explored in-depth, both quantitatively and qualitatively, providing a more detailed understanding of the gap between the 'sustainable' 2050 and today. Second, the scenario Legato was analysed for practices and elements of practices that could be elaborated to descriptions of how everyday life could play out in this future. The third step involved re-presenting the practice-oriented scenario as a design speculation. The design speculation was given the form of a book named "Vitiden - an energy fiction" in which the re-formulated version of Legato is presented through text and images, combining a forward-looking manifesto and a backward-looking future archaeology. Besides the written content and the pictures and illustrations of Vitiden, the design of the book is also part of the speculation as it embodies an exploration of how publications, including form, graphic design and choice of materials, could look like in a future such as Legato.

Keywords

Speculative design; Energy fiction; Sustainable futures; Social practices; Energy system analysis

Published in

Futures
2019, Volume: 112, article number: 102440

SLU Authors

• Wangel, Josefin

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all


UKÄ Subject classification

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Design


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.102440

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/101236