In a context marked by profound instability and continuous change, the future takes shape as a fundamental tool for expanding the horizon of design. Not as something to be predicted, but as a reflective dimension that stimulates the imagination, opening the way to the construction of possible scenarios and to the definition of visions capable of guiding action in the present.
According to the writer H. P. Lovecraft, the unknown generates fear in human beings, an emotion that has played a crucial evolutionary role in survival, protecting us from potential dangers. However, the unknown does not represent only a threat, but also a generative resource: it is from what we do not know that new narratives, visions, and civilizations emerge.
As the anthropologist David Graeber states, it is precisely imagination that distinguishes humans from other animals: «…it differentiates humans from animals, a bee from an architect».
Even the simple question “What if?” becomes fundamental in shifting design toward the realm of hypothesis and the exploration of what could happen (Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, 2013).
The future, therefore, is not a fixed or abstract entity, but a complex human process that emerges from the interaction of multiple presents and generates just as many possibilities.
