Learning to facilitate a lab also means studying those who did this work before us. Four practices — very different from each other — offer concrete models for structuring workshops, creating artefacts and generating public conversations.
Near Future Laboratory (Julian Bleecker): pioneer of the term "design fiction", Bleecker developed accessible tools like the Design Fiction Product Catalogue and the TBD Catalog. His practice shows that huge budgets are not needed: a printed catalogue, a fictional instruction manual, a newspaper article from the future can be enough. Near Future Laboratory publishes open methods and encourages experimentation — a model for those who want to start with little.
Superflux — Mitigation of Shock (2015): the Indian-British studio Superflux created an iconic installation: a London flat adapted to a plausible climate crisis. Furniture raised for flooding, plants grown on walls, UV lamps instead of natural light. It was not science fiction: it was a credible future made habitable. Visitors left disturbed — and ready to discuss. Mitigation of Shock shows how design fiction can be spatial, emotional and politically effective.
Dunne & Raby: Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby at the Royal College of Art defined Speculative Design with works like "Foragers" (utensils for a post-scarcity food society) and "Technological Dream Series". Their approach favours objects that challenge assumptions — not solutions. For a lab, their work teaches designing artefacts that provoke questions rather than answers, and using aesthetics and materiality to make ethical tensions visible.
Stuart Candy — Experiential Futures: researcher and facilitator, Candy developed methods for "inhabiting" futures: role-playing games, immersive installations, performative scenarios. His framework distinguishes between presented futures (reports, slides) and experienced futures (role-play, environments). For those facilitating labs, Candy offers concrete tools: how to structure a debrief, how to balance provocation and emotional safety, how to connect experience to action.
What do they have in common? All four believe the future is not something to predict but to explore — and that exploration requires artefacts, not just words. Studying these cases helps calibrate your lab's expectations: you need not replicate Mitigation of Shock, but you can learn from how Superflux made a complex scenario tangible.
Use these references as inspiration, not constraints. A lab in a civic library will have different resources from one in a museum or government agency. What matters is maintaining conversation quality: plausible futures, open questions, space for participants' voices.