Blog 5
Inside the Futures Bazaar: Designing Objects from Tomorrow
What if you could walk into a market and browse objects from the future?
That’s exactly what we did during the Futures Bazaar - and let me tell you, it was one of the most fun and mind-expanding design activities I’ve ever been part of.
So... What is the Futures Bazaar?
The Futures Bazaar is a creative experience where we imagine possible futures by making and displaying physical “artefacts” from those imagined worlds. It’s like building a mini museum or market stall from a different time, where everything tells a story about what life might be like in decades to come.
It’s playful, weird, and deeply thought-provoking.
How It Works
We followed a step-by-step process:
Warm-up. First, we used random prompts (like future, object, and theme) to sketch out bizarre and brilliant ideas — just to get our imaginations going.
Explore. Then we built a world around our assigned future: What’s the society like? The politics? The tech?
Gather. We picked materials (called "Future Fodder") like old cables, buttons, random plastic bits — anything we could reimagine as something new.
Ideated. We brainstormed ideas, mashed materials together, and thought of how to turn ordinary junk into meaningful future artefacts.
Create. This was the hands-on part: cutting, gluing, tagging, and crafting our ideas into objects you could touch and explore.
Set Up. Each team decorated a stall, made banners, and could dress up to match their future theme.
Run the Bazaar. Half of us became merchants, selling our ideas in character; the other half wandered as customers, “buying” whatever made them laugh, think, or feel something.
What I Learned
This wasn’t just about making fun props. It taught me:
Design can be a time machine - it lets us explore “what ifs” and bring those ideas to life.
The power of play - sometimes, silly or absurd ideas reveal serious truths.
Storytelling matters - every object we made had a backstory that helped others understand the future world it came from.
Creativity needs space - this activity allowed us to be weird, bold, and free.
Final Thoughts
The Futures Bazaar reminded me that even though we can’t predict the future, we can imagine and shape it. And sometimes, the best way to understand tomorrow is to build it - with cardboard, glue, and wild ideas.
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.
Because designing for the future shouldn’t just be practical - it should be playful
