We are a transdisciplinary and transformative project team that encouraged people to actively shape the future. After almost four years of scientific and practical work at multiple locations in Germany, we completed the project in November 2023 with a toolbox. You can download the full brochure here:
The project brochure
In this brochure you will find all the tools and the instructions for building an Xtopia in one file. You can also download the individual tools under Toolbox.
What are Xtopias?
Xtopias are extreme visions of the future
Xtopias challenge what we take for granted. They create a radical distance from the present, question the state as it is and leave the realm of what is currently possible. They have no claim to realisability and can reach far into the future.
Xtopias combine utopias and dystopias
Utopias are wishful thinking. They visualize a future that seems desirable and arouse joy, curiosity and desire. Dystopias, on the other hand, create deeply pessimistic visions of the future. They are nightmare scenarios that create an impulse to avoid such outcomes. Xtopias contain elements from both sides, combining utopias and dystopias from very different areas (e.g. technology, nature, architecture and urban planning, economics or society).
“Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.”
ATTRIBUTED TO FERNANDO BIRRI
Your Utopia, my dystopia?
Xtopias assume that people have different ideas about what constitutes a desirable future and what should be avoided. They allow for ambivalence and even place it at the center of attention.
Xtopien sind Aktionen
Xtopias are based on the assumption that people have different ideas about desirable and avoidable futures. They embrace ambivalence and place it at their center.
„The question of what kind of city we want cannot be separated from the question of what kind of people we want to be, what kind of social relationships we want (…)“
David Harvey, 2019
Xtopias make us more sustainable.
Xtopias enable reflection on ideas about the future and invite people from different social groups to formulate their own new visions for a desirable future. Ideally, they motivate people to actively help shape future changes towards the great transformation.
Beteiligt waren Wissenschaftler:innen von:
Urbane Xtopien 