How to build sustainable cities where residents can live, work, learn and play in healthy environments?
FutureTales Lab, a futurology centre in Thailand, uses Futures Platform to explore possible scenarios and co-create the future of living in Bangkok. Foresight experts Deunchalerm Khiewpun and Wipattra Totemchokchaikarn relied on Futures Platform’s collaborative foresight solution in wide-ranging research, involving external collaborators on the complex environmental, social, and economic issues facing the city.
FutureTales Lab was set up by MQDC to explore the future for sustainable living under the property developer’s commitment to “For All Well-Being”, the well-being of all life on Earth.
The centre’s work has also helped futureproof MQDC’s projects such as The Forestias, its flagship green district in Bangkok. Homes here are integrated with natural ecosystems and innovative energy, transport, and waste technology for sustainability and well-being.
Futures Platform has proved a valuable tool for working with organisations such as Thailand’s National Innovation Agency (NIA), says Totemchokchaikarn.
“We used the platform as a first step in building our extensive research into ways of living in Thailand, which covered six areas: live, work, learn, play, move and sustain. The radar feature facilitated our collaboration as a tool for bouncing ideas with internal and external experts to enhance Thailand’s future,” she adds.
“Before we found Futures Platform, we had to brainstorm each trend and its potential future implications in our team, but with Futures Platform, we have a futurist brainstorming the ideas for us now! It helps us with time management and allows us to focus on the next steps.”
Wipattra Totemchokchaikarn Foresight Researcher, DTGO
Crafting Future Scenarios: Could Exoskeletons Change How We Live in 2050?
FutureTales Lab gathers its team in brainstorming sessions to assess the potential implications of future trends and changes. “We sit together, look at the content and ask each other how the phenomena we’ve collected could affect us. In this way, we get a lot of different viewpoints even on a single phenomenon or wild card,” Khiewpun explains.
Having a broad scope helps FutureTales Lab prepare for the future and coming changes in many areas. Totemchokchaikarn says the team also regularly assesses how the same phenomena may impact different parts of their research:
“I want to highlight that we can often use a single phenomenon from Futures Platform’s content database in many different parts of our research. For example, we use the exoskeleton phenomenon in all three of our Future of Workforce, Future of Healthcare, and Future of Construction reports. As wearable machines that give humans increased strength, exoskeletons will help construction workers, but they also have applications in healthcare, helping people with disabilities.”
After the initial research and discussion phase, Futures Platform also supports FutureTales Lab in stakeholder engagement. The organisation uses Futures Platform’s interactive foresight radars, where they also invite external experts to collaborate on the platform:
“When looking at alternative futures, we also explore the best- and the worstcase scenarios. For example, the air quality in Bangkok is quite low, and it may worsen in the future. To address this problem, we have another research team working on innovative approaches to developing sustainable real estate properties.” says Khiewpun.
The insights collected during the scenario-building phase are then applied to strategic planning, innovation, and R&D processes. In addition to this, Khiewpun adds that Futures Platform has also been a means of sharing information internally across departments.
FutureTales Lab Uses Foresight to Build a More Sustainable Future
FutureTales Lab launched as the Thai property sector’s first futurology centre with a central aim of helping reshape cities for human and environmental well-being. MQDC, its founder, is a Bangkok-based property developer committed to enhancing well-being not only for its residents but also for surrounding communities and ecosystems. This ethos, which the company phrases as “For All Well-Being”, is also realised through the Bangkok-based Research & Innovation for Sustainability Center (RISC), which conducts research and curates information resources for sustainable development with a focus on well-being.
Futures Platform helps FutureTales Lab develop shared visions of the future by saving time in the research phase and supporting the production of foresight deliverables.
“For our team, the greatest benefit has been the collaborative features on Futures Platform. It has helped us engage with our partners, as well as with internal and external experts.”
Wipattra Totemchokchaikarn Foresight Researcher, DTGO
FutureTales Lab aims to develop foresight that can shape government policies and guide business strategy. But the lab’s foresight process also has immediate applications in property development. MQDC’s large-scale, mixed-use developments, for instance, apply the centre’s insights to grasp the future for different sectors.
“Our research plays a key part in crafting plans across different projects. We might be asked, for example, ‘What does the future of healthcare look like?’ In this sense, we have been engaging a lot with our internal and external teams and helping them include the future lens in their scope of thinking,” Totemchokchaikarn says.
As volatility, uncertainty, and ambiguity are increasingly part of the world’s future, FutureTales Lab can also help give a crystal clear organizational direction and help inspire new approaches across the property sector.
Helping the industry work towards best-case scenarios for cities puts a focus on aspects such as air quality, public health, and safety. Totemchokchaikarn and Khiewpun’s everyday work would involve time-consuming research without tools such as Futures Platform.
“Instead of studying research topics from a ‘greenfield’, not knowing where to start, we log into Futures Platform first and search for the readymade foresight radars, and that’s how we develop our conversations around topics,” Khiewpun explains.
“Futures Platform is a one-stop platform for searching signals, trends, and wild cards. It’s like Google, but for foresight. If you are looking for a place to google the future of topic X, then it’s worth exploring this platform.”
Deunchalerm Khiewpun, Corporate Foresight Researcher, DTGO