Pre-assignments and readings

With these small pre-assignments, we invite you to consider your own roles
and thoughts in and about future cities and society.

Pre-assignments

Task 1

Bring your own future to the table: a brief scenario exercise focusing on the student and individual expectations regarding a 30 years’ tip on the horizon and using the SPREAD project (see Neuvonen, 2022). Focus especially on the facilitating factors related to the urban/spatial setting. Format: Vertical A3 poster, to be printed in advance. Visual collage, text 200 words (+ sources).

Task 2

You are asked to ‘plant the seed’ for an Archive of the Future, on the basis of your current knowledge. Take time to imagine which project, artifact, process, or institution might present that ‘seed’? Which moment of (potential) futuring you’d like to share? Questions to be answered:

  • First, and using your example, expose the power of ‘normalisation’ through discourse and social relations, unlocking the futures that have been silenced and sidetracked in the past.
  • Second, consider how your example could provide a stage to exhibit and dramatise ‘future expectations’ (stories, images, artefacts), taking into account and developing connections with ‘stakeholders’.
  • Third, let urban materiality and corporeality of your example truly speak for themselves to the present and the future, opening experiences of, and confrontations with, the technological, environmental, and geographical unconscious.

Task 3

Write a 4-page concept note on the research questions and methodology of your own PhD research. Send the text to Riina Lundman by June 3, 2024 (riina.lundman@tuni.fi). We will create three groups (1-3), each 6 students, and share the concept notes to the participants. Please read the concept notes of your peers in the same group and prepare questions for the PhD seminar sessions. Follow the PhD School website to access the papers. On Sunday June 16, we will provide the papers printed, as well.

Readings

Ache, P. (2017). Vision Making in Large Urban Settings: Unleashing Anticipation?. In: Poli, R. (eds) Handbook of Anticipation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31737-3_43-1 [pdf]

Avin, U., & Goodspeed, R. (2020). Using exploratory scenarios in planning practice: A spectrum of approaches. Journal of the American planning association86(4), 403-416. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2020.1746688 [pdf]

Neuvonen, A. (2022). Re-focusing on the future. Backcasting carbon neutral cities. Tampere University Dissertations 656https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-2534-3 [pdf]

van Driessche, R., Ache, P., & Lagendijk, A. (2023). How to plan for discontinuity? Equipping ‘anticipatory assemblages’ with ‘archives of the future’. Planning Theory, 0(0), 14730952231203819. https://doi.org/10.1177/14730952231203819 [pdf]

Tampere City Strategy 2030 [pdf]

Tampere City Region Strategy  2040 [pdf]