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Circular

Seeing    A Learning Resource for Designing Circular Futures

Introduction

Circular Seeing is a learning resource for developing more relational approaches to designing circular futures. It invites you to look beyond materials, products and systems to consider the relationships that sustain them: between people, materials, places, knowledge, care and time.

Through stories, scenarios, questions and design exercises, Circular Seeing encourages you to notice what is often overlooked, question what is taken for granted and imagine what might become possible when familiar challenges are approached differently.

You can explore Circular Seeing on your own or with others. There is no single correct way to use it, and you do not need to move through it in a fixed order. The invitation is the same no matter how you choose to begin.

See Differently Before Designing Differently

Much of the conversation around circularity begins with the movement of materials:

How do we reduce waste?

How do we extend product life?

How do we close the loop?

These questions are important. But Circular Seeing asks us to look beneath them.

What relationships would need to exist for something to remain valuable for longer?

What has to break down before something becomes waste?

What knowledge, forms of care and ways of living already support circularity?

What assumptions are preventing circular systems from emerging?

Circularity is not only about keeping materials in use. It is also about sustaining the relationships between people, materials, places, knowledge and care over time.

This shifts our attention from: How do we make circular systems? towards: What needs to exist for circular systems to become possible?

What Does It Mean to See Circularly?

To see circularly is to look beyond isolated objects, actions or outcomes and notice the   relationships, histories and conditions that connect them.

It is to ask:

What is connected to this?

What is being overlooked?

What relationships sustain it?

What has been separated or forgotten?

Who or what is carrying the responsibility?

What happens over time?

What might become possible if the pattern changed?

Circular Seeing does not ask you to find the fastest solution.

It asks you to slow down long enough to understand what is actually happening.

Before redesigning a product, consider the relationships that give it value.

Before creating something new, notice what already exists.

Before changing a behaviour, examine the conditions that make it possible.

Before solving a problem, ask what story has defined it as a problem in the   first place.

Before you continue. Think of an object, service, system, place or situation   that you encounter regularly. Without trying to solve or redesign it,   take a moment to consider:

What is visible?

What is invisible?

What relationships make it possible?

What is being cared for?

What is being overlooked?

What might happen if nothing changed?

You do not need to answer every question. Simply notice what you notice.

The Principles of Circular Seeing

The following principles are not rules to follow. They are propositions to return to as you move through the resource.

Everything Has a Story: Every system is shaped by stories about value, progress, waste, responsibility and possibility. Changing a system may therefore require changing the story that holds it in place.

Care Is a Form of Design: What we maintain, repair, protect and attend to is shaped by design decisions, even when those decisions remain invisible.

Relationships Are Infrastructure: Systems depend not only on materials, technologies and institutions, but also on the relationships that connect them.

The Future Is a Stakeholder: Today's decisions shape the conditions inherited by those who cannot participate in making them.

Not Everything Needs to Be Redesigned: Sometimes the most meaningful intervention is to recognise, protect, strengthen or connect what already exists.

Read through the five principles.

Which one feels most familiar to you?

Which one challenges how you currently think about design?

Which one do you find yourself resisting?

Which one might you want to carry with you as you move through the resource?

You can write, sketch, speak or simply think through your response.

Three Ways of Looking   Circular Seeing is organised around three interconnected ways of looking:

Looking Inwards

Begin with your experience. Notice the stories, memories, values and relationships that shape how you see.

Looking Outwards

Expand your view. Examine the systems, patterns, relationships and conditions surrounding what you   have noticed.

Looking Onwards

Consider what might become possible. Explore possibilities, deliberate on interventions and develop practices that can continue beyond this resource.

You can begin anywhere. However, if you are not familiar with Circularity as a concept, we recommend beginning with Looking Inwards. Start with what you know. Look more widely. Then ask what might become possible. The invitation is not to move through these stages once but to return to them as your understanding changes.

HOW TO USE CIRCULAR SEEING

Circular Seeing can be explored individually or with others. There is no single correct way to move through the resource. You can begin with a story, a scenario, a question, an exercise or a practice prompt. You can move between the three ways of looking, pause when something interests you and return to a prompt at another time. The journeys below offer two possible ways to begin. You may follow them as suggested, adapt them to your context or create your own route through the resource. Begin where you are. Follow what interests you. Return when you need to see differently.

A SUGGESTED INDIVIDUAL JOURNEY

Circular Seeing can be explored alone as a reflective learning and design resource. You may want to keep a notebook, sketchbook or digital document alongside you. You can write, draw, map, record, make or simply think through your responses. Not every prompt requires a written answer.

BEGIN WHERE YOUR ATTENTION IS

You do not need to begin at the beginning. Start with the part of the resource that feels most relevant to   something you are currently working on, questioning or trying to understand.

You might begin with:

a Personal, Material, Care, Place or Future Story;

a Seeing Prompt;

a Leverage Prompt;

an Exercise;

a Practice Prompt.

NOTICE WHAT EMERGES

As you respond, pay attention to what begins to surface.

What assumptions are you making?

What patterns are becoming visible?

What relationships, knowledge or forms of care have you overlooked?

What questions keep returning?   You do not need to resolve these questions immediately. Let them guide where you go next.

FOLLOW THE CONNECTION

Allow one prompt to lead you to another. A story may reveal a relationship that you want to explore through a Seeing Prompt. A Scenario may reveal a question of responsibility that leads you to a Leverage Prompt. An Exercise may reveal an assumption that takes you back to a Story. You can move between Looking Inwards, Looking Outwards and Looking Onwards as your thinking develops.

EXPLORE WHAT MIGHT CHANGE

When you are ready, use an Exercise to explore a possible intervention or response. You may produce a design proposal, a new question, a map, a conversation, a changed relationship, a new practice or something else entirely. The purpose is not to produce the most impressive output. It is to explore what becomes possible when you respond to a situation differently.

CARRY SOMETHING FORWARD

Choose a Practice Prompt that feels relevant to your work or life.

What could you continue to notice?

What question could you continue asking?

What relationship could you strengthen?

What knowledge could you share?

What could you care for differently?

RETURN

Circular Seeing is not something you need to complete once. Return to prompts when your context changes, when new information emerges or when you find yourself seeing a familiar situation differently. You may begin anywhere. Follow what emerges. Return when you are ready.

A SUGGESTED COLLECTIVE JOURNEY

Circular Seeing can also be explored with a group of colleagues, students, community members, collaborators or friends. A collective journey does not require everyone to have the same experience or reach the same conclusion. The value of working together lies partly in noticing how differently   people see the same situation. One person's story may reveal something another person   had never considered. One person's knowledge may make visible a resource   that had previously been overlooked. One person's question may change   how the whole group understands a problem.

CHOOSE A SHARED POINT OF DEPARTURE

Begin by deciding what brings the group together. You might be exploring:

a shared design challenge;

an existing product, service or system;

a place or community;

a question about circularity;

a future you are trying to imagine.

You can then choose a starting point that feels relevant. The group might begin with a Story, Seeing Prompt, Leverage Prompt or Exercise.

CREATE SPACE FOR DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Before beginning, agree how the group will work together. You might consider:

listening without immediately responding;

allowing people to pass or keep personal reflections private;

making space for different forms of knowledge and experience;

resisting the urge to find agreement too quickly;

asking questions before proposing solutions.

There is no requirement for everyone to share the same perspective. Difference is part of the learning.

SHARE AND LISTEN

Invite participants to share what they notice. As people respond, listen for:

recurring themes;

differences in experience;

assumptions that are being challenged;

knowledge that has previously been overlooked;

relationships that appear important;

questions that continue to return.

The purpose is not to identify the “best” response. It is to expand what the group can see.

LOOK FOR CONNECTIONS

Once different perspectives have been shared, explore what connects them.

What patterns are emerging?

What relationships are important?

What appears to be missing?

Who is affected?

Who is not represented?

What might the group be assuming?

At this point, you may choose to move to another part of the resource. A Story may lead to a Seeing Prompt. A Seeing Prompt may lead to a Leverage Prompt. A Leverage Prompt may lead to an Exercise.

EXPLORE POSSIBILITIES TOGETHER

Use the Exercises to explore possible responses. The group might:

develop a proposal;

map relationships;

create a new story;

identify a point of leverage;

imagine alternative futures.

test a new practice;

design an experiment.

Not every participant needs to agree. Sometimes the most valuable   outcome is a better understanding of where perspectives diverge and why.

DECIDE WHAT TO CARRY FORWARD

End by asking:

What will we continue to notice?

What question will we carry forward?

What relationship might we strengthen?

What knowledge should continue to move?

What small experiment could we try?

The group does not need to leave with a fully developed solution. It may be enough to leave with a changed understanding, a shared question or a commitment to continue exploring.

RETURN TOGETHER

If possible, return to the resource at a later point.

What changed?

What did you learn?

What surprised you?

What did not work?

What do you now see differently?

The collective journey does not end when the session ends. Circularity is sustained through continued attention, relationship and practice.

Looking Inwards Every system is lived before it is designed. We begin with stories because stories help us notice the relationships we already have with the world around us. Memory can create attachment. Attachment can create care. Care can become a form of stewardship.

As you move through these prompts, allow yourself to travel from the personal to the material, from material to care, from care to place and, finally, towards the future. Notice the values, relationships, memories and forms of knowledge that emerge along the way.

You do not need to share everything you reflect on. Some stories may be shared with others; some may remain private. The purpose is not to find the right story. It is to notice what your stories reveal.

PERSONAL STORIES

We begin with what is closest to us: our own experiences, memories and attachments.

The things we choose to keep, repair or protect can reveal something about what we value. Our relationships with objects and practices are rarely only practical; they are often shaped by memory, meaning, identity and experience.

As you reflect on these stories, notice the patterns that emerge. What do you value enough to keep? What has been worth repairing? What has become meaningful over time?

What might your personal relationships reveal about the ways value is created, sustained and remembered?

PERSONAL STORIES

The long companion

The repair that stayed

Look around you. Find something you have owned for many years. How did it find its way into your life? Why has it stayed with you when so many other things have come and gone?

Think of something you chose to repair instead of replace. What happened? Who repaired it or who taught you how? How did you feel when it was given another chance?

Reflection

What does it reveal about   what you choose to keep?

Reflection

What did that experience   teach you about care?

PERSONAL STORIES

Too meaningful to throw away

Becoming more valuable

Think of an object you could never bring yourself to discard. It might be valuable or completely ordinary. What story does it carry? Why has it earned a place in your life?

Some things become more meaningful with age. Think of something that has grown in value not because it became more expensive, but because time changed your relationship with it.

What changed?

Reflection

What makes something   truly irreplaceable?

Reflection

What does this tell you   about the places that shape us?

PERSONAL STORIES

An inherited story

The oldest thing you own

Think of something that was passed on to you. It might be an object. A recipe. A habit. A piece of advice. A way of seeing the world. Who gave it to you? Why has it stayed?

Find the oldest thing you still use. Not the oldest thing you own, the oldest thing that still has a place in your everyday life. How has it endured? What has kept it useful?

Reflection

What are you   now carrying forward?

Reflection

What allows some   things to outlast others?

PERSONAL STORIES

A feeling of home

The object that knows you

Think of something that immediately reminds you of home. It might be an object. A smell. A sound. A material.   A meal. What memories come flooding back to you?

Imagine choosing just one object that could tell your story. What would it be? Where has it travelled with you? What moments has it witnessed? Why this object and not another?

Reflection

What does this tell you about   the places that shape us?

Reflection

What part of your life   does it quietly hold?

PERSONAL STORIES

What remains

Something worth passing on

Think about something you no longer

Imagine someone opening a box of your

have. Perhaps it was lost. Broken. Left

belongings many years from now. What is

behind. Or given away. Even though it has

one thing you hope they find? Why do you

gone, you still remember it. Why?

hope it stays with them? What story would you want it to carry into the future?

Reflection

What remains after

What do we leave

an object disappears?

behind besides objects?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

MATERIAL STORIES

Materials are often understood through their technical properties: what they are made of, how they perform and what they can become. But materials also carry histories, relationships and consequences.

Every material has travelled through places, processes and hands before arriving in its current form. It may hold memories, labour, knowledge, extraction, care and possibility. As you reflect on these stories, allow yourself to look beyond the object in front of you. Consider the journeys, relationships and transformations that have made it possible.

What changes when you begin to see materials not only as resources, but as participants in a much longer story?

MATERIAL STORIES

The journey before you

If this object could speak

Choose an object near you. Now imagine

Choose an everyday object nearby.

the materials inside it long before they

Imagine this object could tell you its life

became this object. Where might they

story. Where was it born? Who shaped it?

have begun? What landscapes have they

Who has cared for it? What moments has

travelled through? How many hands,

it quietly witnessed? What future do you

places, and transformations do you

think it hopes for?

imagine brought them here?

Reflection

What does this journey make you

How does hearing its story

notice that you hadn't considered before?

change the way you see it?

MATERIAL STORIES

A material you love

The second life

Some materials invite us to slow down.

Think of a material that most people would

Perhaps it's the warmth of wood. The

throw away. Now imagine someone else

softness of wool. The coolness of stone.

sees possibility instead of waste. What

The weight of ceramic. The texture of

could it become? Who might value it?

linen. Which material do you find yourself

What new story could begin?

drawn to? What memories, feelings, or experiences does it evoke?

Reflection

What makes this   relationship meaningful?

Reflection

does this reveal about   the way we assign value?

What

MATERIAL STORIES

The material you trust

Misunderstood

Think about the materials that surround your everyday life. Which one do you trust the most? Why that material? When has it earned your trust?

Every material carries assumptions. Choose one that you think is often misunderstood. Why do you think people see it that way? What would you like them to understand instead?

Reflection

How do we learn to trust some   materials more than others?

Reflection

How might changing this perception   change the way we use it?

MATERIAL STORIES

An unexpected material

Somewhere else

Tell us about a material that has surprised you. Perhaps you discovered an unexpected use. Perhaps someone transformed it into something beautiful. Perhaps you encountered it in an unfamiliar context. What changed the way you saw it?

Think of a place you've visited, lived, or learned from. Did you encounter a familiar material being used in a completely different way? What was different? What did that experience teach you?

Reflection

What makes this   relationship meaningful?

Reflection

What does this reveal about the   way we assign value?

MATERIAL STORIES

Every material has a story

If one material disappeared

Choose an object nearby. Now choose just one material inside it. Imagine tracing its life from the earth… to extraction… to manufacture… to use… to whatever comes next. What story unfolds?

Imagine waking up tomorrow to discover that one material no longer existed. Which material would you choose? Why? How might the world change without it? What alternatives might emerge?

Reflection

What responsibility comes with   becoming part of that story?

Reflection

What does this reveal about   our dependence on materials?

MATERIAL STORIES

REFLECTION & NOTES

The material we overlook Think of a material you believe deserves more attention. Perhaps because it is sustainable. Perhaps because it is beautiful. Perhaps because people misunderstand it. Perhaps because it quietly supports everyday life. Why   should more people know its story?

Reflection

What would   change if they did?

CARE STORIES

Care often becomes visible only when it is withdrawn. The things we maintain, repair, protect and return to are sustained through acts of attention that can easily go unnoticed. Some forms of care are deliberate and visible; others are woven quietly into everyday routines.

As you reflect on these stories, listen for the people, practices and habits that help something continue. Notice the work that is often taken for granted, and consider what might happen when it is no longer carried out.

What does it take for something to endure?

CARE STORIES

Something worth caring for

The person who showed you

Think of something you have cared for over many years. It could be an object. A plant. A place. A tradition. A friendship. What has kept you returning to it? What has it asked of you?

Think of someone who taught you how to care for or repair something. Perhaps they showed you how to sew, cook, sharpen a knife, fix a bicycle, look after a garden etc. What did they teach you beyond the practical skill?

Reflection

What has caring for   it taught you?

Reflection

What have you carried   forward from them?

CARE STORIES

The invisible routine

A small act that stayed with you

Think about something you regularly maintain that most people never notice. Perhaps it's tidying a shared space, cleaning your tools, watering plants, backing up files or checking on someone etc. Why do you continue doing it?

Think of a small act of care that has stayed in your memory. Perhaps someone fixed something for you, cooked for you, waited for you, made space for you or checked in on you etc. What made that moment unforgettable?

Reflection

What would happen   if nobody did?

Reflection

Why do small acts of care often   leave the biggest impression?

CARE STORIES

The things that care for us

Worth looking after

We often think about caring for objects. But sometimes objects quietly care for us. Think of something that has supported your life over many years. A favourite chair. A notebook. A mug. A bicycle. A walking path. A tool. How has it cared for you?

Think of something you believe deserves more care. It could be a place. A language. A craft. A relationship. A public space. A material. A tradition. Why does it matter?

Reflection

What relationship have   you built together?

Reflection

What might happen if more   people chose to care for it?

CARE STORIES

Caring beyond yourself

A habit passed down

Can you remember a time when you felt responsible for something beyond your   own needs? What called you to act? What made you stay involved? How did that responsibility change you?

Think of a habit of care you learned while growing up. Perhaps someone insisted on repairing rather than replacing. Sharing rather than wasting. Cleaning before leaving. Cooking for others. Looking after neighbours. How has that habit stayed   with you?

Reflection

When does responsibility   become care?

Reflection

Which habits quietly shape   the way we live together?

CARE STORIES

What we've stopped caring for

More than enough

Think about something that people once cared for but rarely do today. Perhaps it's repairing clothes. Sharing tools. Knowing neighbours. Looking after public spaces. Cooking together. What has changed?

Imagine you could give one thing in the world a little more care. Not unlimited resources or a complete redesign. Just more attention, patience and responsibility. What would you choose? Why?

Reflection

What do you think   we've lost along the way?

Reflection

What difference could   a little more care make?

CARE STORIES

REFLECTION & NOTES

Keeping things alive Think about something that only exists because someone keeps showing up. A community garden. A local library. A family tradition. A workshop. A friendship. A neighbourhood. Who or what quietly keeps it alive? How do they do it?

Reflection

How might we recognise   maintenance as a creative act?

PLACE STORIES

Places shape us long before we learn to shape them. They hold memories, relationships, knowledge and ways of living. A place can teach us how to move through the world, what to notice, what to value and what to care for.

As you reflect on these stories, consider the places that have stayed with you and the relationships you have formed with them. Notice what makes a place meaningful and what responsibility might emerge from belonging to somewhere.

What do places give us, and what do they ask of us in return? This introduces reciprocity, which I think is an important concept for the resource.

PLACE STORIES

The place that changed you

A place you care for

Think of a place that changed the way you see the world. It could be a city, forest, workshop, classroom, market, café or a quiet street etc. What happened there? Why has that place stayed with you?

Think of a place you feel responsible for. Perhaps you tidy it. Return to it. Protect it. Look after it. Or simply speak up for it. What draws you back?

Reflection

How did that place   change you?

Reflection

What does caring for   a place ask of us?

PLACE STORIES

Caring together

A place in transition

Think of a time you witnessed people caring for a place together. Perhaps through planting, cleaning, celebrating, repairing, cooking, gathering, protesting, welcoming. What did you notice?

Think of a place that has changed during your lifetime. Perhaps for better or for worse. Perhaps in ways you're still trying   to understand. What changed? What remained? How do you feel when   you return?

Reflection

What became possible because   people acted together?

Reflection

What does this place   teach us about change?

PLACE STORIES

Where you feel most alive

A neighbourhood that taught you

Think of a place where you feel most alive. Perhaps it's a beach. A park. A mountain. A river. Your garden. A single tree. What happens to you when you're there?

Think of a neighbourhood or a place that has taught you something about living with other people. What did you learn there? Was it generosity? Resilience? Community? Difference? Belonging?

Reflection

What kind of relationship do you   have with that place?

Reflection

What wisdom still   stays with you?

PLACE STORIES

The overlooked place Think of a place that people pass every day without really noticing. A forgotten corner. An empty building. A neglected park. A side street. A waiting room. A bus stop. What possibilities do you see there?

Reflection

What happens when we   begin paying attention?

ome

ome isn't always where we live. Think of   a place that feels like home. What makes   it feel that way? Who is there? What sounds, smells, rhythms or rituals tell you you have arrived?

Reflection

What creates a sense   of belonging?

PLACE STORIES

The ordinary place

A place worth protecting

Think of an ordinary place you return to often. Perhaps somewhere most people wouldn't think twice about. Why does it matter? Who do you meet there? What small moments unfold there?

Imagine one place you would never want to disappear. Why that place? What stories live there? Who would lose something if it disappeared?

Reflection

What would be lost if it   disappeared tomorrow?

Reflection

What makes a place   irreplaceable?

PLACE STORIES

REFLECTION & NOTES

The place that raised you Think about a place that helped shape who you are. Not just where you grew   up, but somewhere that quietly taught   you how to live. What lessons did it offer? How do those lessons still appear in your life today?

Reflection

In what ways are you carrying   that place with you?

FUTURE STORIES

The future is shaped long before it arrives. The choices we make today become part of the conditions that others will inherit. Some things are deliberately passed on; others are left behind without us ever considering what they might mean to those who come after us.

As you reflect on these stories, consider what you hope will remain, what you hope will change and what responsibilities come with knowing that the future will be shaped by decisions made in the present.

What are we leaving behind, and what are we choosing to carry forward?

FUTURE STORIES

Fifty years from now

An inheritance

Imagine a child walking through your community fifty years from now. What do you hope they experience? What do you hope has changed? What do you hope has remained? What would you never want them to lose?

Imagine someone opens a box of your belongings fifty years from now. They choose just one object to keep. Which object do they choose? What story does it tell about your life? What values does it carry into the future?

Reflection

What are we quietly leaving   behind for them today?

Reflection

What do our possessions reveal   long after we're gone?

FUTURE STORIES

Becoming

Worth continuing

Imagine your work continues to influence the world long after you've finished it. What kind of future do you hope it helps create? What values do you hope it carries forward?

Think about a practice that deserves to survive. It might be a craft. A ritual. A way of gathering. A way of learning. A way of caring. Why is it worth carrying forward?

Reflection

What are you already   building today?

Reflection

What would the world   lose if it disappeared?

FUTURE STORIES

The ancestor you hope to be

A habit worth passing on

One day, someone you will never meet may live with the consequences of your choices. What kind of ancestor do you hope to become? How would you like your actions to be remembered?

Imagine one everyday habit becoming completely normal within a generation. Perhaps people routinely repair before replacing. Share rather than own. Care for public spaces. Learn practical skills. Are kind and considerate etc What habit(s) would you choose? Why that one(s)?

Reflection

What responsibilities come with knowing   others will inherit our decisions?

Reflection

How do ordinary habits

become cultural change?

FUTURE STORIES

What we carry forward

A story yet to be told

Think of a tradition you hope continues long after your lifetime. It could belong to your family. Your culture. Your community. Or a tradition you believe should belong to everyone. Why does it matter?

Imagine someone telling a story about our time many years from now. What story do you hope they tell? Who are the people in it? What changed because they chose to act?

Reflection

How do traditions help shape   the futures we imagine?

Reflection

What story are we already   writing together?

FUTURE STORIES

Reasons for hope

A quiet thank you

Think about something that gives you   hope for the years ahead. Perhaps it's a person. A place. A project. A conversation.   A community. A small act you've witnessed. What makes you believe change is still possible?

Imagine someone living a hundred years from now looking back at this moment in history. What do you hope they thank us for? What choices do you hope they recognise?

Reflection

How might we create more   moments like this?

Reflection

What would make today's   efforts worth it?

FUTURE STORIES

REFLECTION & NOTES

What we must not pass on Every generation inherits both gifts and burdens. Think about one thing you hope future generations never have to inherit. Why that? What choices today might help change that inheritance?

Reflection

What does it mean to leave the   world better than we found it?

Looking Outwards What we experience individually is shaped by conditions beyond the individual.

The things we value, use, discard, maintain and care for are connected to wider systems of production, consumption, knowledge, relationships, infrastructure, governance and time.

Looking Outwards invites you to widen your field of attention.

Here, you will explore the patterns and conditions surrounding the things you have noticed. You will encounter scenarios that reveal tensions within everyday systems and use different lenses to examine what is visible, what is hidden and what might be keeping a pattern in place.

The purpose is not to find someone or something to blame. It is to understand the conditions that make certain behaviours, relationships and outcomes possible.

As you move through this stage, ask yourself:

What is shaping this situation?

What relationships sustain it?

What is being overlooked?

Who has the power to change it?

What might happen over time?

Looking Outwards helps you move from observing a situation to understanding the systems that hold it in place.

Seeing Prompts

Circular challenges rarely exist in isolation. A product designed without a repair pathway may reflect more than a design decision. It may reveal assumptions about convenience, ownership, expertise, business models, infrastructure and responsibility.

A community project dependent on short-term funding may be shaped by more than a lack of resources. It may reveal how funding structures, institutional priorities and ideas about impact influence what is possible.

The Seeing Prompts invite you to look beneath the immediate situation and explore the relationships, assumptions and conditions that shape it.

Each scenario presents a familiar tension. Your task is not to solve it immediately, but to look more closely.

What is happening?

What is keeping this pattern alive?

What becomes visible when you look at it differently?

The scenarios are organised into three clusters to help you move through these questions at a considered pace. Together, they explore what we value, what we overlook, what we are willing to care for, who participates, who holds knowledge, and what relationships allow systems to learn, adapt and endure. They also examine the structures, decisions and timeframes that shape systems’ behaviour.

The Six Lenses

No situation has only one story. The same scenario can reveal different things depending on what you choose to notice. The six lenses offer different ways of looking:

Value: What is being valued, and what is being overlooked?

Care: Who or what is being maintained, protected or neglected?

Flows: What is moving, where is it going and what is being lost?

Community: Who participates, who benefits and who is excluded?

Place: How does context shape what is possible?

Futures: What are the long-term consequences of the choices being made now?

You can use one lens at a time or move between several.

VALUE, CARE & STEWARDSHIP

This theme explores what we value, what we overlook and what we are willing to care for over time.

The scenarios examine how value is created, maintained and lost, and what happens when care, maintenance and stewardship are undervalued.

The Disposable Favourite A product, service, space, or experience is deeply embedded in everyday life. People use it frequently and often value the convenience it provides. Yet it is designed, consumed, or managed in ways that encourage frequent replacement, disposal, or short-term use. Most people rarely consider where it comes from, what it is made from, or what happens after its useful life ends. Core

Circular

Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Convenience vs

People value the

Can attachment,

Single-use packaging

Stewardship

benefit but not the

responsibility, visibility, or

Ultra-fast fashion

lifecycle.

longevity become part of

Planned obsolescence in

the experience?

smartphones

Temporary office fit-outs

Works Across

VALUE What makes this worth using, but not worth keeping?

does this become valuable? When does it stop being valuable? When

f disappear when this is discarded? What kin s o value

Who

decides what is worth

repairing, preserving, or

repla ing?

cannot be measured in monetary terms? What value

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What would need to happen for this to be cared for rather than replaced? What forms of maintenance have been designed out of this system? What relationships are lost when replacement becomes easier than care? How might care become part of the user experience? What would stewardship look like here?

FLOW What enters this system each time something is replaced? What leaves the system that could remain in circulation? What resources are consumed to sustain this pattern? What is moving too quickly through this system? What would a slower cycle of flows look like?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who benefits most from disposability?

Who experiences the consequences?

What role could communities play in extending the life of this?

What forms of sharing already exist?

What collective alternatives might emerge?

PLACE

How might this be used differently elsewhere?

What local practices challenge disposability?

What existing assets could support repair, sharing, or reuse?

What does this place value that the system currently overlooks?

How does place influence what gets discarded?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future does this pattern make possible? What future does it make impossible?

What accumulates over time? What future costs remain invisible today? What would future generations inherit?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Forgotten Asset A resource already exists. It may be a building, material, skill, network, tool, organisation, or community space. It has value, but that value is currently overlooked, inaccessible, or underutilised. Rather than investing in what already exists, attention shifts toward creating something new. Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Newness vs Reuse

Existing assets remain dormant while new resources are extracted.

How might existing value be rediscovered, shared, or reactivated?

Familiar

Examples

Vacant buildings

Duplicate community services

Dead-stock materials

Unused tools and equipment

Works Across

VALUE What value already exists but remains overlooked? Why is something new often seen as more valuable than something existing? What hidden forms of value are waiting to be recognised? What would change if abundance replaced scarcity as the starting point? What strengths already exist here?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who has been caring for this asset? What has enabled it to survive despite being overlooked? What forms of stewardship already exist? What care is missing? What would help this asset thrive rather than merely survive?

FLOW What currently flows through this asset?

What has stopped flowing? What opportunities remain dormant? What connections could reactivate circulation? What would happen if this asset became a hub rather than a destination?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who knows about this asset?

Who uses it?

Who feels ownership of it? Who has been excluded from its potential? How might communities help redefine its purpose?

PLACE Why does this asset matter here?

What local history does it carry?

What stories are embedded within it? How is this asset connected to its surroundings? What would be lost if it disappeared?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future possibilities already exist within this asset? What might it become in twenty years? What happens if it remains underused? How could this asset support future resilience? What future needs could it help address?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Invisible Maintainer A system functions because somebody continuously cares for it. This labour may involve cleaning, repairing, organising, monitoring, supporting, or maintaining. Most users rarely notice this work until it stops happening.

Core

Circular

Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Care vs

Maintenance

How might care become

Park maintenance

Recognition

remains

visible, supported, and

Bicycle-sharing repairs

undervalued despite

designed into the system?

Hospital support staff

being essential.

Shared studio management

Works Across

VALUE What value is created through maintenance?

Why is maintenance often less celebrated than innovation?

What becomes visible when maintenance stops?

What forms of labour remain hidden?

What would happen if care were valued as highly as creation?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who keeps this system alive? What routines sustain it? What care practices go unnoticed? How is care rewarded, recognised, or ignored? What would make caring easier?

FLOW What remains in flow because maintenance exists? What breaks down when maintenance disappears? What relationships are lost when replacement becomes easier than continued care? Where are maintenance bottlenecks? What support is needed to keep care circulating?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who depends on this work? Who acknowledges it? Who takes it for granted? How might responsibility be shared more fairly? What communities of care already exist?

PLACE How does place shape maintenance practices? What local traditions of stewardship can be found here? How has maintenance changed over time? What local conditions make care easier or harder? What does this place teach us about looking after things?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What maintenance debt is accumulating? What happens if fewer people perform this work? What future risks are emerging? How might this system become easier to care for? What would long-term stewardship look like?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Culture of Convenience A system has been designed around speed, ease, and convenience. It delivers immediate benefits and fits seamlessly into everyday life. Yet the same qualities that make it attractive also contribute to waste, overconsumption, environmental degradation, or social harm. People recognise the problem, but changing behaviour would require effort, discomfort, or different habits.

Core

Circular

Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Convenience vs

The system rewards

How might convenience be

Single-use packaging

Stewardship

ease while

redefined to include care,

Fast fashion

externalising

responsibility, and long-

Food delivery systems

consequences.

term wellbeing?

Disposable electronics

Car dependency

Next-day delivery culture

Works Across

VALUE What has convenience taught us to value?

ms of value become invisible when convenience becomes the priority? What for

What is consi

dered inconvenient

but worthwhile? What

do we gain through

convenience?

What

do we lose?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What forms of care have been outsourced, removed, or hidden? What relationships disappear when convenience becomes   the goal? Who performs the labour that convenience depends upon? What would it mean to design for care rather than ease? What practices of stewardship have been lost?

FLOW What resources make convenience possible? What hidden flows support this system? What is moving faster than it should? What accumulates as a result of convenience? What would happen if the system slowed down?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who benefits most from convenience? Who bears its costs? How does convenience shape relationships between people? What forms of collective action become harder? What communal practices have been replaced?

PLACE How has convenience reshaped this place? What local alternatives already exist? What traditions challenge convenience culture? What has become disconnected from place? How might place encourage slower practices?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future is convenience creating? What dependencies are being normalised? What capacities are being lost? What happens if convenience becomes the dominant design principle? What future might emerge if care replaced convenience?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Resource or Relative? A landscape, ecosystem, species, material, or community is viewed primarily through the lens of extraction and utility. Decisions are made based on what can be taken, produced, or monetised. Alternative perspectives that emphasise reciprocity, stewardship, kinship, or interdependence are often marginalised. Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Extraction vs Reciprocity

Relationships are replaced by transactions.

How might systems be designed around mutual flourishing rather than extraction?

Familiar

Examples

Land development

Resource extraction

Water systems

Agriculture

Biodiversity management

Community regeneration

Works Across

VALUE What changes when something is viewed as a relative rather than a resource? What forms of value emerge beyond utility? How does reciprocity influence value? What cannot be measured economically? What relationships deserve recognition?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What responsibilities accompany relationship? What would stewardship look like? How might care replace extraction? What obligations emerge through interdependence? What practices nurture reciprocity?

FLOW What is taken? What is given back? What exchanges are currently one-sided? What would a reciprocal flow look like? Where are relationships becoming extractive?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who defines the relationship? What perspectives already exist? What communities practice reciprocity? How might collective stewardship emerge? What forms of governance support mutual flourishing?

PLACE How is this place understood? What local relationships exist between people and place? What cultural traditions challenge extraction? What histories shape current attitudes? What might this place teach us?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future emerges from extraction? What future emerges from reciprocity? What responsibilities extend beyond our own lifetime? What relationships should future generations inherit? What would it mean to become a good ancestor?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

KNOWLEDGE, PARTICIPATION & RELATIONSHIPS

This theme explores who participates, whose knowledge is recognised and what relationships allow systems to learn, adapt and endure.

The scenarios examine the consequences of knowledge loss, exclusion, disconnection and the failure to recognise existing forms of collective intelligence.

The Lost Knowledge Critical knowledge exists within a person, group, community, or practice. It may be practical, cultural, technical, or relational knowledge. The system depends on it, yet there is no clear mechanism for preserving, sharing, or transferring it.

Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Preservation vs Loss

Knowledge exits the system faster than it circulates.

How might knowledge become shareable, transferable, and collectively held?

Familiar

Examples

Traditional craft skills

Undocumented workplace knowledge

Indigenous ecological knowledge

Community programme learning

Works Across

VALUE What knowledge is considered valuable here? What knowledge is overlooked? What disappears when knowledge disappears? What kinds of expertise are difficult to replace? What value exists beyond formal qualifications?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who cares for this knowledge? How is care passed on? What practices help keep it alive? What threatens its survival? What responsibilities come with holding knowledge?

FLOW How does knowledge move through this system? Where does it become stuck? What knowledge remains siloed? What enables knowledge sharing? What prevents it?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who holds this knowledge? Who has access to it? Who has been excluded? What communities depend on it? How might knowledge become more collectively owned?

PLACE How is this knowledge connected to place? What local wisdom exists here? What cultural context shapes its meaning? What might be lost if this knowledge leaves? What role does place play in preserving it?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What happens if this knowledge disappears? What future possibilities depend upon it? What knowledge should be preserved for future generations? What new knowledge might emerge? What responsibilities do we have to those who come after us?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Broken Relationship The resources needed to create value already exist. The materials are present. The people are present. The infrastructure exists. Yet the relationships required for collaboration, trust, exchange, or coordination are weak or absent.

Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Connection vs Fragmentation

The system is rich in assets but poor in relationships.

What relationships need strengthening before new solutions are introduced?

Familiar

Examples

Disconnected repair networks

Uncoordinated community initiatives

Excluding users from design

Food surplus alongside food insecurity

Works Across

VALUE What value could emerge if these relationships were stronger? What opportunities are currently being missed? What forms of value depend on trust? What is the cost of fragmentation? What becomes possible through connection?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Which relationships need tending? What has weakened these connections? What care is needed to rebuild trust? Who is already doing this work? What small actions could strengthen relationships?

FLOW What is failing to circulate because of this disconnect? Where are communication breakdowns occurring? What knowledge, resources, or opportunities are trapped? What new flows could emerge? What is preventing exchange?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who needs to be connected? Who is currently isolated? What voices are missing? What relationships matter most? What collective strengths remain untapped?

PLACE How does place influence these relationships? What local conditions support connection? What barriers exist? What shared spaces could help rebuild trust? How might place become a meeting point?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future becomes possible if these relationships are repaired? What happens if fragmentation continues? What resilience could emerge from stronger connections? What future opportunities depend upon collaboration? What legacy might these relationships create?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Excluded Voice Decisions are made on behalf of people without meaningfully involving them. The system may be designed with good intentions, yet those most affected have little influence over how it operates. As a result, solutions often fail to reflect lived experience, local knowledge, or cultural context.

Core

Circular

Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Expertise vs

Knowledge is

How might decision-

Top-down policy interventions

Participation

concentrated rather

making become more

Urban redevelopment projects

than distributed.

participatory, inclusive, and

Public services designed without

responsive?

users

Corporate sustainability initiatives

Community programmes developed without communities

Works Across

ALUE

What forms of knowledge are being overlooked?

What

perspectives are

undervalued?

What value emerges when more voices are included?

What assum whose o

ptions determine

pinions matter?

What is lost through exclusion?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who carries the burden of exclusion? What care work is required because people were not consulted? How are relationships affected by exclusion? What would meaningful inclusion require? What responsibilities accompany participation?

FLOW What knowledge is unable to circulate? What experiences fail to reach decision-makers? Where does communication break down? What information is trapped? What would happen if those flows improved?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who is absent? Why are they absent? Who decides who participates? What power dynamics are shaping involvement? What forms of collective intelligence remain untapped?

PLACE Which local perspectives are missing? What histories of exclusion exist here? What place-based knowledge is being ignored? What communities are affected? How might inclusion strengthen place?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future opportunities are lost through exclusion? What future depends upon its What risks emerge when voices remain unheard? What future becomes possible through participation? What decisions might change? What legacy does exclusion leave behind?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Abundant Waste Something valuable is consistently discarded, overlooked, underutilised, or treated   as waste. This may be a material, skill, space, relationship, knowledge source, or community asset. The issue is not scarcity, but rather, an inability to recognise its  existing abundance. Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Abundance vs Perceived Scarcity

Useful resources are disconnected from potential uses.

How might people develop How might existing abundance be revealed, shared, and reimagined?

Familiar

Examples

Food waste

Vacant buildings

Surplus materials

Retired expertise

Community knowledge

Industrial by-products

Works Across

VALUE What is being treated as waste that still holds value? Why is it difficult to recognise abundance? What assumptions create perceptions of scarcity? What hidden assets already exist? What becomes possible when waste is viewed differently?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What care could extend the life of this resource? What maintenance is missing? What relationships could be strengthened through reuse? Who already recognises its value? What stewardship practices could emerge?

FLOW Where is this resource currently flowing? Where is this resource becoming stuck? What prevents recirculation? What connections are missing? How might abundance move differently through the system?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who could benefit from this resource? Who currently has access? What knowledge is needed to unlock its value? What communities already practice reuse? How might abundance be shared?

PLACE What resources already exist here? What local assets are overlooked? How does place influence perceptions of waste? What opportunities are hidden in plain sight? What can this place teach us about resourcefulness?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future possibilities are currently being discarded? What happens if abundance remains unseen? What future resilience could emerge from recognising existing resources? What capacities could be strengthened? What future becomes possible through reuse?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Storyless Object People interact with a product, material, service, or system every day, yet know little about its origins, journey, impacts, or future. The absence of story creates emotional distance, making it easier to consume, discard, and replace without reflection.

Core

Circular

Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Connection vs

Objects become

How might stories

Clothing

Disconnection

anonymous and

strengthen relationships

Electronics

disposable.

between people,

Food

materials, places, and

Packaging

systems?

Furniture

Construction materials

Works Across

VALUE

How does knowing the story of something change its value?

What kinds of value remain hidden when stories are absent?

What relationships become possible through storytelling?

What is lost when objects become anonymous?

What deserves to be remembered?

R F C I N &N E

T O

OTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

How might stories encourage care? What would people protect if they knew its journey? What relationships are hidden within this object? How does storytelling influence stewardship? What stories deserve to be carried forward?

FLOW What journeys brought this into existence? What materials, people, and places contributed to it? What future journeys remain possible? What stories are circulating? Which stories are missing?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Whose stories are represented? Who feels ownership?Whose stories are absent? Who gets to tell the story? What collective memories are embedded here? How might storytelling strengthen belonging?

PLACE Where does this story begin? What places shaped it? What cultural context gives it meaning? How is it connected to local knowledge? What place-based stories remain untold?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future stories could emerge? What stories are worth preserving? What lessons should be passed on? How might future generations interpret this object? What legacy might it leave behind?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

STRUCTURES, ACCOUNTABILITY & TIME

This theme explores the structures, decisions and timeframes that shape how systems behave. The scenarios examine how responsibility is distributed, how resources are governed, how short-term priorities shape long-term outcomes and what happens when consequences are displaced over time.

The Leaking System Resources continually enter a system. Materials, money, knowledge, energy, skills, trust, or time are invested to keep it functioning. Yet despite these inputs, the system struggles to create lasting value. Something is escaping, being wasted, or failing to circulate. People often focus on increasing inputs rather than understanding where value is leaking. Core

Circular Circular   Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Input vs Retention

Value enters the system but fails to circulate.

Knowledge lost through staff turnover.

Buildings designed for high energy use.

Products that cannot be repaired.

Communities reliant on unstable funding.

Can hidden leaks be identified & transformed into opportunities for regeneration?

Works Across

VA UE

What valuable resources are entering this system but failing to create lasting value? What forms of value disappear before they can be shared? What is being mistaken for efficiency when it is actually waste? What is repeatedly invested without meaningful return? What value could be retained rather than replaced?

L T

REF EC ION & NO E

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What forms of care are compensating for these leaks? Who is constantly fixing symptoms rather than causes? What maintenance burden is created by these leaks? Where is care being exhausted? What would it mean to repair the leak rather than manage it?

FLOW What is flowing into this system? What is escaping? Where does circulation break down? What repeatedly enters but never accumulates? What should remain in circulation but does not?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who notices the leak? Who experiences its consequences? Who benefits from it remaining unresolved? What collective action could reduce it? Who should be involved in addressing it?

PLACE Where do these leaks occur? What local conditions contribute to them? What existing assets could help reduce them? How might another place respond differently? What does this place reveal about the leak?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What accumulates if this leak continues? What future costs are being created? What opportunities are disappearing over time? How might the leak shape future resilience? What future becomes possible if the leak is addressed?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Short-Term Win A solution appears successful because it delivers immediate benefits. It saves money, increases efficiency, accelerates delivery, or improves convenience. However, over time the solution creates unintended consequences that generate new social, environmental, economic, or cultural challenges. Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Immediate Benefit vs Long-Term Consequence

Short-term optimisation undermines longterm resilience.

How might decisions be evaluated across multiple timescales rather than immediate outcomes alone?

Familiar

Examples

Single-use packaging

Fast fashion

Planned obsolescence

Car-centred urban planning

Cost-cutting measures that increase future expenditure

Works Across

VALUE What is being optimised for today? What value is being sacrificed for immediate gain? What appears successful in the short term? What longer-term value is being overlooked? What would success look like over fifty years instead of five?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who will need to manage the consequences later? What future care burden is being created? What responsibilities are being deferred? Who is cleaning up after today's decisions? What would a more caring decision look like?

FLOW What benefits arrive immediately? What consequences emerge slowly? What delayed effects are difficult to see? What is accumulating beneath the surface? What flows are being accelerated at the expense of others?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who benefits now? Who pays later? Whose interests are shaping the decision? Whose perspectives are absent? How might different groups define success differently?

PLACE How does this place experience the consequences? What local knowledge challenges the short-term perspective? What place-based wisdom is being ignored? How might this decision affect   the character of this place? What would future inhabitants   say about it?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future problem is being created by today's solution? What assumptions about the future are embedded here? What happens if this decision is repeated? What alternative futures are being excluded? How might future generations evaluate this choice?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Shared Resource A resource benefits many people. It may be a public space, shared service, community asset, common infrastructure, digital platform, or natural ecosystem. Because responsibility is distributed, care is often inconsistent. People value the resource but may assume someone else is responsible for maintaining it. Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Collective Benefit vs Individual Responsibility

Shared ownership doesn’t automatically create shared stewardship.

How might people develop stronger relationships with resources they collectively depend upon?

Familiar

Examples

Parks and public spaces

Community centres

Shared workspaces

Tool libraries

Rivers, forests, and public land

Works Across

VALUE What value does this resource create collectively? What would be lost if it disappeared? How is its value currently understood?

What value remains invisible because it is shared? What makes shared resources difficult to protect?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who currently cares for this resource? Who assumes someone else will care for it? What forms of stewardship already exist? How is responsibility distributed? What would encourage people to practice care more deeply?

FLOW What flows through this shared resource? Who contributes? Who extracts? What circulates fairly? Where do imbalances occur?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who benefits from this resource? Who feels ownership? Who feels disconnected? How are decisions made? What forms of participation are possible?

PLACE Why does this resource   matter here? What local relationships   support it? How is it connected to a placebased identity? What cultural meanings does   it hold? How might local communities strengthen it?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What condition will this resource be in fifty years from now? What future depends upon its survival? What threatens its long-term viability? What would regeneration   look like? What legacy could it leave behind?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Forgotten Future A decision made today creates consequences that will be experienced by future generations. The benefits are immediate and visible, while the costs are delayed and often invisible. Because future stakeholders are absent from decision-making, their interests are rarely represented. Core

Tension

Circular Breakdown

Circular   Potential

Present Needs vs Future Responsibility

Future impacts are disconnected from present decisions.

How might future generations become active participants in today's design decisions?

Familiar

Examples

Climate change

Resource depletion

Infrastructure planning

Public debt

Biodiversity loss

Long-life products and buildings

Works Across

VALUE What is valuable to future generations but invisible today? What are we borrowing from the future? What forms of value take decades to emerge? What do we struggle to value because it does not benefit us directly? What inheritance are we creating?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What responsibilities do we hold toward future generations? How might care extend beyond the present moment? What future needs are we overlooking? Who is acting as a steward for the future? What would long-term care look like?

FLOW What consequences are flowing into the future? What resources are being consumed faster than they regenerate? What patterns are becoming locked in? What accumulates over time? What might future generations wish had circulated differently?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who represents future generations today? Whose future is being considered? Whose future is being ignored? What collective responsibilities emerge? How might communities become better ancestors?

PLACE What might this place look like in fifty years? What aspects of place are vulnerable? What long-term relationships exist between people and place? What future stories could emerge here? What responsibilities come with inhabiting this place?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What future is currently being designed? What future remains unimaginable? What assumptions shape our expectations of tomorrow? What future risks are being normalised? What future would we actively choose to create?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Hidden Cost A product, service, policy, or system appears affordable, efficient, or successful. However, many of its true costs are absorbed elsewhere by people, communities, ecosystems, future generations, or invisible workers. Because these costs remain hidden, decisions are often made using incomplete information.

Core

Circular

Familiar

Tension

Breakdown

Potential

Examples

Visible Benefit

Value is extracted

How might hidden impacts

Cheap clothing

vs Invisible

while costs are

become visible and

Low-cost food systems

Consequence

displaced.

influence decision-making?

Extractive supply chains

Fossil fuel dependence

Gig economy labour

Waste exports

Works Across

VALUE What appears inexpensive but is actually costly?

What forms of value are being prioritised?

What costs remain invisible?

Who decides which costs matter?

What becomes visible when the

full picture is revealed?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who is absorbing the hidden costs? What care work compensates for them? Who is repairing damage caused elsewhere? What burdens are being shifted? How might responsibility be redistributed?

FLOW Where are costs being transferred? What consequences are displaced? What resources appear cheap because their impacts are hidden? What would happen if all costs remained visible? What is being externalised?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

COMMUNITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who benefits? Who pays? Who takes it for granted? Who has the power to make these trade-offs? What conversations are currently missing?

PLACE Where do hidden costs occur? What places benefit? What places bear the burden? How does geography shape visibility? What local impacts remain unseen?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

FUTURE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What costs are being deferred? What liabilities are accumulating? What future burdens are being created? What happens when hidden costs become unavoidable? Who inherits them?

INSIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS

Finding Points of Leverage

Seeing a pattern is not the same as changing it. Change becomes more possible when we understand what is holding a pattern in place. As you move from the Seeing Prompts to the Leverage Prompts, consider:

What is keeping this pattern alive?

What has become invisible?

What is being undervalued?

Who is carrying responsibility?

Which relationships have weakened?

What knowledge is at risk of being lost?

What would change if we considered a   longer timeframe?

Which rules or conditions are shaping behaviour?

What role do I play within this system?

A point of leverage is a place within a system where a relatively small shift can create wider change.

The Leverage Prompts invite you to explore where change might begin. Here, leverage does not mean looking for weaknesses or exploiting vulnerabilities. It means identifying opportunities to create change by working with the relationships, knowledge, resources and conditions that already exist not by extracting more from people or places.

What could shift, and what might that make possible?

Not every problem can be changed by intervening in the thing   at the centre of it. Sometimes change begins with a story. Sometimes with making something visible. Sometimes with recognising what already exists. Sometimes with changing who carries responsibility. Sometimes with repairing a relationship, carrying knowledge forward or changing the rules that shape behaviour.

As you move through the Leverage Prompts, look for the places where a small shift might create wider change.

SHIFT THE STORY

Every system is held together by stories. Stories shape what people believe is normal, desirable, possible and inevitable. They influence what we value, what we overlook and what we believe can change.

A product may be understood as disposable. A material may be seen as a resource rather than a relationship. Care may be treated as a cost rather than an investment. Growth may be assumed to be necessary, even when its consequences are unsustainable.

These stories are often so familiar they become difficult to see.

Shifting the story does not mean simply replacing one message with another. It means questioning the assumptions beneath a situation and asking what might become possible if we understood it differently.

What story is keeping this pattern in place? What might become possible if the story changed?

SHIFT THE STORY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What story is this system telling people? What story has become so familiar that nobody questions   it anymore? What assumptions does this story depend upon? Who benefits from this story continuing? Who is harmed by it? Which voices are missing from this story?

SHIFT THE STORY What alternative story already exists but is rarely heard? What story would make different behaviours feel natural? If a child inherited only this story, what kind of future would they build? What story deserves to be told instead? Retell this system from the perspective of something that cannot speak.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE

Circularity often fails because the things that matter the most remain unseen.

We notice the product, but not the labour that maintains it. We notice the material, but not the extraction that made it possible. We notice the service, but not the infrastructure and relationships that sustain it. What remains unseen can easily be undervalued, overlooked or taken for granted.

Making something visible does not automatically change it. But it can change what becomes possible to question, discuss and act upon. Look beyond what is immediately apparent. What labour, care, knowledge, resources, relationships, power or consequences are present but difficult to see?

What is being made invisible? What might change if it were made visible?

MAKE THE   INVISIBLE, VISIBLE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What is hiding in plain sight?   What costs remain invisible? What work is essential but rarely recognised? What relationships are overlooked? What knowledge is quietly sustaining this system? What happens before people notice?

MAKE THE   INVISIBLE, VISIBLE What happens after people stop paying attention? What would surprise someone if they looked more closely?

What deserves greater visibility? If this invisible work stopped tomorrow, what would collapse first? Draw the system without drawing the product. Only draw the invisible things.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

REVALUE WHAT ALREADY EXISTS

We are often encouraged to look for what is missing: a new product, a new service, a new technology or a new solution. Circularity does not always begin with creating something new.

Resources, skills, relationships, spaces, materials and forms of knowledge may already exist within a system, even when they are overlooked or undervalued. What is considered obsolete in one context may be valuable in another. What appears insignificant may become important when its relationships and potential are recognised. Before adding something new, look again at what is already here.

What already exists that is being overlooked or undervalued? What might become possible if its value were recognised differently?

REVALUE WHAT

ALREADY EXISTS

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What already exists that could become the starting point? What strengths are currently overlooked? What knowledge already lives here? What traditions deserve renewed attention? What is treated as ordinary but is actually extraordinary? What capacities already exist within this community?

REVALUE WHAT

ALREADY EXISTS What would happen if we designed from abundance rather than scarcity? What has been dismissed too quickly? What would you preserve before creating something new? If you could use only what already exists, where would you begin? If you cannot buy anything new. What becomes possible?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

REDISTRIBUTE RESPONSIBILITY

Many systems fail because responsibility is present everywhere and nowhere at once. Consumers blame corporations. Corporations blame demand. Governments blame budgets. Designers blame briefs. Institutions blame policy. Responsibility moves between people and organisations until no one is clearly accountable for what happens next.

Responsibility is not always distributed equally. Some people have more power, resources and influence to shape the conditions within which others make choices. Understanding where responsibility sits and where it should sit can reveal opportunities for meaningful change. Look beyond who is currently being asked to act. Consider who has the power to make different actions possible.

Who is currently carrying responsibility? Who has the power to change the conditions that shape this situation?

REDISTRIBUTE RESPONSIBILITY

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who currently carries the greatest responsibility? Who has the greatest influence? Where do responsibility and power fail to align? Who benefits without contributing? Who contributes without recognition? What responsibilities are currently assumed rather than discussed?

REDISTRIBUTE RESPONSIBILITY What responsibilities could be shared differently? What new partnerships might emerge? What small responsibility could unlock larger change? If everyone accepted only the responsibilities they could fulfil, what would change? If no single actor can solve this problem, what combination of actors could?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS

Circular systems are not sustained by materials alone. They depend on relationships between people and places, producers and users, organisations and communities, and present needs and future responsibilities. When these relationships weaken, systems can become fragmented. Knowledge is lost, responsibility becomes unclear and opportunities for care and collaboration disappear.

Strengthening a relationship does not always mean creating something new. Sometimes it means repairing trust, creating space for exchange, restoring communication or recognising a connection that already exists.

Which relationships are essential to this system? What might become possible if those relationships were strengthened?

STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Which relationship matters most in this system?

Which relationship is weakest?

Where do responsibility and power fail to align? What relationships have become purely transactional? Where does trust already exist? Where has trust been lost?

STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS What conversations are not happening? What relationship, if strengthened, could unlock many others?

Who needs to meet who? How would the system look if it was designed for relationships rather than transactions? Remove every product from the system and map the relationships. What do you notice?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

KEEP KNOWLEDGE MOVING

Knowledge is one of the most overlooked resources in any system. It lives in people, practices, memories, stories, skills and relationships. It can be held in a community, passed between generations, embedded in materials or developed through years of experience. Knowledge can disappear when people retire, communities disperse, practices are abandoned or organisations fail to learn from what has come before.

Circular systems depend on knowledge that can travel, adapt and remain alive. This may mean documenting what is at risk of being lost. It may mean creating opportunities for people to teach and learn from one another. It may mean recognising forms of knowledge that have been overlooked or excluded.

What knowledge is already present within this system? What would help it continue to move, adapt and remain alive?

KEEP KNOWLEDGE

MOVING

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What knowledge keeps this system alive? Where does knowledge currently become trapped? What knowledge disappears   when someone leaves? What forms of informal knowledge are overlooked? What knowledge deserves protecting? What knowledge should be shared more openly?

KEEP KNOWLEDGE

MOVING How is learning currently happening?

Who teaches whom? What wisdom already exists outside formal expertise? If this knowledge disappeared tomorrow, what would become impossible? Imagine this project 100 years from now. What knowledge would you hope had survived?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

DESIGN WITH TIME

Almost every unsustainable system is shaped by short-term thinking. We measure success in quarters, design for immediate use and make decisions according to what is visible now. But the consequences of those decisions often unfold over years, decades or generations.

Designing with time means looking beyond the immediate outcome and asking what a decision sets in motion. It means considering how materials, relationships, knowledge, places and systems might change over time and what might be needed to support them as they do.

What becomes visible when you extend the timeframe? What would you design differently if you had to live with the consequences for decades?

DESIGN WITH TIME

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What decisions are being made too quickly? What deserves   more time? What has taken years to develop? What consequences will emerge slowly? What would change if this system were designed for fifty years instead of five? What future maintenance is being designed in today?

DESIGN WITH TIME What rhythms already exist that we should respect? What cycles are we ignoring? What should happen more slowly? What deserves patience? Imagine you are designing this   for your grandchildren. What changes about your design?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

CHANGE THE RULES

Sometimes people are not the problem. The rules are. The choices available to people are shaped by the conditions around them: policies, regulations, incentives, business models, funding structures, ownership models, institutional priorities and cultural expectations.

When the conditions reward extraction, waste or short-term thinking, asking people to behave differently may have limited impact.

This category invites you to look beyond individual behaviour and examine the structures that make certain behaviours easier, more profitable or more acceptable than others.

What rules are shaping this pattern? Who created them, who benefits from them and what might change if the rules were different?

CHANGE THE RULES

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What rule is producing this behaviour? Who created this rule?

Who benefits from it? Who is disadvantaged by it?

Which rules are written?

Which rules are simply assumed?

CHANGE THE RULES What incentive is shaping behaviour? What would happen if the rules changed? Which small rule change could create the biggest ripple effect? What new rule would encourage stewardship instead of extraction? If you could change only one rule, what would it be and why?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

EXAMINE YOURSELF

No one stands outside the systems they are trying to change. We are all shaped by the systems around us, but we also participate in maintaining them through our everyday choices, assumptions, habits and decisions. This does not mean that responsibility is equal. Nor does it mean that individuals should carry the burden of changing systems that they did not create.

Instead, this category invites you to consider your own position within the system.

What do you assume?

What do you take for granted?

What habits do you participate in?

What forms of knowledge do you privilege?

What might you be unable or unwilling to see?

What responsibilities do you hold, and which responsibilities do you not?

The purpose is not guilt or self-blame. It is to cultivate reflexivity: the ability to recognise how our own position, values and actions shape what we notice and what we consider possible. Before asking what needs to change, ask, 'What is my relationship to this system?'

CHANGE THE RULES

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What assumption am I bringing into this situation? What am I refusing to question?

Where am I contributing to the pattern I want to change?

What privilege or bias shapes   how I see this system?

What discomfort am I avoiding?

What am I trying to control?

CHANGE THE RULES

What am I afraid of losing?

What would it mean to participate differently?

What responsibility is mine?

How might I become a better ancestor through this work?

If you could change only one rule, what would it be and why?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Looking Onwards Looking Onwards invites you to explore what might become possible from where you are.

You may have arrived here through a story, a scenario, a leverage prompt or simply a question you have been carrying into your practice. Wherever you begin, this stage offers an opportunity to take what you have noticed   and explore what could happen next.

Seeing differently can change what   becomes possible.

You may have noticed relationships, patterns   and conditions that were previously difficult to see. You may have questioned what is valued, what is overlooked, who carries responsibility   or what might happen over time.

Looking Onwards invites you to respond to what you have noticed, not necessarily by finding a perfect solution but by making space to imagine, deliberate, experiment and practise.

Some changes may begin with a new design. Others may begin with a different question, a repaired relationship, a changed habit, a shared piece of knowledge or a decision to care for   what already exists.

The aim is not to reach a final answer.

It is to explore what might become possible and what you might carry forward.

What might you do differently now that you see differently?

EXERCISES

The exercises invite you to respond to situations where circular change is not straightforward. Each exercise presents a familiar challenge and asks you to look beyond the most obvious point of intervention.

You may be asked to redesign a system rather than a product, question how success is measured, identify how waste is created or examine the conditions shaping behaviour.

The conditions are intentional. They are designed to prevent familiar solutions and encourage you to think beyond efficiency, substitution, recycling and awareness. You do not need to find   a perfect answer.

Instead, use the exercise to explore the assumptions beneath the challenge, identify what is keeping the current pattern in place and consider where change might begin.

What would you do differently if the obvious solution was no longer available?

The Invisible Success A smartphone has become one of your company's biggest commercial successes. Customers love it because it is inexpensive, easy to replace, and frequently updated with new features. Sales continue to grow each year, and the business measures success almost entirely through units sold.Recent research, however, shows that over 70% of returned products remain fully functional. Most replacements occur because people desire newer features rather than because the product has failed.

Challenge

Conditions

Redesign the system, not the product, so that commercial success is no longer dependent on replacement.

You cannot redesign the product.

You cannot rely on recycling.

Revenue must continue to grow.

You cannot educate consumers through awareness campaigns.

Circular Seeing Lens

Growth . Ownership . Behaviour

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

When Better Becomes More

A redesign cuts material use by 40%. Costs fall. Sales double. The project is celebrated as a sustainability success. Yet total material consumption is now higher than before.

Challenge

Conditions

Everyone agrees the project succeeded. What would you measure instead?

The product remains commercially successful.

The efficiency gains cannot be reversed.

Your response must redefine success, not improve efficiency.

Circular Seeing Lens

Growth . Value . Systems

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

When Better Becomes More

A warehouse contains thousands of perfectly usable items awaiting disposal. Nothing is broken. Nothing is contaminated. Nothing has reached the end of its functional life. Yet every stakeholder agrees they are now "waste".

Challenge

Conditions

Identify the decisions, assumptions, policies, behaviours, and incentives that transformed these objects into waste. Only then decide where you would intervene.

Assume the materials are valuable.

Assume the people are acting rationally.

Challenge the system, not the objects.

Circular Seeing Lens

Value . Culture . Systems

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

The Ownership Illusion A product designed to last 30 years is typically used for less than 30 hours each year. Most of its life is spent stored, idle, or forgotten. Your client believes the answer is to sell more of them.

Conditions

Challenge

If the goal is to maximise access to value rather than ownership of objects, what system would you redesign?

You cannot redesign the product.

You cannot persuade people to "consume less".

Your proposal must work for people with different incomes, lifestyles, and levels of trust.

Circular Seeing Lens

Access . Value . Behaviour

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Why Don’t People Repair Everything needed for repair already exists. The tools. The instructions. The spare parts. The expertise. Yet people continue replacing rather than repairing.

Conditions

Challenge

Begin by identifying the invisible

What system, not product, needs redesigning? Before responding, ask yourself: What evidence would help you understand why people choose not to repair?

barriers to repair.

Resist assuming the problem is cost or convenience.

Consider culture, confidence, time, identity, trust, and social norms.

Circular Seeing Lens

Care . Community . Behaviour

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

When Easy Becomes Expensive Customers love your service because it removes every inconvenience. Ordering takes seconds. Returns are effortless. Replacement is easier than repair. The experience is seamless. Yet the environmental and social costs continue to grow.

Conditions

Challenge

Identify one place where making something slightly harder could   create greater long-term value for people, communities, or the planet.

Do not reduce accessibility.

Do not rely on awareness campaigns.

Your intervention should encourage reflection rather than restriction.

Circular Seeing Lens

Care . Time . Behaviour

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

The Ripple Effect A city introduces smart waste bins that automatically compact rubbish and reduce collection costs. The programme is celebrated. The intervention solves the problem it was designed to address. Unexpectedly, three new problems appear elsewhere.

Conditions

Challenge

Identify where those problems might emerge. Then decide whether the intervention is still the right one.

Think beyond your immediate users.

Consider environmental, social, cultural, and economic effects.

Resist solving the new problems too quickly.

Circular Seeing Lens

Interdependence . Systems . Consequences

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Beyond Awareness A new sustainability campaign is launched to encourage people to adopt more circular behaviours. Early evaluations show high levels of awareness, but little change in everyday practice. Conversations with residents reveal something unexpected: many already repair, share, borrow, improvise, and care for their belongings. Their challenge is not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of recognition, support, and infrastructure.

Conditions

Challenge

How might you redesign the system so that existing circular practices become easier to sustain, strengthen, and spread?

Build on what already exists.

Do not begin with behaviour change.

Assume communities hold valuable knowledge.

Circular Seeing Lens

Community . Infrastructure . Recognition

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

The Hidden Experts A design team has been asked to create a new circular initiative for a neighbourhood. Early research focuses on identifying problems, barriers, and unmet needs. As conversations continue, a different picture emerges. Residents are already repairing, sharing, borrowing, adapting, growing food, exchanging skills, and caring for one another in ways that rarely appear in formal strategies or reports.

Conditions

Challenge

Rather than designing a new solution, identify the existing practices, relationships, and knowledge that could become the foundation for change.

Begin with community strengths before community needs.

Resist replacing what already works.

Design with existing knowledge, not around it.

Circular Seeing Lens

Community . Community . Agency

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Who Gets To Decide A circular initiative is ready to move forward. Designers, researchers, community organisations, policymakers, and local businesses all agree that change is needed. As decisions are made, however, some voices carry more weight than others. Certain forms of expertise are prioritised, while lived experience, informal knowledge, and everyday practices are treated as secondary.

Conditions

Challenge

How might decision-making be redesigned so that different forms of knowledge meaningfully shape the outcome?

Do not assume expertise only exists within institutions.

Consider who participates, who decides, and who benefits.

Strengthen relationships before proposing new solutions.

Circular Seeing Lens

Power . Participation . Plural Knowledge

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

When Less Creates More A design team is invited to develop a new circular initiative for a community. Through research, they discover that many of the desired outcomes already exist through informal repair networks, neighbourhood exchanges, shared spaces, and everyday acts of care. What is missing is not innovation, but recognition, coordination, and long-term support.

Conditions

Challenge

If your goal is to strengthen the system rather than expand it, where would you choose to act?

Avoid creating new products or services unless genuinely necessary.

Build from existing relationships and capabilities.

Define success in terms of resilience, not novelty.

Circular Seeing Lens

Stewardship . Sufficiency . Community

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

PRACTICE

Circularity is not a destination or a checklist to complete. It is a practice of continually noticing, questioning, caring, adapting and returning.

The Practice Prompts invite you to carry the ways of seeing developed through Circular Seeing into your everyday work and life. They ask you to turn attention into habit: to notice more closely, ask better questions, practise care, share what you learn, experiment with small changes and return to reflect on what has happened.

Meaningful change does not always begin with a large intervention. It may begin with a question you ask differently, something you choose to maintain, knowledge you decide to share or a pattern you notice before it becomes invisible again.

You do not need to complete every prompt or adopt every practice.

Choose what feels relevant to your context, return to the prompts over time and notice what changes.

NOTICE MORE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What is one thing you will start noticing that you previously overlooked?

What will you pay closer attention to in your next project?

What invisible work will you actively look for?

NOTICE MORE What assumptions will you begin questioning?

What story will you listen for before proposing solutions?

For one week, deliberately notice something that usually goes unseen.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

ASK BETTER QUESTIONS

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What question will you begin asking at the start of every project?

Which question from today's workshop challenged you most?

What question do your clients rarely hear?

ASK BETTER QUESTIONS What uncomfortable question deserves asking?

What question might change the direction of your work?

Replace one assumption this month with one genuine question.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

PRACTICE CARE

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What could you care for rather than replace?

What relationship deserves more attention?

What maintenance will you no longer overlook?

PRACTICE CARE Where could care become visible in your work?

What would stewardship look like this week?

Care for one thing before creating something new.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

SHARE WHAT YOU LEARN

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What insight from today will you share?

Who should be part of your next conversation?

What knowledge should you pass on?

SHARE WHAT YOU LEARN Who taught you something worth carrying forward?

How will you keep today's learning alive?

Share one story before sharing one solution.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

EXPERIMENT SMALL

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What is one small experiment you could try next week?

What feels possible right now?

What could you test without waiting for permission?

EXPERIMENT SMALL What tiny change could reveal something important?

What experiment feels worth repeating?

Design one experiment, not one perfect solution.

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

EXPERIMENT SMALL

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

What changed after trying something new?

What surprised you?

What became easier?

EXPERIMENT SMALL What became harder?

What would you now do differently?

What new questions have emerged?

REFLECTIONS & NOTES

Continue the Practice

Take one idea from this learning and carry it into your   next conversation, project, relationship, or decision. Then return. Notice what changed. Ask a better question. Share what you learned. Do this again and again.

Circular

Seeing    A Learning Resource for Designing Circular Futures

Circular Seeing: A learning resource for designing circular futures