What If We Stayed? – Reimagining Rural Futures
What If We Stayed? is a participatory design project that invites young people to imagine and co-create alternative futures for rural living in Sweden. It addresses youth disengagement in rural communities and explores how speculative design can empower reflections on belonging, place, and agency.
Through workshops, a co-designed board game, and speculative scenarios, the project challenges the narrative of inevitable rural decline by reframing rural life as a site of possibility—shaped by those who often feel excluded from its future.
Problem framing
Rural areas across Sweden face critical challenges: ageing populations, shrinking villages, and ongoing youth migration to cities. Although initiatives such as By2030 and Future Villages aim to revitalise these regions, youth voices remain largely absent from decision-making and local development.
Speculative design offers a framework for change—not by proposing ready-made solutions, but by creating tools that help people imagine what could be. In this project, that framework took the form of a collaborative board game, co-created with rural youth, exploring themes of housing, mobility, sustainability, and community resilience.
“Rather than designing a solution, I designed a process—one where young people could imagine, reflect, and reclaim authorship over their future lives in the countryside.”
The game functioned as a tool for critical dialogue and creative expression. Drawing on concepts from Futures Literacy and meta-design’s four spheres of sustainability, it encouraged participants to share dreams, concerns, and radical “what if” ideas for rural life.
Gamification as a learning tool
Presenting the toolkit in a game format was not only a creative decision, but a strategic one. Research shows that gamified tools can enhance engagement in social initiatives by activating intrinsic motivators such as curiosity, achievement, and collaboration—particularly effective in participatory settings.
Facilitation, not prescription
As a designer and a young person navigating similar questions, I positioned myself as a facilitator rather than a fixer. The process was grounded in social design principles articulated by Ezio Manzini and participatory methods from The Convivial Toolbox. Rather than designing for rural youth, I designed with them.
By embracing co-creation, gamification, and speculative storytelling, What If We Stayed? aims not only to explore rural futures, but to democratise who gets to imagine them.
References
- Manzini, Ezio. 2015. Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N., and Pieter Jan Stappers. 2012. Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.
- UNESCO. 2019. What Is Futures Literacy? United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Accessed May 19, 2025. https://en.unesco.org/futuresliteracy
Other sources
- Future Villages / Framtidsbyn. 2024. Accessed May 19, 2025. https://by2030.se/startsida/projekt/framtidsbyn/
- By2030 Initiative. 2024. Accessed May 19, 2025. https://by2030.se
