Why Future Foresight Doesn't Work Without Prototyping

Future Foresight aims to anticipate possible developments and make them strategically actionable. It is a method for structuring uncertainty. Yet foresight alone is not enough to create true orientation. Only through prototyping do abstract visions of the future become tangible experiences. A prototype is not a final solution but a hypothesis given form. It allows us to heuristically explore what a possible future might feel like — before it arrives.
In this sense, prototyping translates Future Foresight from the realm of speculative imagination into the realm of experience. It becomes an integral part of any strategy designed for real impact.

While classical future studies tend to think in scenarios, prototyping focuses on the use of systems — systems that enable us to translate vague futures into concrete actions, hypotheses into experiments, and visions into test environments.
At our R&D Lab at Taikonauten, we see prototyping as a knowledge-driven practice: the future is not tested for its probability, but for its relevance. This creates feedback loops that help prevent resources from flowing in the wrong directions.
At times, one might even be forced to unlearn the future — in order to think it anew, and better. In this sense, prototyping is not merely a tool for product development, but a genuine method of worldbuilding.

Prototyping is the physical manifestation of Future Foresight. When we make a future scenario tangible — whether as an interactive simulation, an AR experience, or a social rollout; ultimately a dialogue emerges between what is and what could be. This dialogue generates resonance — and resonance is ultimately what makes the future come alive. Prototypes are therefore essential for opening communication spaces between the present and the future. They serve as points of condensation for assumptions and shifting habits; they allow us to question beliefs, test emotions, and map out possible courses of action, all before decisions are made that can no longer be undone.

For companies, institutions, and research organizations, this means: anyone who talks about the future today must be willing to visualize a vision before it becomes reality. Future Foresight without Prototyping remains only an abstraction. It is through material speculation that strategy becomes an experience; one that signals the possibility of change. In practice, this means that strategic roadmaps are complemented by Design Fiction and Speculative Scenarios. Visions are translated into mockups, storyboards, or experiential simulations. Decisions are based not only on data but also always rely on lived experience. The goal of directed prototyping is precisely this: to create learning systems that don’t just observe the future, but that actively test it.

The future is not a fixed plan – it is a dynamic process. Future Foresight provides the perspective, while Prototyping offers proof of theoretical feasibility. Only through the interplay of both methods does a truly future-ready framework emerge — one that allows us to shape uncertainty instead of fearing it. Or, to put it differently: The future doesn’t just happen. It wants to be tried out.