Starting in 2014 by Scott Smith of Changeist, the IED Barcelona Innovation and Future Thinking summer course has been led by John V Willshire (Smithery) since 2017, in collaboration with Toban Shadlyn (Field States) since 2023.
This page has been designed to be a reading list to accompany the course itself, covering the topics and approaches we go through during the fortnight with students.
We will update this page each year.
Core texts
How to Future – Scott Smith with Madeline Ashby, 2020, Kogan Page
Future Cultures – Scott Smith and Susan Cox-Smith, 2023, Kogan Page
NB Scott set up the course in 2014 and a year later invited me to teach on it, handing it over in 2017 – there was no textbook we could recommend to the students, so Scott basically wrote one – John
Future Thinking
The Future of the World – Jenny Andersson, 2018, Oxford University Press
The Invention of Tomorrow – Suddendorf, Redshaw, Bulley, 2022, Basic Books
What is the Future? – John Urry, 2016, Polity
Sensemaking – Christian Madsjberg, 2019, Abacus
Seeing Around Corners – Rita McGrath, 2020, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Trend Forecaster’s Handbook – Martyn Raymond, 2019, Laurence King
A Call For a More-Than-Human Politics – Anab Jain, 2020, Medium Essay
Worldbuilding – imagining hopeful futures in a changing climate – Paul Graham Raven, 2024
Strategic Design
Dark Matter and Trojan Horses – Dan Hill, 2014, Strelka Press
Emergent Strategy – adrienne maree brown, 2017, AK Press
Reimagining Design – Kevin Bethune, 2022, MIT
Medium Design – Keller Easterling, 2021, Verso
Society Driven Design – Hoda Judah Armani, 2024, BIS
Thinking in Systems – Donella H. Meadows, 2017, Chelsea Green
A Cautious Prometheus (PDF) – Bruno Latour, 2008, meeting of the Design History Society
Research Methods
Just Enough Research (2nd Ed.) – Erika Hall, 2019, A Book Apart
Mixed Methods – Sam Ladner, 2019, self-pub.
The Art of Noticing – Rob Walker, 2019, Ebury
Rocking Qualitative Research – Ashley T. Rubin, 2021, Stanford
Street Photography – Valérie Jardin, 2017, Routledge
Convivial Toolbox – Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders & Pieter Jan Stappers, 2012, BIS
The User Research Team of One (2nd Ed.) – Leah Buley & Joe Natoli, 2024, Rosenfeld
After Method – John Law, 2004, Routledge
Design Methods
Universal Methods of Design – Bella Martin & Bruce Hanington, 2019, Rockport
Design Methods – John Chris Jones, 1992, Wiley
Gamestorming – Dave Gray, Sunni Brown & James Macanufo, 2010, O’Reilly
Design Journeys Through Complex Systems – Peter Jones & Kristel Van Ael, 2022, BIS
Participatory Methods
The Art of Gathering – Priya Parker, 2019, Penguin
Ideas Arrangements Effects – Design Studio for Social Interventions, 2020, Minor Compositions
Design as Politics – Tony Fry, 2010, Berg
Liberating Structures – Henri Lipmanowicz & Keith McCandless, 2013, self-pub.
Collective Intelligence Design Playbook – Nesta & UNDP, 2019 (pdf download)
Innovation
Frame Innovation – Kees Dorst, 2015, MIT
Where Good Ideas Come From – Steven Johnson, 2011, Penguin
The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, 2001, Profile Books
How to Thrive in the Next Economy – John Thackara, 2017, Thames and Hudson
Design Futures
Discursive Design – Bruce M.Sharp & Stephanie M. Tharp, 2019, MIT
The Manual of Design Fiction – Bleeker, Foster, Girardin & Nova, 2023, Near Future Laboratory
A New History of the Future in 100 Objects – Adrien Hon, 2020, MIT
Make It So – Nathan Shedroff & Christopher Noessell, 2012, Rosenfeld
John’s other picks
The Dawn of Everything – David Graeber & David Wengrow, 2022, Penguin
The Craftsman – Richard Sennett, 2009, Penguin
Range – David Epstein, 2020, Macmillan
How Infrastructure Works – Deb Chachra, 2023, Torva
Dust – Jay Owens, 2023, Hodder & Stoughton
101 Water Wise Ways – Helen Moffat, 2018, Bookstorm
Helgoland – Caro Rovelli, 2022, Penguin
Toban’s other picks
“Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts – Bruno Latour. (1992). in Bijker, W. E. and Law, J. (eds) Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, pp. 225-58
In Studio: Recipes for Systemic Change. – Bryan Boyer, Justin W. Cook, and Marco Steinberg, 2011, Sitra.
Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning – Stewart Brand, 2018, Journal of Design and Science, MIT Press.
How to with John Wilson – created by John Wilson, 2020-2023, HBO Entertainment
Strategic Questioning – Fran Peavey, Creating A Future We Can Live With (IC#40), 1995, Context Institute
Dancing at the Edge: Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century (2nd ed.) – Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester, 2019, Triarchy Press Ltd.
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