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Professor Dan Lockton

Professor Dan Lockton

Institute for Sustainable Worlds

Dan Lockton joined Norwich in 2025 as Director of the new Institute for Sustainable Worlds. He is a designer/researcher working on tools and methods for collaborative re-imagining in an age of crises and transitions. Dan founded the Imaginaries Lab, a studio in Utrecht, Netherlands, and his previous positions include TU Eindhoven (NL), Carnegie Mellon University (US), and the Royal College of Art (UK). He has a PhD and BSc in Design from Brunel and a Master’s in Technology Policy from Cambridge.

Email Professor Dan Lockton

A man with short brown hair and a beard, wearing a green jacket and jeans, stands smiling outdoors on grass with historic stone buildings in the background.

Originally trained as an industrial design engineer, I became interested in how the designed world affects how we think and imagine, especially around futures, and understanding the complexities of the systems we live within. My research and teaching have developed in the direction of engaging with imaginaries through creative methods, developing tools for collaborative (re-)imagining: helping people create and explore possible futures, imagine new ways to live, and understand ourselves and the world around us better, in an age of crises and transitions in climate, health, and social inequalities.

I created the Design with Intent toolkit (2010)—widely adopted by educators and researchers worldwide—and New Metaphors: A Creative Toolkit for Generating Ideas and Reframing Problems (2019), which has been applied in contexts as diverse as robotics, therapy, and the circular economy. I’ve been an investigator/researcher on projects bringing together design and technology with societal, community, and environmental challenges, including: IMAGINE: Contested Futures of Sustainability (2022–24); Playing With The Trouble and Unbox (2022–); Spooky Technology (2020–21); Sleep Ecologies (2019); Legible Policy (2015–16); SusLabNWE (2013–15); Creative Citizens (2013–15); Creating Sustainable Innovation through Design for Behaviour Change (2014); and Empower (2010–12), with funders in the UK, US, Netherlands, Norway, and Mexico.

Earlier in my career I worked on designing some unusual folding bikes for Sir Clive Sinclair, and wrote a book about the Reliant Motor Company. I grew up in Devon, and now split my time between Norwich and Utrecht, Netherlands.

Practice

Publications

See Dan's published research

Exhibitions of creative research work

2025. Coops, F. and Lockton, D. ‘Sunsets and Sunrises: Lost Futures and Emerging Hopes’ in The Futures We Imagine, Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art, Lillestrøm, Norway, January–February 2025
2024. Coops, F. and Lockton, D. ‘Sunsets and Sunrises: Lost Futures and Emerging Hopes’ in The Futures We Imagine, Litteraturhuset, Oslo, Norway, December 2024
2024. Lockton, D., Kuijer, L., Viaene, E., Coops. F. Imagining Future Everydays. Kazerne, Eindhoven, Netherlands, June 2024 [organiser]
2023. Lockton, D., Kuijer, L., Viaene, E. Researching the Future Everyday: 02023<>02038. Disruptor, Eindhoven, Netherlands, June 2023 [organiser]
2022. Bendor, R., Lockton, D., Matos-Castaño, J., Mereuta, I., Blokzjil, J., Kim, Y. ‘Dream Sequencer’ in 4TU Design United Transitions: Futures, Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven, Netherlands, October 2022
2021. Lockton, D. ‘Remembrance Service: Everyday experiences and ephemera(lity) of petrol stations’. Art of Energy Galleries, Centre for Energy Ethics, St Andrews, Scotland, February–July 2021.
2021. Lockton, D., Ricketts, D., Zea-Wolfson, T., Brawley, L., Fass, J., Forlano, L., Aguirre Ulloa, M. Imagination Landscapes’ in Drivers of Change, Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven, Netherlands, October 2021.
2019. Mills, U., Brown, J., and Lockton, D. ‘Materalising Mental Health’ in MozFest 2019, Ravensbourne, London, October 2019.
2018. Bose, G., Brennan, E., Burgess, C., Huang, M., and Lockton, D. ‘Where Are the Humans in AI?’ in Future Perfect 2, Data & Society Research Institute, New York, USA, June 2018.
2017. Wu, S., Singh, D., and Lockton, D. ‘Electric Acoustic’. Pittsburgh Maker Faire, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, October 2017.
2016. Ansari, A., Zaidi, M.Z., Zuby, Z. and Lockton, D. ‘Guftugu’ in Climactic: Post-Normal Design, Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, December 2016.
2014. Bowden, F. and Lockton, D. ‘Drawing Energy’ and ‘Powerchord’, Digital Design Weekend, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, September 2014.
2014. Greene, C., Reader, M., Lockton, D., Ramster, G., Outten, A., & Raby, E. Telling Stories. The Mill, Walthamstow, London, February–March 2014.
2013. Bowden, F. and Lockton, D. ‘People, Energy and Everyday Life’. Life Examined, Royal College of Art, London, September 2013.
2012. Phillips, R. and Lockton, D. ‘Making Instructions for Others’. Brighton Mini Maker Faire, Brighton, UK, September 2012.

Public knowledge exchange work

2023. Media Evolution, The Conference, invited speaker, ‘Reimagining Institutions’, Malmö, Sweden
2023. CLICK.NL DRIVE Festival, Dutch Design Week, invited workshop ‘Collective Imagination for Transformative Futures’ (with J. Matos Castaño), Eindhoven, Netherlands
2023. 4TU Design United: Climate Futures Now!, Dutch Design Week, chair, Eindhoven, Netherlands
2022. 4TU Design United: Transitions/Futuring, Dutch Design Week, co-organiser, Eindhoven, Netherlands
2022. Design Council ‘Design for Planet’ initiative, panel on systemic design education at RSD Symposium, Brighton
2022. MEET Cultural Centre, Beyond the Visual: Hearing Data Between Science and Emotion, invited talk ‘Considering the Qualitative’. Milan, Italy.
2022. Chatham House / Het Nieuwe Instituut, London Design Biennale Summit, invited talk ‘Reimagining Collaboration Towards Sustainability’, London
2021. European Foundation Centre (now Philea), Annual Conference, invited talk on ‘Collective imagination, Design, and Futuring’, Vienna, Austria
2020/1. Demos Helsinki, Untitled Festivals, invited workshops on ‘Heat Resilient Cities 2039’ (with J. Sikorska and F. Desmarais), ‘New Metaphors’ (with S. Sahasrabuddhe) and ‘Reimagine the Agenda’ (with T. Zea-Wolfson)
2020. IxDA World Interaction Design Day, invited presentation on Imaginaries Lab
2019. Mozilla Foundation MozFest, workshop ‘Materialising Mental Health’ (with U. Mills and J. Brown) for BBC Neurodiversity space, London
2018. IxDA Interaction Latin America, keynote ‘Design and Imaginaries’, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2018. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Disruptive Innovation Festival, webinar about New Metaphors project (with D. Singh, S. Sabnis, M. Chou)
2018. UX Lisbon, invited workshop ‘New Metaphors’ and presentation ‘Design and The Importance of Imaginaries’. Lisbon, Portugal.
2018. TEDx University of Pittsburgh, invited talk ‘Design and The Importance of Imaginaries’, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2017. Google SPAN, invited workshop ‘New Metaphors and Qualitative Interfaces’, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
2016. Laboratorio para la Ciudad, Diseño para la Ciudad, invited presentation ‘Design and Behaviour in the City’, Mexico City

Other academic activities

Design Research Society, London: International Advisory Council, 2020 to date; Executive Board and trustee, 2022–24.
Centre for Unusual Collaborations, Alliantie EWUU, Utrecht: Fellow, 2022 to date.
Peer reviewer for academic journals including: Design Issues; The Design Journal; Journal of Design Research; Design Studies; International Journal of Design; Co-Design; She Ji; Communication Design; Futures; Journal of Futures Studies; Applied Ergonomics; Ergonomics; Computers in Human Behavior; Interacting with Computers; ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction; ASME Journal; Energy Research and Social Science; Energy Efficiency; Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy; International Journal of Sustainable Engineering; Sustainability; Philosophy & Technology; and Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture.
Peer reviewer for conferences including: Design Research Society (DRS); Relating Systems Thinking & Design Symposium (RSD); Nordic Design Research (NORDES); International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR); ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI); ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS); ACM Conference on Creativity & Cognition (C&C); ACM Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI); ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW); ACM Conference on Pervasive & Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp); Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI); Research Through Design (RTD); Ethnographic Praxis in Industry (EPIC).
Peer reviewer for funding bodies including: EPSRC; EU Horizon Future & Emerging Technologies Programme; RCUK Sustainable Society Network+; Luxembourg Fond National de la Recherche; and for PhD programmes at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and Oslo Metropolitan University.
Book proposal reviewing for: Ashgate; Earthscan; Routledge.
Jury member for IxDA Interaction Awards 2019; co-chair of student design competition for ACM DIS 2020; evaluator for TU/e Postdoc Association Best Paper Awards, 2021.
Conference organisation: DRS 2022 Bilbao conference, chair of the programme committee, 2021–22; ACM C&C 2022, workshops and tutorials co-chair; programme committee member for C&C 2022, EPIC 2019, DRS 2016. Associate chair for DIS and CHI, multiple years.
ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2022). Best Pictorial Award.
TU Eindhoven, Best Teacher Award 2023, runner-up.