ABSTRACT
Utopia as a design project performed a classical participatory design strategy for aligning design and use. Potential future users were enrolled together with professional designers to envision future use. Rethinking the Utopian design in Johan redström's perspective there would not be one, but multiple and sometimes contradicting futures evolving over time as different users-cum-producers perform their acts. The city of Malmö in Sweden, Today it is a vibrant university city with an increasing number of small and medium sized information technology, media and design companies. Prototyping as a design strategy is still at the core of this living labs participatory approach. 'Agonistic struggle' is at the core of a vibrant democracy. The design 'things' carried out has at times been far from consensual. The design thing around 'a distributed incubator for social innovation' that was initiated by the city and carried out by grassroots organizations, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, business developers, city administrators, politicians, designers and researchers.
