Our practice – shaped by the foundational works of Near Future Laboratory and Dunne & Raby – is as experimental as it is applied. We harness storytelling and foresight through design to uncover the issues surrounding the social, cultural, and technological transformations our societies are undergoing.

Based in Nantes, Lyon, and Paris, we operate both in France and internationally, working with organisations of all sizes. Through our explorations, we have specialised in matters of public interest, assisting public actors, businesses, and associations in envisioning their futures.

Our imagination thrives on interdisciplinarity, with contributions from collaborators in the humanities, the arts, and futures studies.

As a studio at heart, we also self-fund ‘cartes blanches’ that tackle subjects close to our convictions or experiment with new methods. We always add our secret ingredient, frictions, to question tomorrow as well as the practice of Design Fiction itself.

Within the studio, Bastien imagines and develops fictions, tools, and experiences aimed at helping identify, understand, and anticipate complex issues. To achieve this, he draws on Design Fiction and game-based mediation, both of which serve as vectors for mediating complexity and uncertainty. Bastien is committed to embedding his design practice within a research-creation mindset, where each project is an opportunity to experiment with new exploration formats.

A specialist in Design Fiction applied to the public sphere – democracy, public policies, and news media – he also has a particular interest in History and geopolitics, along with a deep passion for cultural détournement.

Bastien is also an international speaker (TEDx, Lift Conference, Interaction Conference, UNESCO Anticipation Conference) and a visiting lecturer at leading design and management schools in Europe (Oslo School of Architecture and Design, l’École de Design Nantes Atlantique, em lyon, Umea Institute of Design, OsloMet).

After a background in Business School and a master’s degree in design, Léa specialised in the ‘design of friction’. Through the studio’s explorations, Léa addresses emerging and structural topics with both a critical and creative stance: ethics of connected environments and objects, new forms of work, and socio-ecological transitions and disruptions.

Léa particularly applies her design skills to imagine inclusive futures that address issues such as sexism, gender stereotypes, and gender equality.

With a desire to share and a reflective spirit, Léa also co-facilitated the first season of the Design Fiction Club at La Gaîté Lyrique, a seminar open to all to discover this approach.

Estelle creates speculative fictions and design fiction scenarios that make complex topics, such as law, data, and algorithms, accessible to everyone. By enabling projections into possible futures, her work helps to better understand the mechanisms of the present, allowing for informed debate and the construction of a shared, yet plural, vision of the future.

She is currently undertaking a PhD at RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia) on the effects of artificial intelligence on public services. She studies how its deployment impacts the work of civil servants, the organisation of administrations, and the relationships between administration and citizens. To this end, she conducts a series of field investigations alongside speculative approaches. Her research is published in international journals and conferences (Design Research Society, Cumulus, Usenix).

She is also an Associate Researcher at the Design Research Centre (ENS Paris-Saclay and ENSCI – Les Ateliers) and the CNIL Innovation Lab (LINC). In parallel, Estelle teaches at design schools in France (ENSCI, École de design Nantes Atlantique, Strate École de Design) and across Europe (University of Lausanne).