Piloting FuturesBack to home
Research

Piloting Futures is an initiative to imagine and build an inclusive, sustainable and accessible future for all of us!

Across Patna, Delhi and Ghaziabad, the project investigates three everyday systems through participatory design and research in the domains of public space, water and waste — revealing the people, behaviours and informal networks that make cities function.

Patna
Public space · Riverfront
A riverfront that shuts out the people who hold it up will struggle to be cared for by anyone.
The riverfront is already run by the people on it — boatmen, vendors, cleaners and farmers keep the bank going through their own networks, and the system has no way to see it.
Built as a road, not a riverfront.
Patna field photo
Patna field photo
Patna field photo
Old Delhi
Water · Ward 78
Water may enter the neighbourhood through a pipe, but reaching a home depends on an entire social system.
Raised land cut off the water.
Old Delhi field photo
Ghaziabad
Waste · Value & recovery
Karamchari didis burn waste at the bank because no infrastructure was built for them.
What looks like waste already moves through a working system of value and recovery.
Take it with you

Research decks

Piloting Futures
Pass it on
Design & Research
Centre for Social Design (C4SD) — Lead
Ink Social Design, Amsterdam
Supported by
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in India
© 2026 Centre for Social Design. All rights reserved.Piloting Futures downloadable tools and resources may be used, shared and adapted with credit to Piloting Futures — led by Centre for Social Design (C4SD), with Ink Social Design.