The Extrapolation Factory is an imagination-based studio for design-led futures studies. The studio develops experimental methods for collaboratively prototyping, experiencing and impacting future scenarios. Central to these methods is the creation of hypothetical future props and their deployment in familiar contexts such as 99¢ stores, science museums, vending machines and city sidewalks. With this work, the studio is exploring the value of rapidly imagined, prototyped, deployed and evaluated visions of possible futures on an extended time scale.

Chris Woebken is also a Researcher at the Office of Hypothetical Futures, an initiative interested in the implications of this prototyping technology and aims to explore ways of designing services that acknowledges people’s complexities, contradictions and superstitions from a city municipal perspective.

He holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London (2008) and undertook an Interactive Design Apprenticeship with Adobe Systems in Hamburg, Germany (2003).

His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, USA; Museum of Art Reno, NV, USA; Valencia Museum of Art, Spain; and Science Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.

He has been a visiting scholar at the Environmental Health Clinic, New York University (NYU) and is an adjunct professor at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU. He is also a part time faculty critic in the Industrial Design program of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

His recent exhibitions include the Landscape Futures at Nevada Museum of Art Reno, NV, USA; LEAP Berlin, Germany; Future Fictions Z33; and the Artefact Festival at STUK Kunstencentrum in Leuven, Belgium.

Chris Woebken was a workshop expert at the 5th International Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction dedicated to “Infrastructure Space” held April 7-9, 2016 in Detroit, USA.