# Dark Matter Labs

> We are building options for the next economies.

Our collaborative approach is firmly grounded in the complex, messy reality
of our existing socio-economic systems. Step-by-step, with the support of a
growing ecosystem, we aim to build tangible pathways towards the options that
we would like to manifest in the world. We have visualised our organisation's
response strategy across a three-dimensional matrix, which represents the
dynamic interplay of our systemic goals, collaborations and context specific
initiatives.

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Code is GPLv3.
Attribution: Dark Matter Labs, https://darkmatterlabs.org
Contact: info@darkmatterlabs.org

This work is openly licensed and we are glad for it to be read, quoted,
built on and learned from. The licence asks for attribution and share-alike
in return. Every page also carries JSON-LD naming the licence and author, so
that request is machine-readable rather than only stated here.

The links below point at Markdown versions of each page, as llmstxt.org v2
recommends. Every project and initiative page has one at its own URL with
index.md appended - the HTML page links to it with rel="alternate".

## How the work is organised

Dark Matter Labs is structured as a matrix. Labs and Arcs intersect to
produce initiatives; Studios cut across both. There are 21 units
in total.

### Labs

The labs explore structural alternatives to the everyday codes of society.

- Beyond Labour (BL): We are interested in exploring the future of work in relation to a rapidly changing world. What would it mean if we shifted from humans being employed as resources to vocations of creativity, purpose…
- Beyond the Rules (BR): The Btr Lab practises new forms of organising and governance. The Lab is particularly interested in the deep, thoughtful and highly creative work required to rewrite, reinvent or reimagine rules, nor…
- Capital Systems (CS): The DmCS Lab is working to reframe what is possible within the financial capital markets. This Lab is working with the hypothesis that the investment logic of the current system needs to be rewired t…
- Next Economics (NE): The Ne Lab embodies the core philosophies of LEE. It aims to stimulate a continuous and inclusive dialogue about how we relate to the world and the implications for a desirable future economy. The La…
- Philanthropy Futures (PF): The Pf Lab will explore the potential for philanthropic capital to catalyse radical pathways in parallel to the wider capital markets.
- Property & Beyond (PB): The Pb Lab rejects the values of control and dominion as a basis for private property systems. Instead this Lab aims to build a diverse and proactive portfolio of alternative forms of property; from…
- Risk Intelligence (RI): The RI Lab builds Dm's capability across Dm and our wider ecosystem to sense, calculate, and map systemic risk, from community-held knowledge of lived risk, to value-at-risk frameworks for shocks lik…
- Societal Decisions (SD): The Sd Lab is still nascent. Once launched, it will aim to build pathways towards distributed, data assisted decision making.

### Arcs

The arcs hold directional goals embedded in diverse contexts.

- 7Gen Cities (7G): This collaborative arc fosters transformative thinking and action for future cities. The aspiration is to create the infrastructures for cities, inviting the next seven generations of city dwellers t…
- Bioregional Economics (BE): The Be Arc is aiming to support the creation of nested economies that protect and steward the integral health of their base bioregions. This Arc works closely with the Sm Lab to collate, map and visu…
- Nature as Infrastructure (NI): The Ni Arc is developing practical pathways to support regenerative, respectful and resilient collaborations between human and natural infrastructures. These interventions are grounded in system dyna…
- Neighbourhood Futures (NF): This Arc recognises the transformative potential of communities and neighbourhoods to design and steward their own futures. There are a diverse range of initiatives driving towards this goal; from ci…
- Net Zero Cities (NZC): The NZC Arc aims to enable climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030. This involves supporting cities to develop local portfolios of coordinated actions across multiple domains (e.g. technology, gover…
- Planetary Civics (PC): The Pc Arc is looking at how we can match the scale of our planetary challenges with our global ambition to respond. For example, how can we build bold, ambitious models of meaningful repair for our…
- Radicle Civics (RC): Radicle Civics is a playful nod towards emergent shoots of possibility (in botany, the radicle is the first part of a seedling to emerge during the process of germination). This arc aims to build cul…
- Resilient Food Systems (RF): The Rf Arc is working towards resilient, sustainable and high quality food systems. Within this aspiration, cities are a key area of focus and the team are working across diverse sectors to identify…
- X0 Economy (X0): The X0 Arc is aiming to reimagine how we use and steward materials in service of a regenerative built environment. The Arc is asking questions around how we can innovate our material inputs, adjust o…

### Studios

The studios support the Labs and Arcs with specific skills and craft.

- Civic Tech (CT): Civic Tech Studio helps mould theory and vision from the Dm ecosystem to testable prototypes and applications geared towards long-term impact & maintenance. We see tech with a critical and open-sourc…
- Conversation Design (CD): This studio is fundamental to how we communicate. What exactly is Conversation Design? This is a good question and we would like to invite you to explore it with us. The ambition is to embed conversa…
- Foresight & Futuring (FF): This studio works across the ecosystem to build the craft of speculative design and future scenario building. The team has close links to the Sm Studio where they support the mapping and visualisatio…
- Org Dev (OD): The OrgDev (organisational development) Studio provides the critical infrastructure for the entire Dm ecosystem and mission. This team is the foundational rock. Their work unleashes and nourishes the…

## Pages

- [Home](https://darkmatterlabs.org): The Matrix: how Dark Matter Labs is organised, and the thinking underneath it
- [Projects and news](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed): Every project, update and media appearance, filterable by unit and year
- [Initiatives](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives): Long-running programmes of work with their own identity
- [Team](https://darkmatterlabs.org/team): Current team and alumni
- [Work with us](https://darkmatterlabs.org/jobs): Open roles, how we organise, how pay is set
- [Contact](https://darkmatterlabs.org/contact): Legal entities, studio spaces and partners
- [On Lineage and Intellectual Responsibility](https://darkmatterlabs.org/lineage-and-intellectual-responsibility): How we credit the collective inquiry our work emerges from, and how we license it
- [Privacy policy](https://darkmatterlabs.org/privacy-policy): What is collected, and how to opt out

## Initiatives

- [Beyond the Rules](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/beyond-the-rules/index.md): Organising & Governance of Public Good Ecosystems
- [CircuLaw](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/circulaw/index.md): Unlocking regulatory innovation for the circular economy transition
- [Cornerstone Indicators](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/cornerstone-indicators/index.md): Developing a Prototype Participatory Indicator Design Process
- [Life-Ennobling Design](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/life-ennobling-design/index.md): A practical, collaborative movement exploring the intersection of design and next economic thinking.
- [MatR](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/matr/index.md): A digital registry for a building’s material, component and performance data.
- [Radicle Civics](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/radicle-civics/index.md): Building 21st Century Civic Infrastructures
- [Re:Permissioning the City](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/re-permissioning-the-city/index.md): Unlocking cities’ growing underutilised spatial assets for an emergent civic economy
- [Trees as Infrastructure](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/treesai/index.md): Revaluing nature as urban infrastructure
- [X0: Extraction Zero](https://darkmatterlabs.org/initiatives/extraction-zero/index.md): A new Era for the Built Environment

## Recent projects, updates and media

The 25 most recent of 77; the rest are in
https://darkmatterlabs.org/sitemap.xml.

- [The Life-Ennobling Movement: 2024-2026-∞](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/the-life-ennobling-movement/index.md) — 2026-08-31 [Next Economics, Conversation Design]: A compilation of Life-Ennobling Resources and Ideas
- [The Deep Code Cards](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/the-deep-code-cards/index.md) — 2026-08-27 [Next Economics, Conversation Design]: Structural Norms
- [Dm x FNLRT Partnership: Findhorn Watershed & Moray Firth Bioregion](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/findhorn-watershed-moray-firth-bioregion/index.md) — 2026-06-01 [Next Economics, Capital Systems, Bioregional Economics]: A strategic partnership aiming to catalyse place-based systems change
- [Missions](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/missions/index.md) — 2026-04-10 [Net Zero Cities]: Advancing Strategic EU Priorities through Multilevel Action
- [Threads](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/threads/index.md) — 2026-01-19 [Next Economics, Conversation Design]: Stories of the Next Economies
- [X0: Extraction Zero Policy](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/x-zero/index.md) — 2025-12-19 [X0 Economy]: How can a redesigned policy drive systemic change in the built environment
- [The Planetary Compendium](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/the-planetary-compendium/index.md) — 2025-11-20 [Planetary Civics, Civic Tech, Conversation Design, Foresight & Futuring]: Case studies on planetary governance
- [Many-to-Many System](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/many-to-many-system/index.md) — 2025-11-14 [Beyond the Rules, Civic Tech]: Governance & Tools for Systems Change
- [Pathways to Outcomes-Based Public Realm](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/pathways-to-outcomes-based-public-realm/index.md) — 2025-11-04 [Nature as Infrastructure, Radicle Civics, Civic Tech]: A collaboration with Connected Places Catapult that brought together practitioners across the public realm to prototype new innovative solutions
- [Portfolio Mapping Guide](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/portfolio-mapping-guide/index.md) — 2025-10-15 [Net Zero Cities]: A practical framework and tool for cities to map and strategise their climate transition portfolios
- [Governing Together](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/governing-together/index.md) — 2025-09-17 [Societal Decisions, Net Zero Cities]: Bridging divide in everyday politics
- [Tayside Bioregional Financing Facility](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/tayside-bioregional-financing-facility/index.md) — 2025-07-01 [Capital Systems, Next Economics, Bioregional Economics]: Partnership with Bioregioning Tayside to grow an ecosystem for bioregional financing in the bread basket of Scotland
- [Malmö: The Future is Here](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/malmo-future-is-here/index.md) — 2025-06-12 [X0 Economy]: The Future is Here is a new project within the Vinnova, ShiftSweden initiative, using foresight methods and research to develop practical toolkits for accelera…
- [Fostering a Post-growth Municipality in Girona](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/fostering-a-post-growth-municipality-in-girona/index.md) — 2025-04-22 [Net Zero Cities, Neighbourhood Futures, 7Gen Cities, X0 Economy, Bioregional Economics]: Long-term collaboration with Girona City Council, and the Research & Degrowth Association International
- [Homes that Don’t Cost the Earth](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/homes-that-dont-cost-the-earth/index.md) — 2025-03-17 [Neighbourhood Futures, X0 Economy]: New pathways to provide affordable homes within environmental limits
- [Regenerative Contracting with Annette Dhami](https://www.tealco.org/podcast/episode/30ade7d0/regenerative-contracting-with-annette-dhami) — 2025-02-20 [Beyond the Rules]: Deep dive into the incredible power of contracts and contracting processes for establishing the boundaries of what is possible together
- [Planetary Civics Inquiry](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/planetary-civics-inquiry/index.md) — 2025-02-17 [Planetary Civics, Conversation Design]: What if governance wasn’t about borders, but about the shared currents of an entangled planet?
- [Universal Basic Nutrient Income (UBNI)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmuRX4hA3w8) — 2025-02-03 [Resilient Food Systems]: What are the demand-side innovations able to drive human health and soil regeneration at scale?
- [RZ Studio](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/rz-studio/index.md) — 2025-01-31 [Capital Systems, Beyond the Rules, Bioregional Economics]: Building embedded capital allocation capacity
- [Community-Led Place Stewardship](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/community-led-place-stewardship/index.md) — 2025-01-14 [Neighbourhood Futures]: What can community-led place stewardship offer future housing estates?
- [The Foundational Challenge: Stewardship, Responsibility, and Designing a New System](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/147-indy-johar) — 2024-10-23 [Radicle Civics]: The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
- [Les Matérialistes](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/les-materialistes/index.md) — 2024-09-01 [X0 Economy, Foresight & Futuring]: A participatory futuring project to incite change and invite action towards a circular transition in the construction industry
- [Net Zero Cities: Crafting a Generative Urban Future](https://accidentalgods.life/net-zero-cities-with-georgia-cameron-of-dark-matter-labs/) — 2024-08-28 [Net Zero Cities]: Accidental Gods podcast with Georgia Cameron
- [Diseño y Diaspora](https://disenoydiaspora.org/550-futuros-10-liderazgo-civico-espana-brasil-canada-una-charla-con-alicia-carvajal-rowan-y-sofia-valentini/) — 2024-08-23 [Nature as Infrastructure]: Talk on civic leadership in Spanish with Alicia Carvajal Rowan and Sofía Valentini
- [Bioregional Financing Facilities](https://darkmatterlabs.org/feed/bioregional-financing-facilities/index.md) — 2024-08-06 [Capital Systems]: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet