This research investigates the integration of community storytelling and speculative futuring within Volkskeuken, a communal dining initiative at Verhalenhuis Belvédère (VHB) in Rotterdam. Set against the backdrop of Rotterdam’s multicultural landscape, Volkskeuken becomes a fertile ground for exploring how collective storytelling can evolve from a tool of reflection into a method for imagining and shaping more inclusive and interconnected futures.

Volkskeuken is a community-driven initiative where shared meals facilitate storytelling and connection among the diverse residents of Rotterdam. While its current storytelling practices focus on personal and historical narratives, this research explores how speculative storytelling can extend its role to envisioning shared futures. Grounded in literature on design futuring, participatory design, and storytelling, the study situates itself within contemporary debates on equitable, community-driven future-making.

Engaging with Volkskeuken chefs, volunteers, and organizers, the research followed an iterative process, first exploring the past and present, then imagining possible futures. The first half of the study examined individual pasts, establishing a foundation of community values and lived experiences through active participation, narrative analysis, surveys, and semi-structured interviews.Through interviews, observations, and surveys, the first half of the study explored individual pasts to uncover the narratives, values, and lived experiences shaping Volkskeuken. Chefs shared personal migration stories, cultural traditions, and motivations rooted in family, memory, and care. Four themes emerged (legacy and documentation, food as love and connection, creativity and adaptation, and process and nourishment) highlighting Volkskeuken as both a space of cultural preservation and a platform for community-building. These themes now serve as aspirational lenses for imagining collective futures. In the second half, participants took part in scenario-building and backcasting workshops to reflect on their evolving roles and relationships, and to envision Volkskeuken’s future within and beyond its walls. Storytelling became a relational tool for transformation, allowing the community to explore shared aspirations, reimagine identity beyond fixed cultural labels, and ground future possibilities in desired connections, with each other, with the neighborhood, and with Rotterdam at large.
The study concludes that relational capital is not a byproduct of community design, but a prerequisite for meaningful co-creation. When design methods align with a community’s relational rhythms and values, they can surface deep motivations and empower collective agency. Speculative storytelling that centers who a community wants to become—rather than just what it wants to do—offers a powerful pathway for long-term, inclusive futuring. Volkskeuken’s future lies not in fixed outcomes, but in the strength of its evolving relationships.