#Future Lab

projects

weCARElab

Hybrid Care brings together the physical and digital aspects of care and prevention, fostering the development of Healthy Cities – 15-minute cities with 5-minute communities.

weCARElab @ Global, 2025~2030
Keynote & Panel weCARElab @ FUTUROMUNDO Foresight, Future Urban Economies Forum, Stuttgart, Germany, 3 Juli 2025
Workshop weCARElab @ FUTUROMUNDO, Fraunhofer AIO, Stuttgart, Germany 4 Juli 2025

BETWEENstitute

BETWEENstitute speculates on new hybrid models for culture and develops future visions for Berlin cultural networks involved in research, production and distribution of media culture.
BETWEENstitute is developed and curated by Hybrid Space Lab, on invitation by transmediale and CTM Festival.

Workshop SPIEL lab @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 10.00-13.00, 28 January 2025
Roundtable Discussion BETWEENstitute @ transmediale, Kuppelhalle silent green, Berlin, 16.00-17.30, 30 January 2025
Workshops BETWEENstitute @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 15 March-15 July 2025

Cool Cities

With our planet getting hotter and hotter, we need to cool down our cities!
Consultancy to the Deputy Mayor of Athens for Climate Governance and Social Economy, Nikos Chrysogelos, focusing on urban climate adaptation strategies.

Consultancy Cool Down Cities @ Municipality of Athens, Deputy Mayor of Athens for Climate Governance and Social Economy Nikos Chrysogelos, Athens 25 August 2024

KOSMOS

KOSMOS is a prototype for innovative venues dedicated to global cultural interaction and an experimentation space for the future of museums and cultural institutions.
Offering a hybrid (combined digital/physical) infrastructure that fosters transcultural exchange, KOSMOS is open to all people and communities worldwide who have Internet access to participate in this co-creative platform, to interact and collectively envision new cultural futures.

Kosmos @ Hybrid Space Lab, 2024

Creative & Tech Festival Berlin

Hybrid Space Lab’s innovative concepts have been incorporated as recommendations for action in the White Paper of the Creative & Tech Festival Berlin.

Concept Hybrid & Crossover @ White Paper Creative Festival Berlin, 12 June 2023

coSPECIESlab

Ecological transition implies and demands a conceptual mutation, a paradigm shift.
This global transistion has to integrate also other systems of knowledge and ways of conceiving the world, some of which are still organizing the daily lives of the inhabitants of cities in the Global South, and are often shunned and disregarded in the Global North.

Labs & Fests @ Glocal, 2023~2026

festCITY

festCITY consists of a radical, situated approach to embed festival and cultural events into the city. It entails a process-oriented think-tank to sustainably integrate festivals and festival designing and making into the environment, with a crossover, hybrid approach that combines Berlin’s (bio)diversity leveraging unexpected encounters and combinations from the cultural and tech fields.

Lecture FESTcity, Town Hall Meeting #1 @ betahaus, Berlin, 22 March 2023

Next Stop Culture

Next Stop Culture explores the yet to be unlocked potential of unused mobility spaces in Berlin to develop concepts for new cultural spaces and to envision new typologies and patterns for a culture-powered sustainable urban development.

Workshop Co-Hosted by Clubcommission Berlin @ transmediale & CTM Festival, Re:mise, Köpenicker Strasse 18, 10997 Berlin, 25 January 2023

Animal Club

Animal Club connects creatives, ecologists, biologists, artists, philosophers and other experts with professionals from the club scene to generate new concepts and develop new business models for a sustainable future of clubbing and culture.

Presentation, Workshop, Panel & Party Animal Club, Co-Hosted by VibeLab @ Amsterdam Dance Event, SEXYLAND World, 1 Noordwal, 1021 PX Amsterdam, 20 October 2022

circulariCITY

The notion of a circular city has taken to occupy center stage as a main concept for sustainable zero-waste urban futures. And yet, as one takes a closer look, the circle expands in multiple ripples and loops, revealing the sheer complexity that envisioning – let alone developing – circular cities entail.

Presentation & Workshop Cities in the Loop: Re-coding the Circular City @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 1 July 2022
Presentation & Workshop zirkularKIEZ @ Bits & Bäume 2022 Conference for Digitization and Sustainability, Technical University Berlin, 2 October 2022

hybrid

The way people communicate and connect around the world today, is being radically redefined by digitalization.
With the acceleration of digitization as one of the most obvious consequences of the pandemic, the use of digital tools is experiencing an unprecedented rise among arts and cultural institutions and practices.

Publication @ tanz Yearbook 2022, Germany, 15 August 2022

Convers@ions

Convers(at)ions engages creatively with exchanges over border phenomenology and performativity, it transforms negative spaces such as military demarcations and borders by adopting a ‘more-than-human’ perspective and taps into the potential of nature and environmental conservation activities.

Research @ Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) &  European Green Belt (EGB), Berlin & Seoul, October 2019~2023

INbetweenSTITUTE

The future of culture is hybrid. Cultural innovation lies in the cross-pollination between different fields, approaches and expertise.

Lectures, Presentations, Discussions & Cooking @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 2021~2023
Presentation & , Discussion Marleen Stikker, founder and director Waag Future Lab for Design and Technology @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 18.00-20.00, 30 November 2021
Presentation & Discussion Hybrid Face, Merlijn Schoonenboom, cultural historian and journalist @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 18.00-21.00, 19 May 2023
Cooking & Sound,  The Common Meal, FM Einheit, musician, sound researcher, actor, composer, producer and founding member Einstürzende Neubauten, LI Zhenhua, master chef, curator, poet, filmmaker and artist, Prof. Dr. Siegfried Zielinski, media archaeologist, writer and curator @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, February 2023

Future Cultural Space

What are engaging, inclusive, and sustainable hybrid formats and spaces for art and culture?
For the German Federal Cultural Fund Hybrid Space Lab developed a workshop on the hybrid future of culture.

Hybrid Workshop “The Future is not Digital. Hybrid is the Future!” @ Kulturstiftung des Bundes, HoloLab – dive in Program for Digital Interaction, Halle an der Saale, Germany 14 October 2021

Hybrid Spaces

Investigating and speculating on the future of social and cultural spaces requires considering physical spaces in combination with digital media networks, emphasizing the hybrid qualities of spaces in the interplay of the digital and the physical.

Publication Hybrid Space @ @ Regeneration [and its Discontents], Lithuanian Architectural Foundation, Vilnius, Lithuania, 4 June 2021

Co-Creating Hybrid Culture

For the German Federal Cultural Foundation Hybrid Space Lab developed Co-Creating Hybrid Culture that addresses the augmenting of physical cultural sites and practices through digital spaces via transdisciplinary co-creating events.

Keynote Future Cultural Space @ Kulturstiftung des Bundes, HoloLab – dive in Program for Digital Interaction, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 16.00 – 17.00, 22 September 2021
Research & Concept @ German Federal Cultural Foundation, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 2021

Grow Your Green City

Grow Your Green City is an international campaign creating awareness of the fundamental role played by urban green. Grow Your Green City is committed to the idea that a Smart City should be a climate-conscious city, exploring how digital and media technologies can contribute to address urban climate adaptation and water-conscious urban development, strengthening and promoting sustainability cultures.

Workshop Grow Your Green City @ Floriade Expo 2022, Almere, The Netherlands, 25 February 2021

Resignify City

Focussing on rereading the cityscape, granting visibility and recognition to voices and histories previously silenced, the program focuses on fostering memory-making and processing through the development of innovative, participatory methods that do not physically touch the spaces involved.

Lectures & Workshop Resignify City @ Media Architecture Biennale 2021, Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 24 June 2021

Club Futures

Club Futures is an international laboratory with the aim of developing new perspectives for the club and cultural scene.

Exchange, Ideation, Research, Panels, Parties, Prototyping, Workshops @ Club Futures, Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin & Amsterdam, 2022~2023

reBOOT Culture

Reboot Culture experiments with collective cultural experiences deeply rooted in urban space, combining public physical space and public digital space. Through hybrid formats and the support of a mobile, modular media infrastructure, the program engages with practices that can make culture ‘go-round’ in its hybridity, embedding cultural co-creation in the city fabric. With floating stage and studio facilities at the riversides Reboot Culture merges (urban) landscapes with Hybrid Staging, developing a strong symbolic momentum for the rebooting of culture.

Concerts, Jam-sessions, Performances, Screenings & Narrow- and Broadcasts @ Instrument Inventors, Royal Academy of Art & Royal Conservatoire the Hague, Sonic Acts, V2 Lab for Unstable Media, Waag technology & society, The Netherlands, 2020-2021

(Re)Venue

As museums and cultural institutions face the prospect of a 1.5mt-apart life and economy, how to offer meaningful visitors’ experiences whilst keeping afloat of financial needs has become a most pressing question.

Research & Ideation @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 2020

Hybrid Staging

With its physical distancing measures, the COVID-19 pandemic is destroying public space as we know it.
The current crisis creates the necessity – and emergency – to rethink cultural space.

Research, Lectures & Workshops @ Cultural Institutions, Germany, 2020-2021
Keynote Hybrid Space @ Culture @ Kulturstiftung des Bundes, HoloLab – dive in Program for Digital Interaction, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 16.00 – 17.00, 22 September 2021
Hybrid Workshop The Future is not Digital. Hybrid is the Future! @ Kulturstiftung des Bundes, HoloLab – dive in Program for Digital Interaction, 13.30–18.00, 14 October 2021
Workshop Hybrid Platforms @ Next Level Festival for Games, Kokskohlenbunker, Zeche Zollverein, Essen, Germany, 14.00–16.30, 14 November 2020

Networked City

What is the relationship between city visions and urban concepts from the past and today’s Smart City narratives?

Lectures & Discussion Visions, Concepts and Narratives for the Networked City @ Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, 20 February 2020

Kiez Lab

Kiez Lab is a hybrid (combined physical-digital) low-threshold cross-sector neighbourhood lab with inclusive co-creative formats to permanently bring local perspectives and civil society experiences into the digital transformation of the City of Berlin.

Publications, Presentation, Lectures & Workshops @ Alliance Digital City Berlin, Marlowes Online Magazin for Architectur and City, Berlin Science Week, Mein Berlin,Utopolis Federal Association for Social Culture, Academy for Media Arts, Berlin Cologne, Stuttgart, 2019-2022

Tools for Heritage

By unlocking the potential laying at the intersection between arts, technology, memory studies and sciences, Deep Space has cracked open the interwoven, historically painful meanings of the controversial monument Valle de los Caídos, envisioning its possible futures, once Franco’s remains will be exhumed from the site.

Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion 5 June 2019 @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019

City Making in the Digital Age

Digitalization transforms our cities, with far-reaching efforts towards technology-powered increased efficiency, sustainability and at times participation. This raises new questions on privacy, data governance and (digital) design, historically unaddressed by city planning, architecture, civil society and governance. With cities worldwide striving to earn a “Smart City” reputation, it is however disputed who exactly benefits from these concepts.

Lectures & Discussion City Making in the Digital Age @ Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, 21 February 2019

Future Diplomacy Lab

We are experiencing a structural change in the function of diplomats due to the changing role of the nation state in our globalized and increasingly digital and networked world.
Future Diplomacy Lab creates an inspirational space to speculate on possible diplomacy applications by projecting onto diplomacy innovative digital solutions from numerous fields.

Lectures & Workshop Future Diplomacy Lab @ Diplomacy Camp, Embassy Kingdom of the Netherlands, Brussels, 7 February 2019

Water Conscious Fashion

Water is the necessary resource for life. Human settlements have always been dependent upon access to clean water and its relative scarcity – freshwater makes up only 2.5% of water available on the earth – has awarded it the name ‘blue gold’. If world population increases as expected, hitting the 9 billions threshold by 2050, will water resources be sufficient?

Embassy Lab Water Conscious Fashion, @ Neonyt, Kraftwerk Berlin, 16 January 2019

Hybrid Biotope

Hybrid Biotope, a temporary co-working camp taking place at the Raketenstation Hombroich in spring 2019, explores the coming together and merging of nature and artefact and of artificial and organic life. The program focuses on developing speculative ideas for strengthening the Raketenstation Hombroich’s potential as a transdisciplinary intellectual-artistic laboratory, a Hybrid Biotope.

Research & Concept @ Rocket Station Hombroich, Germany, 1 April 2018

Digital Diplomacy

Fast-paced advances in technology are creating diffuse and volatile conditions in which international actors operate. Disruptive innovations such as machine learning and big data analytics are changing governments, NGOs, the media, businesses, and in some cases entire industries. New and unexpected players entering the field are putting pressure on the traditional division of roles between politics, business, journalism and civil society.

Lectures & Workshops Digital Diplomacy @ The Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp 2018 Un-Conference, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, The Hague, 2 February 2018

news

Future Heritage @ DASA

What’s the future like? For professionals in the exhibition business this is a very relevant and difficult  problem. Because the future does not give us any objects yet.

Lecture Future Heritage Szenografie Colloquium 2019 @ DASA, Dortmund, Germany, 23-24 January 2019

NatureTecture

Recent developments such as Internet of Things, Big Data, and Machine Intelligence have ambition and the potential to algorithmically manage life, including urban nature. These developments in technology and media are supporting the development of a new hybrid architecture where Architecture and Nature fuse: NatureTecture!

Article NatureTecture © Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 20 March 2018

Landscape Urbanism @ Brandenburg Technical University

At the edges of the cities: landscape development strategies.

Publication Foundation of the Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus @ Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg, Chair of Landscape Architecture and Planning, ISBN 978-3-940471-24-6, IKMZ University Library, Cottbus, Germany, 13 March 2016

Future Urbanism

Interview with Hybrid Space Lab by the STRELKA Institute in Moscow for the Future Urbanism project  – forty one interviews with contemporary writers, architects, sociologists, economists and city planners“Future Urbanism” project.Together with our interlocutors we searched for evidence, we questioned facts, we extrapolated from past discoveries, we speculated about hidden patterns, we looked for clues at a messy and distorted “crime scene” that is contemporary city, in order to find answers to the whole range of unsettling questions.

Interview Future Urbanism @ Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, Moscow, 15 December 2013

Hybrid Institute @ Deutsche Bauzeitung

The Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (NAi) has established a reputation as a center for all aspects of architecture in the Netherlands and as the largest architectural center in the world.
But the golden times are over, the current savings policy forces to rethink.
The NAi had to merge with two other institutions and is now going new ways together with these partners into the Nieuwe Instituut.

Publication The New Institute @ Deutsche Bauzeitung, Germany, 3 June 2013

Reconquest of the City @ ZENO

Electric vehicles are regarded primarily as regards sustainability, ie as a vehicle to support the entry into the post-fossil age. At the same time, the introduction of the new electro-powered motors opens up opportunities for the redefinition of the car with far-reaching consequences: the car is shrinking – and the public space of the city can grow again.

Publication Reconquest of the City @ ZENO, Germany, 1 January 2011