Think Tank

Cool
Down
Cities

 

With our planet getting hotter and hotter, we need to cool down our cities!

Concultancy to the Deputy Mayor of Athens for Climate Governance and Social Economy, Nikos Chrysogelos, focussing on urban climate adaptation strategies.

The consultancy focuses on issues of urban climate adaptation, such as the ventilation of the city, Sponge City principles, the planning of green corridors in the city, and the greening of (private) buildings in Athens.

By integrating climate adaptation strategies into urban planning and design, cities can become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, enhance the quality of life for their citizens, and support local biodiversity.

Therefore, urban planners, architects, and policymakers should consider these strategies when developing new projects and retrofitting existing spaces to ensure a sustainable future for our cities.

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

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

Climate
City

Climate City explores how digital technologies contribute to addressing climate adaptation and develops digitalization strategies that take urban sustainability into account.

Climate City focuses on digitally supported participatory climate adaptation and is committed to the idea that a smart city should be a climate-conscious city.
Lectures & Discussions Climate City @ Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, 20 November 2019

Voiced
Space

 

How to read territories in light of their historical relations to former colonies and how to contribute to the formation of an inclusive collective cultural heritage.

Accustomed to the places we daily encounter, we often overlook or forget about the traces of contested pasts that surround us.

Lectures, Workshops & Conference International Research Program @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019~2022

Voiced
Space

How to read territories in light of their historical relations to former colonies and how to contribute to the formation of an inclusive collective cultural heritage.

Accustomed to the places we daily encounter, we often overlook or forget about the traces of contested pasts that surround us.

Lectures, Workshops & Conference International Research Program @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019~2022

Co-Thenticity
versus

Au-Thenticity

 

Design culture is obsessed with authenticity.

Copying is often deemed reprehensible, and borrowing another’s idea or incorporating elements of his or her work into one’s own is viewed as a sign of creative impoverishment.

But is this right?

Hybridization is an evolutionary strategy of cumulative, dynamic cultures that are based on intercultural connections and fostered by cross-fertilization.

Lecture Co-Thenticity @ Dutch Design Institute, Beijing Design Week, Beijing, 28 september 2011

Co-Thenticity
versus
Au-Thenticity

Design culture is obsessed with authenticity.

Copying is often deemed reprehensible, and borrowing another’s idea or incorporating elements of his or her work into one’s own is viewed as a sign of creative impoverishment.

But is this right?

Hybridization is an evolutionary strategy of cumulative, dynamic cultures that are based on intercultural connections and fostered by cross-fertilization.

Lecture Co-Thenticity @ Dutch Design Institute, Beijing Design Week, Beijing, 28 september 2011

Infodrome

Infodrome is a think tank for the Dutch government in the information society.

The objectives of Infodrome are gaining insight into the social consequences of the information revolution, organizing and feeding the public debate about the role of government in this, and advising the government on relevant strategic choices.

Hybrid Space Lab’s contribution focussed on:
Space in the Information Communication Age, Processing the Unplannable


The emerging space of digital information/communication flows is modifying traditional analog urban networks.


“Virtual” spaces are influencing and interacting with “real” urban places.

Research & Publications “The Use of Space in the Information Communication Age” @ Infodrome, Thinktank of the Dutch Government, Den Haag, 1 March 2000

Post
COVID-19
City @
KHM
#0 Magazine

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital instruments is rapidly increasing.

As the possible consequences of digitization are more sharply outlined, this opens new possibilities for spatial organization.

This urges us to reconsider the guiding principles and models for the urbanization of technology we want to follow and what our city visions are.

Publication Post COVID-19 Hybrid City @ Academy of Media Arts, KHM #0 Magazine, Cologne, Germany, 1 July 2022
Publication Recht auf hybride Stadt @ Marlowes Online-Magazin für Architektur und Stadt, Stuttgart, Germany, 20 May 2020

Deep
Space

 

Deep Space is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial space and monuments, heritage and digitalization.

How to transform and re-signify Valle de los Caídos (“Valley of the Fallen”), the Francoist monument close to Madrid?

Valle de los Caídos with its 152-meter-tall cross visible from more than 30 kilometers away and its “basilica”, a 263-meter long crypt with a 52-meter high vault cut out of the granite mountain rock, is one of the world’s most controversial monuments.

Workshop Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos @ Medialab Prado & Valle de los Caídos, Madrid, 25-27 October 2018

Deep
Space

Deep Space is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial space and monuments, heritage and digitalization.

How to transform and re-signify Valle de los Caídos (“Valley of the Fallen”), the Francoist monument close to Madrid?

Valle de los Caídos with its 152-meter-tall cross visible from more than 30 kilometers away and its “basilica”, a 263-meter long crypt with a 52-meter high vault cut out of the granite mountain rock, is one of the world’s most controversial monuments.

Workshop Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos @ Medialab Prado & Valle de los Caídos, Madrid, 25-27 October 2018

“That knowledge has become the resource and not just one of the resources, this is what makes our society a “post-capitalist” one.
This fundamentally changes the structure of society. This creates a new social dynamic. This creates a new economic dynamic. This creates a new politics.”
Peter DruckerPost-Capitalist Society,” 1993

Cool Down 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

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

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

Re-Charting Places

In our globalized world the accelerating speed of socio-political and cultural change collides with the longue-durée of heritage sites and territories. As social and political contexts around places with a public meaning change, controversies often arise.

Publication Re-Charting Places @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, Lettera Ventidue Edizioni, Syracuse, Italy, April 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

Hybrid Platforms

Hybrid Platforms develops con­cepts and ideas for new cultural formats and is organized and curated by the NRW KULTURsekretariat and Hybrid Space Lab.

Workshop Hybrid Platforms @ Next Level Festival for Games & NRW KULTURsekretariat, Kokskohlenbunker, Zeche Zollverein, Essen, Germany, 14 November 2020

(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

Post COVID-19 City

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital instruments is rapidly increasing.
As the possible consequences of digitization are more sharply outlined, this opens new possibilities for spatial organization.
This urges us to reconsider the guiding principles and models for the urbanization of technology we want to follow and what our city visions are.
We can still choose.

Publication Post COVID-19 City @ KHM #0 Magazine, Academy of Media Arts (KHM), Cologne, Germany, 1 July 2022

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

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

Voiced Space

Human activity and its far-reaching interactions have always transformed territories by moving people, plants, goods and animals. As such, territories have become richly stratified – and interactions are always mutual and two-way. Countries and cities projecting their influence elsewhere have, in turn, been transformed by external inputs.
Voiced Space is conceptualized by Hybrid Space Lab for Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch institute for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture.

Lectures, Workshops & Conference International Research Program @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019~2022
Lecture @ Media Architecture Biennial 2020, Amsterdam, 29 June-3 Juli 2020
Lecture & Workshop @ Media Architecture Biennial 2021, Amsterdam, 27 June-2 July 2021

City to Go

The classic means of transport – car, bicycle, public transport and walking are increasingly supplemented and integrated with upcoming forms of mobility. Which user groups are the target of the new digitally supported and data-powered mobility services such as car sharing, ride sharing, rental bikes and electric scooters?

Lectures & Discussion City to Go @ Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, 15 July 2019

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

Crossover Diplomacy

Article “Creative Crossovers: Negotiating Past and Future” in the University of Southern California Public Diplomacy Magazine issue summer 2019.Monuments stand as a tangible testimony to what is untouchable: memory and history in their collective dimension.As vehicles of meaning, monuments are ambassadors affecting the public negotiation of narratives

Article Creative Crossovers @ Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of Southern California, USC Annenberg, USC Centre on Public Diplomacy, USC Masters of Public Diplomacy Program, USA, 7 June 2019

Hybrid Heritage

How can design research contribute to the collective processing of contested heritage?How to re-signify traditional physical monuments and heritage with the help of creative visions and hybrid (combined physical and digital) tools?
Voiced Space is conceptualized by Hybrid Space Lab for Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch institute for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture.

Research @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019

Future Narratives and Immersive Experiences Symposium

The “Future Narratives and Immersive Experiences” symposium addresses the challenges posed by these developments by bringing together interdisciplinary co-creators in the audiovisual sector, companies with a background in media, VR/AR/MR, games, 3D sound, in the staging of productions, in communication and advertising as well as cultural and heritage institutions and players from other fields with the urge of delivering high-quality storytelling in the digital era.

Lectures, Pitches & Dinner Future Narratives and Immersive Experiences Symposium @ Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Potsdam, Germany, 22 May 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

City Making Lab

City Making Lab is a series of programs focusing on digitalization and the city. City Making Lab is a co-operation between Hybrid Space Lab and Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). City Making Lab investigates ongoing developments at the intersection of cities and digital technology, engaging with urban mobility and public space, new patterns of space utilization for living and working, circular city, climate adaptation and healthy cities.

Research, Lectures & Workshops City Making Lab @ Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, 2019~2020

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

GRÜNtopia

We are very honored that Renate Künast, politician for the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Member of German Parliament is opening Embassy Lab GRÜNtopia on 22 June 2018.
Green spaces are essential for the quality of life, wellbeing, and health of urban populations. Today, the focus on and interest in green urban spaces is increasing thanks to initiatives working toward Healthy Cities, environmental justice, food security, and strengthening local communities.

Lectures & Discussions Embassy Lab GRÜNtopia @ Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands , Berlin, 22 June 2018
Keynote Renate Künast, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen @ Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands , Berlin, 22 June 2018

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

Hybrid Diplomacy

Hybrid Diplomacy designates the combining of traditional diplomacy and innovative diplomacy. Hybrid Diplomacy includes the collaboration between state and non-state actors in a network diplomacy that involves next to traditional diplomats and governments, also civil society and NGOs, businesses, international organizations, and other players. Hybrid Diplomacy addresses also the multiple hybridizations in the diplomatic field, including diplomatic practices that combine communication in physical space and social media, that deal with crossover issues, and that mediate in the interaction fields of different cultures.

Lectures, Workshop & Discussions Are You A Hybrid Diplomat ? @ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate-General for European Cooperation (DGES) & Innovation Team DARE, The Haag, The Netherlands, 18 January 2018

shareCONOMY

Sharing Economy is one of the phenomena of a world rapidly changing. This reshaping of the world is happening faster than the reshaping of the societies and their institutions.

Talks, Lectures, Discussions & Workshop Embassy Lab shareCONOMY @ Embassy Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 7 July 2017

GREEN Infrastucture

Recent developments such as Internet of Things, Big Data and Machine Intelligence will algorithmically organize life, including urban nature. These developments in technology and media are supporting the development of a new hybrid architecture where architecture and nature fuse.

Lecture NatureTecture @ V2 Institute for Unstable Media, Rotterdam, 9 April 2017


FuTourism

Accelerating international tourism is contributing to the global prosperity and enabling intercultural exchange. Tourism is also causing congestion at its destinations, increasing the global ecological footprint, threatening local cultural traditions and upsetting established companies with flexible ‘asset-light’ digital disruptive models and start ups.

Research & Lecture Fu-Tourism @ ARTez, Arhem, The Netherlands, 10 November 2016

Co-Curating the City

International interdisciplinary lab researches the potential of curating as co-creating with the public as well as the transformations of the role of the expert curator.

Lectures, Discussions & Workshops Embassy Lab Co-Creating the City @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 14 October 2016
Ikarian-Cretan Dinner @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 18.00-23.00, 14 October 2016

Ethics of Technology

Our current geological age is being described as “anthropocene”, as the epoch during which human activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
But we do not need to consider a “longue durée” historical approach, giving priority to long-term historical structures over events.
Todays’ world is witnessing an unforeseen acceleration of environmental changes with a growing human influence on biodiversity and ecosystems with species extinction and climate change.

Exhibition NatureTecture @ Beijing Media Art Biennale, China Millennium Monument, Beijing, 24 September – 30 October 2016
Lecture & Workshop NatureTecture @ Beijing Design Week 2016,  Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, 30 September 2016

Future Diplomacy

Embassy Lab Future Diplomacy brings together experts from the Harvard J. F. Kennedy School of Government, the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris, Global Diplomacy Lab, the German Federal Office, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, international diplomats, creative professionals, and other experts.
Digital tools enable and support participative practices and networks, trespassing all borders. In our globalized world, a whole range of transnational webs perform independently and often with no connection to the traditional channels of diplomacy.

Lectures, Discussions & Workshops Embassy Lab Future Diplomacy @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 7 October 2016

Global Challenges Smart Solutions

Highly innovative, creative and pragmatic Dutch approach to develop technology solutions for global challenges at the Hannover Messe 2014.
The Netherlands, this year’s partner country of Hannover Messe, will present the Holland Smart City House as part of the Metropolitan Solutions trade fair from Monday 07 April to Friday 12 April 2014.

Television Program: Interviews, Lectures, Talks & Discussions @ Hannover Messe, Hannover, Germany, 7-10 April 2014
Urban Screening Smart & the City @ Hannover Opera, Hannover, Germany, 7-10 April 2014

Circular Economy

Circular Economy encompasses technical as well as biological cycles and has as a goal to keep materials and products at their highest utility and value during the whole up-cycling process.

Research Embassy Lab Circular Economy @ Kingdom of The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, 18 March 2016

B.A.N.G. Binary Atom Neuron Gene

B.A.N.G. deals with the complexity of our globalized and ‘glocalized’ world.
B.A.N.G. is the fusion of Binary, Atoms, Neurons, and Genes.

Lectures & Workshop B.A.N.G. @ Design by Culture, Berlin, 24 June 2016

Hybrid Health

Embassy Lab Hybrid Health focuses on innovative health solutions that combine the physical and the digital and on health applications and services embedded in our daily living environment.
Kingdom of The Netherlands Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, Edith Schippers is opening Embassy Lab Hybrid Health.

Lectures, Pitches & Workshop, Opening Edith Schippers, Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, Kingdom of The Netherlands @ Medica, Dusseldorf, Germany, 17 November 2015

Velo

Embassy Lab Velo focuses on sustainable and innovative cycling traffic resources and knowledge exchange between the City of Amsterdam and the City of Berlin.

Bicycle Tour, Lectures & Discussions Embassy Lab Velo @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 29 March 2015

TRUST 2 design

Rethinking design in order to address the changes of our future needs in our increasingly service and knowledge based society and economy.
TRUST2design develops a process-oriented design approach taking into account a multiplicity of cycles such as energy cycles (energy needed for production and transportation, objects as energy converters), the multiple-shift usage but also lifecycles, recycling, etc..

Research @ Dutch Design Foundation, Premsela Stichting, Amsterdam, 15 June 2015

new CIVIC

Citizens take part in innumerable co-creation initiatives in the private and the public domains, and more importantly in the hybrid blur where the one can’t be separated from the other. These initiatives make use of recent concepts and developments, such as prosumer, bottom-up, peer-to-peer, start-up, social design, open design and design thinking. From a city perspective the well-established creative city will merge with the smart city into a new ‘Co-creative City’. From the citizen perspective the creative city and the smart city translates into the creative & smart citizen, shaping a ‘New Civic’.

Lectures & Workshops @ Make City, the festival for Architecture and City Making, Berlin 11-28 June 2015

CRISISdesign

CRISISdesign innovates in and for situations of change and crisis for communities that need new infrastructures for daily life.

Lectures & Discussions Embassy Lab CRISIS design @ Metropolitan Solutions, CityCube, Berlin, 22 May 2015

Smart City Governance

The complexity of urban systems demands the involvement of different stakeholders at a very early stage, in order to identify the challenges and define objectives.

Public Lecture Program Embassy Lab Smart City Governance @ Metropolitan Solutions, CityCube, Berlin, 21 May 2015

Mobility+

Mobility+ investigates the synergies between Smart Mobility and the different systems of Smart City and addresses mobility in all of its dimensions, incorporating topics such as Urban Service Design, Smart Tourism, Smart Retail, Healthy & Smart Cities, and Clean Tech.

Public Lecture & Workshop Program Embassy Lab Mobility+ @ BMW Welt, Munich, 25 February 2015

Co-Operative

Embassy Lab Co-Operative is a one-day program for the Berlin visit of the Dutch Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Ronald Plasterk, February 23rd 2015.
Next to his meeting with the German Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Barbara Hendricks, Minister Ronald Plasterk visited Berlin urban initiatives, cooperatives and participation movements to discuss them the potential of urban co creation.

Discussions & Visits Embassy Lab Co-Operative @ Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Berlin, 23 February 2015

Embassy Lab

Embassy Lab is innovation program and a prototype for experimenting with future functions of embassies in the current age of EUization, globalization and digitalization.
Embassy Lab at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Berlin brings together the official traditional institution of the “Embassy” with the innovative potential of a creative “Lab”.
Embassy Lab is a think tank and innovation hub, for research and discussion, for experimenting with new models, and for presenting and communicating ideas.

Research, Workshops, Lectures & Symposiums Embassy Lab @ Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in Berlin & Kingdom of The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, 2014~2021

Urban Incubators

A workshop focusing on the revitalization of the generic Greek modern apartment buildings “polykatoikies” was organized by the Athens Municipality and curated by Hybrid Space Lab within the framework of the Co-Creating Athens project.
The workshop was opened by Athens Mayor Yiorgos Kaminis and the Dutch Ambassador Jan Versteeg.

Lectures & Workshop Rebooting Athens @ Co-Creating the City, City of Athens, 14 December 2014

Co Creating Athens

Co-Creating Athens is a field trip for international city-makers to visit and exchange with Athens urban initiatives.

Lectures & Workshop Incubator City @ City of Athens, 13 December 2014
Lectures & Workshop Workshop Co-Creating the City @ City of Athens & Pakhuis de Zwijger, Athens, 10-13 December 2014

Aesthetics of Instability

Aesthetics derives from the ancient Greek αἰσθάνομαι (aisthanomai, meaning “I perceive, feel, sense”) and thus stands for the capability to perceive Instabilities. Including unstable – open dynamic networked – systems into our realms of perception, enables us to develop an understanding in order to work with them.

Concept Aesthetics of Instability © Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 19 September 2014

HAPPY health

Happy Health explores the impact of Smart Cities and related concepts and technologies on wellbeing and the prevention of illness.
Happy Health functions as a platform for exchange between innovative projects from the Netherlands and relevant German institutions and actors.
Happy Health focuses on health, the urban environment and lifestyle bringing together designers, experts and stakeholders to investigate current challenges and develop new scenarios and concepts.

Workshop & Public Lecture Program Embassy Lab HAPPY health @ DMY 2014, Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, 29 May 2014

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 Design Institute

The merging of the three separate Dutch institutes forarchitecture, design and media, into a new hybrid institute.
Taking place today is an even more radical merger: creative production in its most various forms of expressions – whether music, graphic design, architecture, object design, video, etc. – is supported by a single tool, the computer.
This universal instrument provides a bridge which connects these very different creative fields.

Publication Rebooting Design @ The Design Journal, Volume 15, Issue 4, UK, 5 December 2012

Networked Participatory Design

Networked participatory design systems are replacing the logics of the industrial age, where the creative ones designed for the non-creative masses.

Publication Networked Participatory Design @ World Architects, 11 May 2012

Co-Thenticity

Copying is the strategy of cultural evolution.
Cross-fertilization, borrowing other’s ideas and incorporating elements of other’s culture into one’s own is crucial to cultural development.

Lecture Co-Thenticity @ Dutch Design Institute, Beijing Design Week, Beijing, 28 september 2011

Hybrid Prosumer

3D printing has developed from a specialized industry to a low cost technology that everyone can use to produce objects.
The digital blue prints of the machines and objects are designed in 3D software and can be shared via digital networks.
3D printing allows industrial production on a desktop scale enabling autonomous production for individuals and designers.

Workshop & Lecture Prosumer Technology Hybrid Design @ Beijing Design Week 2011, Building 5 No.4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing, P.R. China, 27 September-1 October 2011

Copy Culture

Design culture is obsessed with authenticity.
Copying is often deemed reprehensible, and borrowing another’s idea or incorporating elements of his or her work into one’s own is viewed as a sign of creative impoverishment. But is this right?
Hybridization is an evolutionary strategy of cumulative, dynamic cultures that are based on intercultural connections and fostered by cross-fertilization.

Lecture Hybrid Culture @ Beijing Design Week 2011, Dutch Design Foundation, Symposium Copy Culture, 798, Beijing, 27 September 2011

Soft City

Soft Urbanism stands for an interdisciplinary field that examines the “soft” aspects, the communication aspects, the city and deals with the dynamic interplay between urban development and the area of mass media and communication networks.
Soft Urbanism pursues “softer” planning approaches. Soft urbanism, as a holistic view of urbanity, is of significance to the city in both shrinking and growth regions.

Publication Soft Urbanism @ db Deutsche Bauzeitung, Germany, 1 August 2006

Idensity®

Idensity® is a conceptual tool for researching and developing space in the information/communication age.
To understand the fusions, the superimposition and the interactions of ‘virtual’ media and ‘real’ architectural and urban spaces, the new term ‘idensity®’ replaces the obsolete conventional terms of spatial distinction.

Concept & Research Idensity® © Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 5 May 2011

Hybrid Notations

The workshop focused on hybrid space and its notations.
Participants included architects, urbanists, landscape architects, software and hardware engineers, philosophers, theatre makers and media artists. The workshop tackled the hybridity and complexity of urban environments, relying on a wide range of fields of expertise and artistic approaches.

Publication, Workshop, Installation & Lectures FuTourism @ Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu, Torun, Poland, 3 April 2011

     

 

Cognitive Space

Media networks are influencing and interacting with ‘real’ places. These digital information-communication networks are changing our physical environment and also the social, economic, and cultural organization of our societies in general.

Publication Space of Flows and Space of Places versus Hybrid Space @ Delft University of Technology, Delft School of Design Series on Architecture and Urbanism, Delft, the Netherlands, November 2010

Landscape BOTOX

In the Sisyphus work of the day-to-day struggle for survival of the offices, in the traineeship of the next generation, the crisis of architecture is now directly experienced. Even in the architectural discourse there is a perplexity. Excesses from the crisis are sought through escapades into atmospheres or through bonds from post-bicentenary courses, such as the communication for “architecture pop” or the urbanist in the shrinkage discussion.

Publication Landscape BOTOX @ Stadt+Grün, Germany, September 2006

Hybrid Habitat

Is there no security in the global world? The longing for more certainty in an increasingly complex world – and innovative solutions for coping.
Trust and certainty play an increasingly important role for people in the globalized world.

Publication, Research & Lecture Architecture of Succession @ European Forum Alpbach, Austria, 1 August 2006

Domotica

The property becomes the interface, the house develops into a “smart”. Network environment. Similar to the car, the connected car, which is not just a project from Microsoft, but has long been a reality.

Interview Social Construction & Technology @ BUGA, Bundesgartenschau 2005, Munich, 1 September 2005

New Spatial Paradigms

According to the traditional (bourgeois) concept of privacy, identity is based on private individuality. It is, however, important to be aware of the historicity of such a concept.
As John Lukacs writes “Domesticity, privacy, comfort, the concept of the home and of the family are, literally, principal achievements of the Bourgeois Age.”
The notion of the “privy chamber” emerged in 17th century English literature at the same time as new private physical spaces came into being, when the introduction of the corridor layout in English interiors of the 17th century enabled the development of “private quarters.”
But the expression “privy chamber” is also used metaphorically for the soul. The “privy chamber” is the container of (private) identity.

Publication Networked Architecture @ MIT Leonardo Electronic Almanac, ISBN 978-0-9833571-0-0, USA, 1 July 2005

Hybrid Urbanism

Planning Paradigms for the Information Communication Age.
Hybrid Urbanism investigates the transformations of space in the information and communication age and develops and designs hybrid urban and media networks.

Lecture & Publication Idensity: Planning Paradigms for the Information & Communication Age @ CORP 2002 Conference, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, 27 February–1 March 2002

Infodrome

Infodrome is a think tank for the Dutch government in the information society. The objectives of Infodrome are gaining insight into the social consequences of the information revolution , organizing and feeding the public debate about the role of government in this, and advising the government on relevant strategic choices.

Research & Publications @ Infodrome, Thinktank of the Dutch Government, Den Haag, 1 March 2000

reBOOT

For a week, from 8 till 15 October 1999, a boat descended the Rhine, the archetypal symbol of the connection between Germany and the Netherlands, as reBoot a floating media-laboratory, from Cologne on its way to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Concerts, Screenings, Broadcasts, Performances, Projects & Research, Art & Media Lab reBOOT @ KUNST NRW.NL, Motor Boat Carolina, The Rhine, Cologne~Amsterdam, 8-15 October 1999

Idensifying® Translocalities

Hybrid Space is a new interdisciplinary field of design, researching the transformations of architectural, urban/regional space of the emerging “information age”, explores the dynamic interaction of architecture/urbanism and the space of mass media and communication networks.
Hybrid Space develops scenarios for the interplay of public urban and public media space.

Publication Idensifying® Translocalities @ Kunst NRW.NL, Amsterdam, 1 October 1999

Iannis Xenakis

In the aesthetic production of the 20th century, there is a fascinating moment of artistic synergy. An architect, Le Corbusier, conceives an Electronic Poem, an electronic synthesis of visual and acoustic events, and a “vessel containing the poem” [a pavilion] for the Philips corporation presentation at the 1958 Brussels World Fair.

Research, Lectures  & Publications the Architectures of Iannis Xenakis, Synthesis after Le Corbusier, Elizabeth Sikiaridi, © Hybrid Space Lab, Amsterdam, 1 June 1999

Public Media Urban Interfaces

Media Babies on CHANEL NO.5 derives its strength from fragmentation in order to develop a truly public “narrow/broadcasting/catching media network. A local-based public interface the “Media Baby” is instrument that seduces its public to use and abuse the television medium, maximizing its possible spontaneity by hijacking the public’s imagination.

Publication Public Media Urban Interfaces @ Lab für Kunst und Apparate, Jahrbuch, ISBN 3-88375-324-6, , Academy for Media Arts, Cologne, Germany, 1 October 1998

Virtual Friction

The development of Virtual Reality (VR) is closely linked to the exploration of unknown territories. Virtual Reality, slowly emerging since the1920s, really took off in 1966 when NASA introduced this technology for flight simulation systems in its space program. As it was too expensive and too risky to train the astronauts by practising the real thing – launching them into the cosmos – methods had to be developed that could provide the trainees with a simulated experience: a small physical stimulus of acceleration, supported by and combined with visual information, was extrapolated and amplified in a ‘knock-on’ effect by the brains of the astronauts, providing them with the mental environment required to practise for the operation in (real) space.

Publication Virtual Reality @ de Architect, ten Hagen & Stam bv, the Netherlands, June 1998

Professor Hybrid Space

The research and seminars explore hybrid (fused physical and digital) space and how the urban can be read as a layered communication-sensitive membrane.

Head of the Department of Hybrid Space, Prof. Frans Vogelaar @ Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany, April 1998

Media & The City

Public urban space and the “space” of communication networks are usually considered to be competing, even mutually exclusive frameworks for social interaction.  In fact, the traditional functions of public urban space are being taken over by telecommunication networks, their input/output devices implanted in (private) interiors. 

Publication Media & The City @ de Architekt, den Haag, the Netherlands, July 1997
Introduction Harm Tilman, editor in chief @ de Architect, den Haag, the Netherlands, @ de Architect, den Haag, the Netherlands, Juli 1997

Vilém Flusser

Architectural space and structures and the mental spaces and structures of philosophical discourses have always been associated with each other.
The new image of Man looks roughly like this: we have to imagine a network of human interrelations, a ‘field of intersubjective relations’. The strands of this web must be conceived as channels through which information (ideas, feelings, intentions and knowledge etc.) flows. When these strands knot for a moment, they form what we call ‘human subjects’. The totality of the strands constitutes the concrete sphere of life and the knots are abstract extrapolations.

Article Vilém Flusser © Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, July 1999

Soft Urbanism

Soft Urbanism deals with information/communication processes in space, the soft aspects overlying the urban sprawl.
In architecture’s role of defining and materialising the spaces for social interaction, designing the relationship between the physical and digital public domain is becoming THE challenge: investigating the relation and interconnection of the ‘soft’ city with its finite material counterpart, the living environment, speculating about interfaces between the ‘virtual’ and the material urban world, and designing hybrid (analog-digital) communication spaces.

Research, Concept, Urban and Architectural Design Soft Urbanism © Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 1 December 1995

Hybrid Space

Hybrid Space is the fusion of digital and physical space.
Hybrid Spaces are the products of the alliances between physical objects and digital information-communication networks, of architectural-urban and media space.
Hybrid Space is the ambivalent space that is at the same time analog and digital, virtual and material, biological and technical, local and global, tactile and abstract.

Concept Hybrid Space © Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, 1988~2024

Peter Drucker proposed “the universally educated person” … who, combines the manager’s ability to apply knowledge with the intellectual aptitude to think in terms of pure concepts.
Such a person would be the opposite of the polymath – those rare people who are simultaneously expert in Mandarin Chinese and nuclear physics.
This new kind of person, on the contrary, would be someone capable of applying the results of expert research from a specialized field to general fields of work: applying insights from chaos theory to economics, from genetics to archaeology, or from data mining to social history.”

Paul MasonPostcapitalism,” 2015

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