Starting today, August 3, head to Manhattan’s East Village to see an interesting idea spring to life. The BMW Guggenheim Lab is a mobile laboratory that’s described as a combination of a think tank, public forum, and community center, that offers free programs about urban living. More than anything it’s a place that hopes to inspire public discourse and what could be better than that?
More than 100 programs have been created that address the theme for the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s first cycle, Confronting Comfort, which delves into how urban environments can be made more responsive to people’s needs, how a balance can be found between notions of individual versus collective comfort, and how the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility can be met. Programs include Urbanology, a large-scale interactive group game that can be played both on-site and online, as well as workshops, experiments, discussions, screenings, and off-site tours.
Free talks will be given by leading architects, academics, innovators and entrepreneurs. In fact, you can find the full programming schedule here.
New York is the first stop of this mobile laboratory which will then travel to Berlin and then a city in Asia. A total of three distinct mobile structures will be built – each with its own architect, designer and theme – that will each travel to three different cities around the globe. In total, it’s a nine-city worldwide tour that will last a total of six years. New York will have their lab until October 16, 2011.
Find out more information at the BMW Guggenheim Lab website or at The New York Times. Can’t wait to check this out.