Social Laboratory: reflections on the process of making better cities

Analyzing the words that together forms the name of the design-duo Growlab, established by  Tabea Glahs and Mads  P?lsrud in 2012, you immediately get an impression of the essence of its agenda. Originally, Growlab was working on projects connected to urban farming, and the name originates from this time. But as time has passed the studio now has a much wider, process based outline for their work which include a more broadly look on city development. However, for me, the name perpetually resonates the team¡¯s current and past design platform.

Although both ¡°grow¡± and ¡°lab¡± may refer and give associations to biological, or semi biological events, like the growing of crops, or the natural growth of all biological life or a biology research facility. It may also refer to artificial and human made practices ¨C like the laboratory where biological matter is made to grow in an artificial environment, or the way the word ¡°growth¡± has been used in economical and political terms. These associations get to run freely in my mind as I am comfortably seated around a large table in a bright and slightly cold loft in Studio Prindsen, this cold and sunny Wednesday.

Mads and Tabea talked us through some of their projects while showing pictures taken from events, workshops, and designed solutions for urban farming. What becomes clear is that the key element in all their projects is the communication and collaboration with what eventually will become the end user. There is a focus on lifting up the human element in all their projects. For even if most of the projects are centred on the preservation of nature and the development of urban farming/ city planning, the people ¨C the users, are of utmost importance. I understand the work of Growlab as a social project, above all. It is about influencing society from the ground up. The projects themselves are about inspiration and the initiation of action. Tabea and Mads hope to influence policy-making through the encouragement of civil disobedience. This might be in the form of using public space for sustainable food production or re-planting. In that way, these kinds of projects has a strong connection to activism in art, where the occupation of public space empowers local communities.

The Growlab design philosophy clearly demonstrates an entanglement of design and nature. Tabea and Mads are enthusiastic about their work and it is difficult not to get influenced by their positive outlook on the potential of human agency. Perhaps is the laboratory the local communities themselves, where (if encouraged in the right way) the possibility of making better and more liveable cities has enormous potential. If this laboratory ¨C constructed by and for humans ¨C is empowered and inspired, there is a chance of real and potent change. In my  mind, the things that are being grown in this laboratory is both of a natural, political, and social kind, making better cities for its human as well as non-human inhabitants.