Buro Happold’s Urban C:lab initiative launches third cohort

Urban C:lab is a programme initiated by Buro Happold focused on exploring emergent disruption in the built environment. March 2023 marked the kick off month for the third cohort to start their two-year journey.  

Across our global practice, we invited the diverse talents of Buro Happold to apply for the programme that seeks to think collectively, openly and without hierarchy about the future of the built environment.  

A review panel in every region CLK (Middle East, India, Asia Pacific), Europe, the UK and the US received a large set of high quality and impressive applications from across our offices representing a broad range of disciplines. As a result, reaching a decision was challenging. Eventually, the four new chapters represent a diverse range of expertise, backgrounds, and innovation directions for the coming programme. 

To start their journey, the regional chapters met in Semarang (Indonesia), Hamburg, Manchester and New York for their kick-off event. The main goal was to get the C:labbers into the C:lab mindset, introduce the key milestones of the programme and get started with provocative thinking:

• How does a world look like where no one is left behind was the key question in the workshop of the Europe Cohort. They also explored one of the many urban development projects, carried out during the International Building Exhibition IBA from 2006-2013 on Europe’s largest populated river island. Key themes were cities and climate change, metro zones and cosmopolis.
• The UK Cohort explored failing high streets, depopulation of rural spaces, and cities for an ageing population; all while embracing how empathy can be a key part of tackling these problems.
• The US Chapter is sparking great interest around the implications of AI and machine learning, how to integrate co-benefits into our sustainability and resilience work, ways to measure the impact of design, and the idea of collective effervescence (or the groundswell of collaborative catalytic energy).
• The world’s most populous island is full of surprises – and this is where CLK Chapter has started the innovation journey. CLK’s first collaborator is the state railway operator, looking to create change through mobility. Culture, economy, nature and colonial heritage all play a part in this story. As a symbol of our times, the question kept coming: How to address rising sea levels…?

The goal of the exploration phase that the C:labbers are now starting is to hold at the challenge space, not getting to solutions right away to open up beyond our standard approaches.  

We are enthusiastic about continuing to incubate an innovation mindset within the cohort. Part of the ethos of Urban C:lab is that it is an open and transparent environment, encouraging collaboration, feedback and provocation from inside and outside of Buro Happold. Interested? Get in touch