Traveling lab takes on challenges of urban life

To identify some of the most urgent and controversial challenges for cities today and their possible solutions, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, defined as an urban think tank and co-initiated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group, has spent the past two years traveling from New York to Berlin and Mumbai, to inspire innovative reflections on urban life.

The lab launched in New York with a focus on "confronting comfort", then traveled to Berlin with the theme of "making" that emphasizes public participation in building cities, and finally opened in Mumbai where projects explored the topic of "privacy".

With mobile structures designed by Japanese architects, including a novel carbon-fiber house built in New York and Berlin and a set of bamboo structures installed at multiple locations in Mumbai, the labs have served as community centers of another kind.