Press: LabCampus goes Expo Real

08.10.2019

LabCampus - the unparalleled innovation campus evolving at Munich Airport - is for the first time official exhibition partner of the Messe München (Munich Trade Fair) from October 7-9, 2019. Participating in the Intelligent Urbanization (IU) Forum at Expo Real, LabCampus presented ideas on smart urbanization, creative future work environments and collaborative innovation concepts of tomorrow.

Dr. Marc Wagener, LabCampus Managing Director, was joined by Gerd Krohn [1], Jürgen Enninger [2], Kees Verschoor [3], and Miguel Pybus Oliveras [4] in a panel discussion to debate “Smart neighborhoods: Which factors will boost the districts of the future?“ Dr. Wagener summarized: “When we talk about cities of the future, we need to put human beings in the center and then seek to address the challenges which we would like to solve. Let us not be driven by technologies - let us drive them.”

During the trade show, Wagener unveiled five potential and intriguing approaches to bringing smart city concepts to the Munich campus. These had just been announced after a cooperation with students from MIT Senseable City Lab - a multidisciplinary research group studying the interface between cities, people and technologies.

LabCampus has been working with the MIT Senseable City Lab since early November 2018 with the goal to create a “city of the future.” Fostering cross industry collaboration spanning multinationals, hidden champions and young entrepreneurs, the ideas have all been designed to leverage the latest digital technologies, bring energy to public areas in and around LabCampus and foster creativity among both companies and residents.

1. Reiter: Building on the modernist art movement called “DER BLAUE REITER” (THE BLUE HORSERIDER), this idea proposes using art to promote social interaction. Virtual, expressive art installations transform their surroundings into an inspiring, active canvas.

2. Skyface: At its core, Skyface is a large-scale art installation reminding residents daily of LabCampus’ role in connecting people around innovation. Using the sky as inspiration to pay tribute to the unique LabCampus airport location, Skyface aims to create a spatial experience by pooling and visualizing large data sets.

3. Soundflux: Soundflux brings environmental elements, human interaction and space together in singing unison and helps counteract the at times hectic and busy atmosphere surrounding an airport. Sensors harvests sound and in turn use water features to transform that sound into soothing white noise.

4. LabMUC: A portable, digital networking platform that helps connect LabCampus residents and companies not only with each other, but with LabCampus itself.

5. SensHack Garden: This idea envisions community gardening on campus as a platform: bringing technology, people, plants, environment, and experience together in one glorious mix.

More details about the project and each individual idea can be found here:
https://www.munich-airport.de/labcampus/en/mit-senseable-city-guide-munich

Reflecting on these five exciting concepts and the IU forum at Expo Real, one thing becomes quite clear: Building a smart city from the ground up is not only about technology and exciting new gadgets - it’s about truly creative ideas that will ultimately help create a smart, interconnected and human-centric community.

[1] Founder Smart Village München
[2] Head of Kompetenzzentrum Kultur- & Kreativwirtschaft at LH München
[3] City of Utrecht Head of Urban Strategy
[4] Barcelona Regional