Urban Now Lab

Reclaim the city! Make the city of tomorrow visible – together!

The Urban Now Lab invites people to explore urban spaces as open, flexible real-life laboratories full of opportunities. It is about jointly experimenting with and shaping public and semi-public spaces: How do we want to live, work, meet one another, and shape the present and future of the city? Design enables social participation by opening up spaces for dialogue, activating places, imagining urban scenarios and transformations, stimulating the economy and creating social connections.

Urban spaces come alive when creative expression and collective action meet professional planning and the capacity to deliver. Ideas and skills from many perspectives are welcome – whether as residents, owners, operators, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, property owners, planners, sociologists, organisations, NGOs or through personal experience. Participation is possible through the UNL Action Days (symposia and workshops) or via Urban Now Mapping (digital), which helps to understand the city systematically and develop it collaboratively. Urban Now Placemaking offers the opportunity to become active co-creators – from initial ideas through to realisation – in shaping social spaces for the way we want to live in the future.

Urban Now Lab was initiated by members of DDC e. V. As part of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026, it is represented in the official WDC programme with a wide range of activities and stands as one of the major initiatives continuing its long-term work in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region and beyond.