Designing inspiration and solutions for better cities

It is a crisp and sunny February afternoon when we are let through the gates in Storgata 36 b by Mads Pålsrud. We follow him into a seemingly run down building, which turns out to be both warm and stylish on the inside. In a meeting room in the attic we are welcomed by Tabea Glahs who gives us a presentation of Growlab.

The name Growlab stems from the studio’s early days, as it originally was about urban farming. Today, however, Mads and Tabea operates with a broader range of projects, all with the common aim of creating more livable and sustainable cities. Listing ‘including’ as one of their strategic tools in the design process, Growlab acknowledge the importance of involving the end user in the design process. Through site specific art projects, temporary happenings and social interaction, Growlab aims for a bottom-up city development, where civil obedience may be used as a tool to accomplish broader change.

Since the start in 2012 Growlab has worked with a varied group of clients. Whereas some of their projects are clients initiated, such as Øyafestivalen where Growlab created a small scale urban farm presenting sustainable food production, others are a result of existing projects. An example of the latter is the Chomp Chomp, a temporary pop-up bicycle restaurant made for the Oslo Restaurant Day in 2014. The goal of this project was to explore a trade based on the exchange of services and goods, rather than money. Growlab also carry out self-initiated projects. An example of this category is the Hello Storgata! project, where Mads and Tabea asked themselves the question of how they as designers, could contribute to making the Storgata area a better place. This project is still ongoing, and after a phase of conducting surveys among locals, Mads and Tabea is now considering the next step. The Hello Storgata! project thus exemplify the ‘flying in the dark’ or ‘learning by doing’ approach the designers characterizes as central to the studio’s work.

Even if much of Growlab's work is grounded in grass roots movements, the studio also work with commercial clients. In this work one may run the risk of being taken advantage of in terms of green washing. Acknowledging this risk, however, Mads explains how Growlab has used this the other way around and convinced the client of accepting a more sustainable solution. By meeting the client’s commission with a greener response and demonstrating the value of this answer, the designers and the client may end up agreeing on a reformulated and greener commission.

Learning about Growlab’s work, my mind is drawn to the design activism of the 1960s and 70s and to the work of designers like Victor Papanek. What strikes me, however, is that what were grass roots projects in the 70s still are grass roots projects in 2016, even if the need for ecologically sustainable solutions today seem more present than ever. But grass roots movements may become powerful, and the movement of the sixties surely did prove to put issues like environmental awareness on the agenda. Perhaps Growlab' work may be said to represent a revised edition of the 1970s grass roots movement. And with words like sharing economy and locally produced food pervading today's public debate, they might have good chances for success.