Urban Sports Lab
Movement starts in the mind
The Urban Sports Lab, founded by design for human nature, is integrating more exercise into everyday life in 2015 for the “Hamburg trains …” theme year. The measures developed range from awareness of exercise to training.
By 2050, more than 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Urban life offers many opportunities to avoid physical exertion – escalators, elevators, public transportation – which leads to social comfort. What we need is a collective consciousness that encourages more movement and activity!
Action potentials of the city
The Urban Sports Lab develops methods and products to activate the body and mind in everyday urban situations. With small interventions, the health consequences of too little exercise in everyday life are addressed in a specific preventative way. Spontaneous emotions are directly transformed into movement.
The basic concept of the Urban Sports Lab products is divided into three levels of approach. As with all sporting activities, the level of physical activity increases steadily.
> Awareness
> Movement
> Training
Starting with low-threshold, awareness-raising impulses through to active, sporting activities, the Urban Sports Lab takes a holistic approach, both physically and mentally.
People are trained, challenged and strengthened with five basic training goals that involve the whole body. These goals can be translated into interventions in a variety of ways.
Body awareness → better health
Balance → increased mindfulness
Flexibility → confident appearance
Endurance → higher concentration
Strengthening → sustainable resilience
The Urban Sports Lab team is made up of communication and product designers, sports scientists, psychologists, doctors and engineers. The aim is to find direct access to people and their behaviour in everyday life.
Running, jumping, balancing. Children love to move. For them, sport is not a necessary evil for physical fitness but simply a good mood factor. With the right approach, adults can also quickly regain access to this feeling.
The stimulus for more action
The activities of the Urban Sports Lab were conceived both as interventions and inspirations for urban development and the associated quality of life.
The original temporary installations, some of which were only event-related, were followed by actions and initiatives by the city and businesses that established permanent contact points for exercise and training in public spaces.
