The open-plan staircase that slices through Munich Urban Colab is as busy as a beehive. The whole building seems to be in motion, with people running up and down the stairs, stopping, and chatting. A drumbeat of applause swells from the events hall where a future project is being presented. On the next floor, startup founders are beavering away at a sustainable mobility app and engineers and sociologists are debating autonomous driving, while elsewhere the topic on the table is the canteen of the future and the dishes on its menu. Welcome to Munich Urban Colab, Munich’s beating heart of innovation, where startups, scientists, urban planners, and corporations meet as peers on equal footing.
Mark Stabel could be described as the warden of Munich Urban Colab. With hospitality and food in his DNA, but with no social media presence, he is a man of practical solutions. Sabine Hansky is the voice of the organization. A passionate communicator adept at cutting to the chase, she is responsible for strategic program planning. Speaking as one, both affirm, “We believe in the need for physical, face-to-face meeting, in chance encounters that provide the vital spark.”
A building without borders
This fascinating mashup of workshop, co-working space, and offices has everything to offer—except privacy. It’s the wrong place for anyone hoping to retreat into a corner and pursue their own agenda. Openness is embodied in the architecture, which encourages movement and meetings by interspersing zones for focused work with spacious communal areas, all framed with plentiful glass. A space that is a food startup today could house an auto repair workshop tomorrow. There are few partitions separating disciplines and people. Tenants have only one boundary, and that is temporal—two-year contracts, with the option to extend. If they have not made it by that time, they have to move out. The rule may sound harsh, but encourages the change that is the lab’s lifeblood. There are no cushy options here, only scope and space for people that want to pursue their passion.
“Our goal has always been to drive innovation while giving back to the city and its people,” explains Hansky. With this in mind, many events invite all of Munich’s inhabitants to get involved. Genuine solutions only emerge when different voices are included in the dialogue. Because of this, startup founders are by no means the only inhabitants of Munich Urban Colab; it also houses major companies including BMW and the City of Munich’s utilities company Stadtwerke München alongside city council representatives. “It’s a dynamic ecosystem that is a magnet for others,” says Stabel.
“The place is humming with life, and newcomers notice that immediately. Most of them can’t wait to stay right here and get started!”
Future lab for the city
Munich Urban Colab is a joint initiative by the City of Munich and UnternehmerTUM: a scientific workshop and innovation hotspot for the smart city of the future, a hub within the network of business and urban society, powered by plentiful optimism. Munich needs Munich Urban Colab and its solutions. The population of the city on the River Isar is forecast to grow to around 1.8 million by 2040. By then, the building in Munich’s Creative Quarter aims to deliver answers to urgent questions: How can the city retain its quality of life? How will we deal with mobility, energy supply, sustainability? It is a catalyst that not only maps out solutions, but also trials them on the spot. Unconventional ideas, from digital infrastructures to green energy, are hoped to catapult Munich ahead. To make this happen, many people are stepping boldly outside their comfort zone and. trying out new forms of collaboration instead of mourning the passing of individual offices. Network partners can touch base with this community without needing to rent a space there. Entrepreneurs, professors, and ordinary citizens, everyone is getting involved. Because of this, the lab is far more than a workplace where global corporations, startups, and city councillors sit around the same table. It is a movement: open, pragmatic, direct. That staircase is a symbol of the mindset. Everything is connected. “These are often the very moments that count the most,” says Hansky. “You meet someone, hear something that changes everything, or get a contact that makes all the difference. That’s something that won’t happen online.”
The article on Munich Urban Colab also appears in mcbw magazine 2025.