Mission

POLO Labs is the office’s think tank. It is the creative engine that inspires, prods and engages our other teams and departments, the spider in the web of the POLO ecosystem. Here we analyse and reflect on the pressing social topics that resonate beyond our daily activities; here we build the theoretical and conceptual foundations underpinning our design work; and here we devise the daring spatial scenarios to challenge the detrimental status quo.

Design-led research / research-led design

POLO Labs is the logical progression of what used to be the office’s competition design team.

Alliance-building through spatial narratives

In broadening our role as designer to that of spatial strategist, we seek to link our profession to disciplines such as sociology, psychology, ecology… Labs initiates interdisciplinary collaborations in the realisation that design alone cannot save the world.

Reading the past to change the future

With POLO Labs we want to join the dots necessary to realise the vision of a more sustainable future. There is an urgent need to switch from our current consumptive model of society towards one that is regenerative and cyclical. In this philosophy, the act of building is never a goal in itself, only one possible outcome of our research efforts.

Between theory and practice

POLO Labs flourishes on the crossroads of fundamental academic research and the design profession’s essentially reactive practice. Here lies our strength.