LAB OF THOUGHT

UNIVERSITY

WE TRAIN THE PEOPLE
WHO WANT TO RADICALLY
RETHINK MOBILITY

Lab of Thought University turns our science-based activism into powerful learning journeys. From bold keynotes to deep masterclasses and multi-month training programs, we help you rethink the stories, systems and streets that shape your city.

Keynotes – 3 topics · 30–90 min · from €2.500

Masterclasses – 8 topics · 60–90 min · open & in-company

Training program – READY, SET, GO · with UvA · €800 p.p.

Check out all details below

< < Back to the Lab

Changing streets is never a solo act.
Lab of Thought University is built for the people who dare to move first.

WHO IS IT FOR

ORGANIZATIONS & FIRMS

For design studios, consultancies, mobility companies and developers who sense that the current system has reached its limits.


You want your projects to do more than optimise; you want them to redistribute space, power and possibility in the city – and you are willing to learn new languages and methods to get there.

Modern office with six people working at desks with computers, in an open-plan space with black ceilings and large windows, decorated with indoor plants and a glass partition.

UNIVERSITIES & COMMUNITIES

For academics, NGOs, citizen movements and cultural institutions who understand that ideas only matter when they land in the street.


You are looking for ways to connect research, art, activism and policy, and to equip a new generation of street-level change-makers with tools that actually travel beyond the classroom.

A classroom with students sitting at desks and a teacher writing mathematical equations on blackboards at the front of the room.

INTERESTED CITIZENS

For planners, designers, activists, students and curious citizens who feel something is off every time they step into traffic.


You may not control the system, but you are ready to sharpen your thinking, expand your repertoire, and become the person in the room who dares to ask different questions about how we move and who the city is for.

Protest crowd holding a cardboard sign with the words 'FIGHT TODAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW' written in large, bold letters.

CITIES & REGIONS

For municipalities, regions and public agencies that want to move beyond managing traffic flows.


You are ready to question your own playbook, to bring justice and imagination into your policies, and to experiment in real streets with real people – not just in PDFs and project plans.

A city skyline with famous skyscrapers, including the Petronas Towers, under a cloudy sky.

HOW WE LEARN

FROM SPARK TO SYSTEM CHANGE

You don’t change a city with a single workshop.
Our learning offer is built as a ladder – from first spark to long-term transformation.

A man with blonde hair, wearing a dark suit and white shirt, is holding a microphone and a small device while speaking at a conference or seminar. He is standing in front of a seated audience in a dimly lit room with a blurred background of people and screens.
A man in a dark suit and tan pants giving a presentation in front of a large screen, with an engaged audience raising their hands in the conference room.
A man is giving a presentation to a group of people in an industrial-style conference room with brick walls and large windows. The presenter is standing next to a monitor displaying a slide titled 'Proof ALL HANDS 4/24/2019.' Some attendees are sitting on chairs and a sofa, listening attentively.

KEYNOTES to SPARK & REFRAME

Short, high-impact sessions that expose hidden assumptions, shake up the conversation and open new possibility spaces.

MASTERCLASSES to DEEPEN & PRACTICE

Interactive sessions where we translate theory and fieldlabs into tools, exercises and methods your team can immediately use.

TRAINING PROGRAMS to EMBED & SCALE

Multi-session journeys that help teams and institutions build
the skills, rituals and structures to keep changing streets over time.

Start with a KEYNOTE to open your minds.
Follow with a MASTERCLASS to build your skills.
Commit to a TRAINING PROGRAM to transform how your organization shapes mobility.

Our KEYNOTES

RADICAL INSIGHT IN 45–90 MINUTES

Our keynotes blend academic rigour, fieldlab practice and a touch of theatre.
They are designed to unsettle, inspire and prepare the ground for real change.

Street Language Matters

How our hidden assumptions shape streets, systems and politics. Every day, we reproduce a mobility system with our language: “traffic”, “users”, “flow”, “bottlenecks”, “congestion”. This keynote by Marco te Brömmelstroet shows how these words silently decide who belongs in the street –and how different language can open radically different ideas about our futures.

  • Audience – City leaders, planners, engineers, designers, activists.

  • Duration – 45–60 minutes + Q&A.

  • Format – In-person or online.

  • Honorarium – € 4.000 (ex VAT)

After this session, participants will:

  • Recognize the dominant mobility stories in their own work.

  • See how language shapes budgets, design and power.

  • Have first tools to start reframing mobility in their context.

Man with a guitar giving a presentation in front of an audience.
A busy street market scene from the early 1900s with vendors and shoppers, including children, on a street lined with multi-story buildings with fire escapes and shop signs.
A deer crossing a paved road in a forest with tall trees and orange leaves, overlaid with the quote: 'Things are not always what they seem. The deer isn't crossing the road. The road is crossing the forest.'
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The Hill of hysteria

When cities change their mobility, things rarely remain quiet. Resistance almost always arises – emotional, visible, and political. But what does that resistance actually mean? In this keynote Alexander Premm guides you over the Hill of Hysteria. As a certified mountaineer, he focuses on the experiences of 13 mayors who have realized successful mobility transitions.

  • Audience – City leaders, politicians, designers, activists.

  • Duration – 30–45 minutes + Q&A.

  • Format – In-person or online.

  • Honorarium – € 2.500 (ex VAT)

After this session, participants will:

  • Understand how change works in practice

  • See resistance not as a sign of failure, but a normal – and often temporary – part of progress.

  • Have a clear strategy to leverage headwinds instead of fearing them

A graph labeled 'The Hill of Hysteria' showing fear levels over time. It starts with 'Change proposed,' then fear increases with 'As details of plans emerge' and 'Plans are implemented,' reaches a peak labeled 'Moment of maximum hysteria,' then fear decreases with 'As plan beds in fears decrease' and 'Realisation that fears were unfounded,' finally ending with 'Overwhelming support for change.'
Young man with dark hair holding glasses, smiling slightly, wearing a white collared shirt under a dark sweater, standing against a plain light-colored wall.
Text passage showing the names of various cities around the world in green font, with some text in black background, mentioning that things don't work in specific cities.
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The end of the road

We tend to take our infrastructure systems for granted. But they have been constructed in the timespan of roughly 70 years. Many cities, regions and countries are now faced with a large and rapidly growing maintenance bill. Marco te Brömmelstroet asks you to think about what this could mean. What if this potential end of the road is just a bend in the road?

  • Audience – City leaders, planners, engineers, academics.

  • Duration – 30–45 minutes + Q&A.

  • Format – In-person or online.

  • Honorarium – € 3.500 (ex VAT)

After this session, participants will:

  • Understand the limits of our infrastructure systems

  • Be able to turn this threat into opportunities

  • Have a clear strategy to leverage headwinds instead of fearing them

Aerial view of a bridge over a river with rail tracks underneath, cars on the bridge, and a park with boats docked along the water nearby.
A man with a beard and curly hair is speaking and gesturing with his hand, standing in front of a white background with paper or posters pinned on the wall.
Quote by Robert Pirsig from 1974 about factories and rationality, overlaid on an urban scene with a parking lot, trees, and a tall building with a logo that has a red square and white design.
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Our masterclasses

TOOLS FOR RADICAL PRACTICE

Our masterclasses are (online) work and play sessions of 60-90 minutes. You can book them or join a general session. We bring concepts, cases and tools – you bring your streets, dilemmas and teams. Together we design new ways of seeing and acting.

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Schedule an intake

Keynotes and masterclasses open doors.
Training programs help you walk through them – and keep walking.
To optimize added value, these full-blown learning trajectories are co-designed with you and Lab of Thought University.

Our Training Programs

BUILDING CAPACITY FOR LONG-TERM CHANGE

READy, SET, GO TRAINING

Cities and regions everywhere are facing profound mobility transitions. To navigate these changes, governments, professionals and citizens need new ways of thinking about streets, movement and public space. This course introduces practical frameworks, real-world examples and experimental approaches that help identify opportunities for change and translate them into concrete action.

To deepen and broaden the work, an educational programme has been developed in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam.

The programme prepares municipal professionals for their role in the mobility transition. It offers participants new perspectives on mobility, highlights the value of experimentation, and enables them to apply these insights directly to their ongoing work and projects.

Program content

We introduce the transitions framework to understand how mobility systems change across different levels of society. This framework will help you identify where your actions can have the greatest impact.

READY

We look at the historical evolution of streets and how ideology shapes what people believe streets are for. The key question: can mobility and public space coexist in ways that make cities more liveable?

SET

You will select an active project from your work or study and identify an opportunity to design a radical yet feasible urban experiment that challenges conventional approaches to mobility and public space

GO!

FULL PROGRAM DETAILS