The Cities of Awe Lab is advancing the science, design, and cultural practice of awe in cities.
We aim to raise the bar to imagine an abundant future bold enough to inspire the world.
All around us, it can feel like society is facing a collapse of civic imagination, deepening social isolation, and a shrinking commons, all eroding the potential for a vibrant public life.
Awe and wonder are an antidote to all of it.
“In awe, our minds open in wonder to the systems of life and our small part in them.”
The Cities of Awe Lab is our bold experiment—blending science, design, and imagination to turn awe into a shared movement, reshaping how cities feel, function, and inspire. This global movement is transforming how the places we share are built and experienced, making awe an everyday civic right.
Starting in New York and soon moving across the world, we’re testing new ways to create and research the moments that stop us in our tracks and reconnect us to each other.
The Lab is organized around three interconnected streams of work
Research: Evidence for Everyday Awe
Advancing new knowledge about awe in public life through tools like the Cities of Awe Index, we’re building global metrics and partnerships to measure how awe shapes well-being, trust, and connection—helping city-makers design places that enable people feel more connected, included, and inspired.
Experiments: Experience Awe in Real Life
Shaping new practice means turning insights into impact. Drawing on emerging research, international expertise, and collaboration with local practitioners, this work pilots new ways to bring awe into everyday urban life. From small policy trials and reimagined street events to pop-up forests, collective rituals, and public performances, experiments explore how design, policy, and public programming can foster collective well-being in cities around the world.
Movement Making: Spreading the Impacts of Awe
A new mindset is emerging—one that places awe at the center of public life. This growing movement of awe-makers spans time, disciplines and sectors. It comes to life through fellowships, exhibitions, podcasts, essays, trainings, and global gatherings that bring together thinkers, city leaders, and everyday citizens. The ideas developed become policy frameworks, university curricula, toolkits, and design standards that help cities plan, govern, and create with awe in mind.