Brisbane-based transport planner Rachel Smith will travel to Berlin this June as the only Australian on the four-member international team developing programming for the BMW Guggenheim Lab.

The lab is a world-first think tank, public forum and community centre focused on issues of contemporary urban life, designed by Tokyo-based architects Atelier Bow-Wow.

It debuted in New York in August 2011 and will travel to Berlin and Mumbai on its first two-year cycle, under the theme ‘Confronting comfort’,before an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2013.Smith was chosen to plan a series of public programs and experiments for the second leg of the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s nine-city, six-year international tour, which will be held 15 June to 29 July in the Berlin neighbourhood of Prenzlauer Berg.

She is working alongside thought leaders from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bern University of the Arts.

“It is an honour to be involved in a project that, for the first time, will bring together so many people from around the world to talk about their cities in terms of urbanism, architecture,technology and sustainability,” said Smith.

“The goal is to experiment and explore new ideas to create forward-thinking solutions for city life.

“This kind of model is all about gathering the ideas of those who live and work in cities at a very grass roots level and then pushing those thoughts up towards policy makers, rather than the other way around.”

Smith’s theme for the Berlin leg of the tour is ‘Dynamic Connections’ which will explore topics including cycling culture, transforming tourism, waterfront developments, public space and place making, parking models and community connections.

She has led active and sustainable transport planning on many of South East Queensland’s major transport infrastructure projects, including the Gold Coast Rapid Transit, North Brisbane Cycleway and Brisbane City Council 2011 flood recovery infrastructure inspections.

Smith was nominated for the project by former Mayor of Bogota and international urbanist Enrique Penalosa and selected by the BMW Guggenheim Lab advisory committee and curators Maria Nicanor and David vander Leer of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Smith is currently a transport planner with AECOM.

For more information visit: http://bmwguggenheimlab.org/