Next Frontiers Symposium Part II: Night Lab I | MATERIALS OF TOMORROW

What if your walls could heal themselves? What if buildings folded into shape overnight without a single bolt or motor? What if the materials of tomorrow were invented not by scientists, but by algorithms trained on the laws of physics?

Night Lab I takes you inside the laboratories where the boundary between the living and the built is dissolving. From the 2,000-year-old secrets of Roman concrete to quantum AI discovering superconductors no human ever imagined, from timber towers that self-assemble from moisture to fungi-laced concrete that stays biologically alive — we are witnessing the emergence of a new material world.

‍Featuring Skylar Tibbits (founder and co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT), Laura Kiesewetter (research associate and PhD candidate at the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart), and Ragini Nikumbh (Technical Services Engineer with Heidelberg Materials North America).

About the Next Frontiers Symposium

New Spaces. Creative Thinking. Shared Futures

A forward-looking, trans-Atlantic symposium exploring the future of culture, science, technology, and sustainable design where tomorrow’s ideas take shape. Part I of the symposium took place on May 7 & 8, 2026 and Part II will take place in fall of 2026.

DELIVERING THE NEXT FRONTIERS

How do we get from here to there?

Part II of the Next Frontiers symposium examines how discoveries and innovations are translated into tangible outcomes. From quantum computing and AI to synthetic biology, regenerative materials, neuroscience, and sports science, this three-part series explores the practical frontiers of human potential and technological advancement.

Across sessions, leading experts from the United States and Germany will highlight emerging applications, cutting-edge research, and forward-looking strategies that transform ideas into products, technologies, and experiences, demonstrating how the next frontiers are not just imagined, but delivered. At its core, the series is a story about collaboration: between disciplines, between nations, and between the human and the non-human world.

Next Frontiers II unfolds across three Night Labs, each building on the last:

Night Lab I begins with matter itself — the raw stuff of the built world — and asks what happens when materials become computational and eventually alive. Night Lab II moves inward, to the body and the brain, exploring how synthetic biology and neuroscience are redrawing the boundary between organism and machine. Night Lab III pushes outward into human performance, asking how data, biology, and technology are redefining the limits of what the body and mind can achieve. Together, the three sessions trace a single arc: from the materials we build with, to the bodies we inhabit, to the performance we are capable of.

Each Night Lab follows the same format: part salon, part laboratory, part performance.