SCEWC 2026 Barcelona · 3–5 November · Japan Pavilion, Hall 3, C151
Two research projects on bringing human experience into city-making: design a street by how it feels, and see where people look and how they feel, in a 3D city.
The question
When we design cities, we think about buildings, roads and parks. But what do the people walking through them actually see, and feel? We are exploring how XR, AI and digital twins can make that experience a starting point for urban design.
Score how a street feels. Set the impression you want. Test it in 3D before anything is built.
See how it works ↓
Where the eye stops, where the heart moves — measured on a real street and placed in a 3D city.
Watch the video ↓01 Design by impression · Japan’s SIP program
An AI scores how a street feels today, prescribes what to change, and redraws the street toward the impression you want. The generated street goes back into 3D, so you can walk it before construction.
Impressions such as trendy, soothing or bleak, scored by AI on a framework based on Emotional Scape™ (Takenaka Corporation), plus street-space quality on Jan Gehl’s 12 criteria.
The AI writes what to change and why — a parklet, a green wall, warmer railings, solar streetlights — and which quality criteria each serves.
Generative AI redraws the same place from the prescription, at the intervention level you choose: from furniture in days to redevelopment over years.
The generated image is rebuilt as a 3D space you can walk through at eye level — before anything is built.
Gotanda, Tokyo. Impressions set: more soothing, more trendy. Scores are AI-rated and separate from the impression scales.
Today · 18 / 30The street as it is
Level 1 · 23 / 30Days to weeks — benches, planting, lights
Level 4 · 24 / 305–10 years — deck, green wall, plaza3D Image into 3D space
We scan the real street in 3D, take one view from it, redraw it with generative AI, and rebuild the result as a 3D space. A flat picture becomes a place you can walk through from any viewpoint.
02 Explore how people react · NTT USRI × HoloLab
What do people actually see, and feel, as they walk? We measure gaze, head movement, route and emotional response on a real street in Gotanda, Tokyo, and place them in one 3D city — so any number of walks can be overlaid and compared.
Research in progress. The Gotanda measurements are complete; detailed analysis is under way.
Partners
Get in touch
Cities, districts, campuses and developers: we are looking for places to run this loop with — measure, interpret, redesign, measure again. Bring a photo or a site; we can score it, redesign it and walk it in 3D.
Opens a short form (5 questions). We reply within a few working days. Your details are used only to answer your message.