Combining Biosensing Technology and Virtual Environments for Improved Urban Planning

The Urban Emotions initiative uses biosensing technology to determine how people feel in the city, which is of particular relevance for architecture and urban planning. While past experiments focused more on pedestrian or bicycle traffic, accessibility and wayfinding, this paper proposes the use of virtual models as a basis for human sensorial measurement. Virtual space offers the possibility of minimizing external (environmental) influences to focus on the evaluation of design impressions. Inspiration for the method was ‘Q-sorting’ according to Stephenson (1953) and, in the context of urban planning, Krause (1974). Virtual models of real situations are used to determine whether test participants respond positively or negatively to the architecture or their environment. 360° videos, virtual reality ambience and VR glasses are used as output devices. In this virtual environment, it is possible to create standardized, comparable laboratory situations allowing researchers to draw more reliable and focused conclusions about human responses to their physical environment. The challenge for the future will be to transfer this knowledge of citizens’ responses to the built environment into real design processes.