Placing emotions in participatory urban design

Abstract

There is increasing interest in the use of wearable biosensors, such as electrodermal activity sensors or electroencephalograms, in the study of individual physiological, emotional and cognitive responses to the urban environment. In this context, the application of biosensing techniques is paving the way for a greater attention to emotions and subjective well-being in urban design and planning. However, the use of biosensor data often substitutes and marginalizes the voices of participants, which is problematic in the context of urban design and planning as it might lead to technocratic and exclusionary interventions. With this in mind, we explore the application of biosensing techniques in participatory approaches to urban design, namely community mapping and scenario-elicitation. We draw on a study conducted in Lisbon, in which a group of twenty urban dwellers participated in two workshops which aimed to debate urban regeneration interventions in a main street. In the first workshop, participants were invited to undertake a walk through the main street wearing an electrodermal activity sensor and participate in a collective mapping session. In the second workshop, participants were invited to debate and select urban regeneration intervention scenarios created by urban designers based on the community map that was produced in the first workshop. The findings of this study highlight the main opportunities and challenges that might arise when introducing biosensing techniques in participatory methodologies.