Travelling NeuroUrbanism: Assessing Cities for Mental Health Transformation

Author: Erin Sharp-Newton, M. Arch

At the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, I’m proud to highlight the work of my colleague and Centre Fellow Dr. Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo, President of NeuroLandscape. In partnership with the EU-funded GreenInCities project and aligned with the New European Bauhaus, she and her team are applying cutting-edge research in real time, on city streets, with the goal of understanding how cities affect our brains and experience.
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This innovative work brings neuroscience to life outside controlled environments, using wearable technology to explore how our surroundings shape brain activity, stress levels, and emotional responses. We move from theoretical speculation to data-driven insight into how our environments help or harm our mental health.

What is Neurourbanism?

​Neurourbanism is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field that examines the relationship between the built environment and the brain’s function. It synthesizes neuroscience, urban design, environmental psychology, public health, and technology to better understand how urban settings influence mental well-being. As I see it, neurourbanism offers a vital lens for designing cities that nurture mental health, moving beyond functionality toward spaces that actively support our cognitive and emotional needs.

Dr. Olszewska-Guizzo captures this well:

“We have been building cities without truly understanding their impact on us… Neurourbanism is unlocking this mystery. It is the key to designing cities that don’t just function, but feel - cities that nurture mental health, encourage creativity, and foster human connection.”  You can read her full article here.

Tools Bringing Neuroscience to Urban Design 

​Within the GreenInCities consortium, the NeuroLandscape team has been developing two innovative tools aimed at advancing urban design through neuroscientific data:

1. The Neurourbanism Assessment (NUA):
A neighborhood-scale mental health evaluation tool that integrates portable brain imaging (using EEG) with real-time environmental measurements such as air quality, noise levels, and landscape aesthetics. The NUA captures immediate brain responses to urban stimuli, providing objective data about how specific urban environments affect well-being in a simple form – a single numeric value, called NUA index. This tool supports the New European Bauhaus (NEB) mission to enhance urban spaces aesthetically and functionally, while aligning with broader Urban Regeneration (UR) goals by pinpointing areas that could better promote public mental health.
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2. The Mental Health Digital Twin (MHDT):
A sophisticated simulation platform that merges neuroimaging data with psychological and environmental metrics to model brain activity under varying urban conditions. The MHDT allows planners and designers to virtually test proposed interventions, predicting their potential mental health impacts before implementation. This tool embodies the integration of neuroscience with AI and urban data analytics, guiding evidence-based decisions for healthier cities.
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Together, these tools provide a robust framework that bridges neuroscience, mental health, planning, design, and policy, advancing the future of urban development and interventions, grounded in human-centered science.  

​Beyond Interdisciplinary: A Transdisciplinary Movement  

While many describe Neurourbanism as interdisciplinary, perhaps we should consider it the term transdisciplinary as well. Neurourbanism integrates a vast spectrum of disciplines: neuroscience, architecture, environmental psychology, landscape design, psychiatry, epidemiology, computer science, AI, sociology, and public policy. But it also has the power to transcend academia by involving municipalities, urban planners, designers, and the public in testing and applying this science in real-world, accessible contexts.

This breadth and collaboration are both challenging and essential. At the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, we witness firsthand how integrating diverse expertise and perspectives generates deeper understanding and more innovative solutions. It is definitely not always the easier path, as there is an inherent complexity in bridging the gap between urban design and mental health, as well as the disconnect often found between academia and practice.  This is exactly the point, and thus our approach - to address the gaps, disconnects, and diverse ways of addressing mental health, which is ultimately a common issue to all.  Neurourbanism exemplifies this approach by not only generating knowledge but actively transforming how we think about and build our cities.

​Capturing the Brain in Context: Methods and Data  

What distinguishes Neurourbanism from traditional urban health studies is its direct measurement of brain responses in situ. Rather than relying solely on self-report surveys or laboratory experiments, researchers use portable neuroimaging tools, such as wearable EEG, alongside spatial sensors and environmental data collection methods.

Collecting this neurophysiological data in real urban settings allows for novel insight into how specific environments modulate stress, attention, and mood. Combined with geospatial analysis, computer vision, and AI algorithms, this multidisciplinary approach can capture the nuanced relationship between the brain and the city.
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Despite early skepticism from some neuroscientists who favored controlled lab studies, advances in wearable technology and data analytics are rapidly shifting the field and providing data, feedback and insight not achievable equally in labs. In labs there are missing elements, and in surveys there are subjective aspects that affect outcomes.  While this space is in some ways new territory, and not without error or shortcomings, the progress still promises critical new intel for designing interventions that are grounded in physiological experience and measurable validity.

​Neurourbanism Now  

​Urbanization continues to accelerate worldwide, and with it, mental health challenges such as stress, anxiety, social isolation, and cognitive overload become more prevalent. These issues are shaped by the physical and social fabric of our cities.  Neurourbanism offers a scientific pathway to diagnose these urban mental health challenges and respond effectively. By linking neuroscience with design and policy, it provides planners, architects, and decision-makers a clearer picture of how environments affect psychological well-being, and provides tools to create spaces that actively support mental health.

​Current Research  

In Nova Gorica, Slovenia, the NeuroLandscape team is piloting their Neurourbanism tools and methods. Their fieldwork is part of a larger effort to assess and transform urban environments based on how they influence mental health at the neurobiological level. Using mobile mobile EEG headsets, they are collecting real-time brain activity data as participants walk through selected urban routes. Additionally, environmental measurements (air quality, sound levels, temperature, humidity, and the visual quality of landscape) is also assessed.

The research is designed to compare different urban neighbourhoods and typologies (such as dense commercial zones, quiet residential areas, and green parks) to evaluate how various stimuli affect emotional states, stress regulation, and cognitive load. Participants' subjective perceptions are also gathered through questionnaires and interviews, allowing researchers to correlate physiological responses with personal experience and spatial context.

This approach provides a holistic view of how specific spatial characteristics such as visual openness, natural elements, and noise exposure, etc. can elevate or alleviate stress. The data collected is then processed using AI algorithms and spatial mapping tools, feeding into the development of the Mental Health Digital Twin (MHDT) and Neurourbanism Assessment (NUA) to inform practical, evidence-based urban planning recommendations in more places around the world.
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The next phases of this study will take place in Helsinki, Finland, and Athens, Greece (key sites in the GreenInCities project)  where the team will continue to apply and refine these tools.  Their hope is to work closely with city planners to guide sustainable urban transformation efforts that prioritize mental health.
(You can follow the team’s step-by-step experimental procedures and access a comprehensive FAQ here.)

Stay Tuned 
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If you are interested in how neuroscience, data, and urban design can converge to create healthier, more liveable cities, I encourage you to follow this evolving field closely, through the work of people such as Dr. Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo, her team, and our other UDMH fellows.
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We will continue to share more on how the integration of brain science into urbanism has the potential to revolutionize how we conceive and shape our lived environments.

Additional  Reading &  References:

Adli, M., et al. (2017). Neurourbanism: towards a new discipline. The Lancet Psychiatry, 4(3), 183-185.
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Vigliocco, G., et al. (2024). Ecological brain: reframing the study of human behaviour and cognition. Royal Society Open Science, 11(11), 240762.

Tewari, K., Tewari, M., & Niyogi, D. (2023). Need for considering urban climate change factors on stroke, neurodegenerative diseases, and mood disorders studies. Computational Urban Science, 3(1), 4.
Andreucci, M.B., Russo, A., & Olszewska-Guizzo, A. (2019). Designing Urban Green Blue Infrastructure for Mental Health and Elderly Wellbeing. Sustainability, 11(22), 6425.

Beute, F., et al. (2020). Types and characteristics of urban and periurban green spaces having an impact on human mental health and wellbeing: a systematic review. EKLIPSE Expert Working Group.
Norwood, M.F., et al. (2019). Brain activity, underlying mood and the environment: A systematic review. Journal of Environmental Psychology.

Moore, T.H.M., et al. (2018). The effects of changes to the built environment on the mental health and well-being of adults: Systematic review. Health & Place, 53, 237-257.

Gascon, M., et al. (2017). Outdoor blue spaces, human health and well-being: A systematic review of quantitative studies. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 220(8), 1207-1221.

Van den Berg, M., et al. (2015). Health benefits of green spaces in the living environment: A systematic review of epidemiological studies. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 14(4), 806-816.
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Olszewska-Guizzo, A., Sia, A., Fogel, A., & Ho, R. (2022). Features of urban green spaces associated with positive emotions, mindfulness and relaxation. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 20695.

About the Author

Erin Sharp Newton, M.Arch, is Director of UDMH, a UDMH Fellow since 2016, and part of the Journal’s editorial team. She is an adjunct professor at Kean University and served as the 2024 President of AIACNJ.  She has served as a juror, critic, and mentor at institutions including Cornell, UCLA, NJIT, Sci-Arc, Milan Politecnico, and is an active advocate in her community.  Erin holds a Master’s in Architecture from UCLA and a Master’s in Design from Domus Academy in Milan, where she was Creative Director at Cibic & Partners. Her projects have been featured at the Milano Triennale and other international venues. Her work has appeared in Domus, Interni, Philips Solid Side, and the Royal College of Physicians.