VR-Sense is a proof-of-concept project that explores how virtual reality (VR) can be harnessed to promote sociopolitical aims. Urban planning is currently facing a pressing challenge: how to meaningfully engage diverse communities in shaping socially sustainable and inclusive cities. Building on the ERC Starting Grant project EmergentCommunity, which combined experimental emotion research with qualitative studies on urban life, VR-Sense investigates how immersive scenarios can be designed in a diversity-informed, affect-aware, and ethically sustainable way. The project integrates knowledge of everyday emotions and place-attachment with emerging digital solutions and generative AI. Thus, it aims to enhance the development of inclusive, resilient, and socially sustainable urban futures.
Current VR solutions in urban contexts often lack sensitivity to social dynamics and the diversity of emotional and lived experiences. VR-Sense addresses this gap by developing immersive experiences that respond to users’ behavioural signals relating to approach-avoidance to produce responsive VR scenarios rather than simulating others’ experiences. The proposed human-centric solution tops current applications that tend to be data-driven and system-oriented. To boost its impact, the project partners with prospective end-users: municipalities, NGOs, and urban planning companies.
Through technical validation, careful ethical review, and stakeholder collaboration, VR-Sense will assess the feasibility of sociopolitically attuned immersive scenarios that resonate with lived experience and the socio-spatial complexity of urban coexistence. The outcome will include a prototype and a roadmap for societal impact and potential commercialization, contributing to the development of human-centric digital solutions that align with European initiatives for inclusive cities. Thus, the project bears high potential for societal impact and social innovation.