Understand how
cities feel.

Bringing human experience into the way we understand, design and improve urban spaces.

EMO City brings together human responses, environmental analysis and digital tools to understand how urban spaces are experienced. Our goal is to make that experience a practical part of planning and design, helping teams identify what matters and where change can make a difference.

The city, experienced at eye level.YouTube

A closer look

The project,
at a glance.

Explore our approach and the two tools behind EMO City.

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Project overview

The complete EMO City approach

02

EMO Manager

From human response to insight

03

EMO Scape

From environment to design evidence

Products

Two tools. One connected approach.

Understand the experience.
Explain the environment. Inform the next step.

Human experience

EMO Manager

A structured workspace for understanding how people respond to a place.

01

Organize the evidence

Bring physiology, eye tracking, questionnaires and interviews into one participant-centered workflow.

02

Connect each moment

Align recordings and annotate interviews so responses can be understood alongside the experience.

03

Understand comfort

Reconstruct comfort over time and export structured results for further analysis and comparison.

Core outputs Aligned data · Annotated responses · Comfort curves

Urban environment

EMO Scape

An analysis framework connecting the character of a place with human experience.

01

Read the environment

Describe streets through their visual elements, spatial conditions and soundscape.

02

Explore relationships

Examine how environmental features relate to people's responses and identify patterns that matter.

03

Inform design decisions

Identify low-comfort segments and translate findings into evidence cards and planning priorities.

Core outputs Environmental features · Experience relationships · Design evidence

Discuss software access and support

Our principle

Better urban renewal begins with
how people experience a place.

Making that experience visible, understandable and actionable.

Looking ahead

Toward more human cities.

Our next steps connect deeper understanding with wider, practical use.

More places. More perspectives.

Extend the approach across urban settings and diverse communities, supporting more inclusive planning.

Clearer paths to action.

Develop easier reporting and interpretation tools, helping teams turn complex evidence into practical design priorities.

A connected community.

Build adaptable workflows and international partnerships to support shared learning across cities.

Our team

Different disciplines. A shared purpose.

Connecting urban planning, psychology, geographic information and software development.

Wenhui Ren

Wenhui Ren

Project lead · Systems & software

Ludong University
Yelong Zeng

Yelong Zeng

Academic mentor · Machine learning

South China Botanical Garden, CAS
Lu Liu

Lu Liu

Psychology · Experimental design

Ludong University
Mengquan Wu

Mengquan Wu

Urban planning · Practice

Ludong University
Peiyun Lei

Peiyun Lei

Fieldwork · Data curation

Ludong University
Guoqing Li

Guoqing Li

Technical operations · Spatial data

Ludong University

Based at the College of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Ludong University

Work with us

Let's shape better urban experiences.

For researchers, planners, design teams and organizations putting people at the center of urban change.

From a focused technical question to a shared research agenda, we can help you connect methods, software and urban practice.

01

Research methods

Study design, immersive experiment protocols and the integration of physiological signals, eye tracking, questionnaires and interviews into a coherent evaluation approach.

02

Software & workflows

Discuss access to EMO Manager and EMO Scape, software demonstrations, setup guidance, data exchange and workflow adaptation to your research context.

03

Analysis & interpretation

Support for streetscape feature extraction, multimodal data alignment, quality checks and comfort analysis, with clear outputs that connect findings to design questions.

04

Planning & design

Identify experience priorities, investigate low-comfort environments and develop evidence-informed design directions and approaches to before-and-after evaluation.

05

Research collaboration

Joint studies, cross-city comparisons, method validation, interdisciplinary publications and collaborative proposals, with scope and data arrangements agreed together.

06

Training & exchange

Technical discussions, project demonstrations, workshops and knowledge exchange to help research and planning teams understand and apply the approach.

Start a conversation

Tell us what you are working on.

Share your context, objectives and the support you have in mind.
We will explore a suitable way to work together.

Wenhui RenEMO City Project Teamwenhui_r@163.com

Project overview

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Full EMO City project poster

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