Sentir l’Espai Urbà
Cities communicate with us through different ways: sound, image, smells, textures, materials, weather, among others. But how do we perceive all these layers? How do we feel about it? What role does urban design play in this exchange? How do we feel the city? Every day, we are immersed in urban surroundings filled with cars, honking, flashing lights, and bustling crowds. These constant stimuli overwhelm our senses, affecting both our mental and physical well-being.
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Constant exposure to loud noises, crowds, and chaotic environments increases anxiety and stress levels. Too many distractions make it hard to concentrate and complete tasks, leading to irritability, feelings of frustration, insomnia, and mental struggles. All these mental health factors then lead to physical health impacts, which may include increased heart rate, headaches, fatigue due to constant sensory overload, muscle tension, digestive issues, and a weakened immune system related to anxiety and sleep problems, potentially increasing the risk of chronic conditions.
As city residents, we are victims of overstimulation, however, what would we do if we feel overstimulated in the city?
After a long day of work inside the office, you take the metro back home and it’s crowded; people are pushing each other, everyone is speaking, you almost missed your stop. Instead of going for a beer or smoking a cigarette as usual, today you decide you want to try a healthier way to relax, so you do a google search on “How to feel less overwhelmed”. A lot of options involve staying indoors and recommend you to buy noise-cancelling headphones; but you want to explore the outside. In order to do that, you decide to go to the closest park that appears in Google Maps. However, when you arrive, you are welcomed by a bombardment of stimuli that doesn’t allow you to relax, and in the end, you still feel stressed and overwhelmed.
Why does the city sometimes feel like it’s too much?
We took a look into the relation between ‘Urban spaces’ and ‘Public health’, to understand what happens when these two spheres overlap each other. Humans interact with our surroundings perceiving the different stimuli through our senses. The way in which we perceive that information is as broad and personal as there are people in the world. So when we refer to the senses, we say that there is a spectrum of perception. But, what happens when the amount of stimulus is more than the ones that our brain can process? Well, in that case we are facing overstimulation, and within the spectrum there are people that can filter some of them and people who can not.
Based on that we state our research question as:
The exposure to urban sensory overstimulation impacts on mental health generating tension, anxiety, psychomotor agitation, and insomnia. Neurodiverse citizens have trouble identifying accessible restorative spaces in their cities.
Considering urban fabric is static and hard to change, the solution should raise awareness about accessibility of restorative places that may track and improve user’s well-being throughout time.
Let’s break down this issue into smaller concepts to a better understanding.
As we said before, the massive superimposition of physical and sensory information in environmental spaces triggers a continuous influx of stimuli that an individual cannot process due to their volume, intensity and diversity. We call this urban overstimulation.
What is the impact of overstimulation on mental health?
We defined that mental health is determined by a complex interaction of individual, social and structural stressors and vulnerabilities. The WHO highlights that there are three main factors that are determinants of mental health: social and economic environment, physical environment, and the person’s individual characteristics and behaviors.
After the pandemic, statistics show that people in Barcelona have increased mental health issues by around 13%. Studies show that the impact of time spent indoors during the lockdown, have several impacts on our well-being. During this period the urban spaces were part of the private ones. Houses converted into work, gim, living, school and therapy spaces. In addition to the main house activities, the overlapping of the daily routine in the same place, increased physical and sensorial stimulation.
Furthermore, as we can see on the graphic on the right, during the pandemic period, the google search trends in Barcelona regarding mental health triggered considerably, compared with previous years. The statistics also show significant picks in Mental Health day. Under this scenario, an app that addresses mental health issues is needed and urgent.
Neurodiversity
As we state before, there is cognitive and sensory variation on how people perceive and process the stimulus. It has been said that there is a spectrum of perception, and we refer to people on this spectrum as ‘neurodiverse’. We preferred the use of ‘neurodiversity’ as a term of inclusion whereas ‘neurodivergence’ is a term of exclusion. To make the difference clear, note that everyone can be said to be neurodiverse, but that it is almost impossible for everyone to be neurodivergent. Between 15% and 20% of the worldwide population exhibiting neurodivergent traits.
Neurourbanism
Having explained the correlation between mental health and urban space, it seems important to us to approach this complexity from a discipline that embraces this problem. This is why we turn to neurourbanism, as a discipline that studies the different urban factors that influence the nervous system of the inhabitants. By designing multisensory environments, cities can become spaces that nurture well-being, foster creativity, and support healthy development. This approach recognizes that mental health is not just an individual issue but is deeply intertwined with the environments we inhabit.
Restorative Urban Spaces
From the design perspective, we want to detect restorative urban spaces within the urban environment that provide appropriate spatial pathways to trigger psychological and/or physiological recovery. Through particular urban settings, citizens could improve their well-being.
Knowing our potential users
Based on the data collected, we identified the profile of our potential users: working people between the ages of 25-44 years old. We interview three people on this range to know about their daily routine and how they feel along the day. From the interviews we could highlight that people compensate for the time spent inside working home offices or another indoor space, by recharging in nature or gathering with people outside.
How can one app be the solution?
Well, being realistic is not a solution, but our goal is the app could be a great support for making citizens a more bearable urban life. For that reason we develop SEU.
If we make a market analysis SEU, we would find that there are just two kinds of apps related to this topic. On the one hand we have the maps app that allows you to geolocate a specific point, calculate routes, find the nearest places of interest or view the appearance of a place. And, on another hand the mental health apps, that focus on giving the users different tools to calm them down, or regulate screen time.
However, SEU combines the best of both types. The app focuses on people’s sensory perceptions and its relationship with the urban environment. Through the maps, the app could localize restorative spaces within the city, based on the users criteria to reduce the overstimulation and improve their mental health.
UX User experience
It consists of five steps, and starts when the user feels overstimulated.The user goes through the different screens, answering very specific instructions and choosing from a very small number of options, no more than seven, his or her different preferences. This feeds the algorithm to show output more personalized and specific to each user profile.
After a long day of work inside the office, you take a crowded metro back home. You want to feel less overstimulated, so you open SEU app and update your state of body and mind to make sure you are achieving your monthly goals. Then you select your daily need (for example: Digital Detox) and which sense you feel overstimulated. Later you swipe pictures with hashtags that describe the characteristics of the places, and at the end, SEU proposes the best and closest regenerative spaces for you according to your preferences.
UI User interface,
For the interface design we decided to use different features to reduce cognitive load, allowing customization. We divided this into four categories.
01. Sensory Design
Low-contrast, neutral color palettes with calming tones (e.g., soft blues, greens)
Minimalist layouts that emphasize white space and limit visual clutter
Reduced animations or gentle motion (e.g., slow fades instead of fast transitions)
Adjustable settings (e.g., user can toggle animations, brightness, or sound cues)
02. Predictability – Clarity
Consistent, predictable navigation with simple categories
Progressive disclosure (showing only essential info first, revealing more on demand)
Calm UI microinteractions (gentle feedback when tapping, no aggressive alerts)
No auto-play features (e.g., videos or sounds don’t start without user input)
03. Customization – Control
User-controlled environments (dark mode, sound adjustments, font size changes)
“Do Not Disturb” modes for reducing notifications and distractions
Haptic feedback alternatives (letting users opt for vibrations instead of sound alerts)
Adjustable density settings (users can switch between detailed vs. simplified views)
04. Comfortable design
“Pause and Resume” options for workflows that allow breaks
Calm interaction pacing (e.g., no forced time limits on forms)
Easy exit routes (clear back buttons, undo options)
Soft edges and rounded UI elements (to create a sense of approachability)
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The algorithm
In order to set the user experience in the urban space the app asks for a series of concepts that help the algorithm to associate those with different kinds of indoor and outdoor spaces. Some of them also include the option to activate the plane mood, to restrain the use of other apps and make a technological detox during the break. After setting the categories, the user has to choose which of the senses has more overstimulation.
👀 Visual: Soft, natural lighting; absence of screens; focus on physical textures
👂 Aural: Analog sounds (e.g., rustling leaves, distant birds, soft acoustic music)
✋ Touch: Interactive elements (e.g., books, textured materials, paper journals)
👃 Smell: Natural, grounding scents (e.g., pine, fresh air, earthy aromas)
Metrics
The algorithm uses the user preferences as an input that will be translated into measurable urban features, allowing to generate recommendations based on varying user’s choosings.
In addition this data will be used to generate monthly metrics. Those metrics would help to know the effectiveness of the apps, in terms of the impact on users mental health.
Feasibility & Constraints
We aim for the app to be open and free. Regarding the economical maintenance of the app we seek financial support from the municipality and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Add advertisement goes against the purpose of our app, since it increases the stimulation and the predictability of the interface.
Engagement plan
We are looking forward to developing our next steps, which include a possible function with the selected playlist of spotify. Furthermore we want to include an audio feature to enhance accessibility for individuals with visual impairments, as well as those with reading difficulties, cognitive disabilities, or anyone who prefers listening over reading.
Finally, the App can serve as an interactive platform where real-time user’s feedback supports policies for urban spaces development and tracking mental health in young citizens.
