What if ...
the design of the city starts with listening?
SMART CITIES
start with human Data
OLIFANTENPAD CS
Designtools for the city of the future
Many municipalities recognize the problem: a well-intentioned design for public space ultimately leads to resistance, delays, or costly adjustments. Not because the intention is wrong, but because residents, designers, and clients often only truly understand each other late in the process.
Moreover, urban design challenges are becoming increasingly complex. Consider sustainability requirements, diverse user needs, and new legal frameworks such as the Environment and Planning Act.
What if designing our cities started with listening to how people actually experience the city?
By combining Virtual Reality (VR) and neurofeedback, we make it possible to measure residents’ unconscious reactions to new urban designs. This creates a design process in which designers, residents, and clients collaborate as equal partners on an attractive, safe, and inclusive living environment.
This dialogue is not a luxury.
It is the smartest investment in a vibrant, safe, and future-proof city.
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Our answer to:
Current Urban Design practice
Urban design flaws are costly. Not only in remediation costs, objection procedures, and delays — but also in trust. Residents who feel unheard, a design that does not fit usage, complaints about public spaces where people do not feel safe in the evenings.
Traditional participation does not solve this. Surveys and public consultation evenings inventory what people *say*, not what they *feel* and *experience*. And they rarely reach the people who are most vulnerable.
In our approach, residents’ experiences are taken just as seriously as the expertise of designers and policymakers. We measure unconscious reactions and incorporate them into the design.
The result: a city that works for everyone, a better city for everyone.
Design process & expertise
A consortium of urban and social designers, psychologists, scientists, and technologists
A good urban design is never created at a single drawing board. Within Olifantenpad CS, we share the conviction that professionals and users of public space make better choices together than each individually.
With Virtual Reality (VR), we can showcase a design without a single shovel going into the ground. Residents can experience what their neighborhood might look like. That is the moment their judgment can make the difference.
We bring together an urban psychologist, spatial designer, lighting designer, VR expert, and neurofeedback specialist to present a more robust and widely supported design. The reactions have been particularly positive.
Finally, designs that better align with how different groups of residents experience their living environment.
'Smart City movement' and the citizen
Technology that puts people first — not logistics
Many Smart City applications focus on infrastructure and safety.
We use similar technology to better understand the human experience of the city as well, by measuring whether people feel comfortable, safe, and at home in their own city.
We make visible how residents truly experience a design — even at moments when they find it difficult to express this in words. By combining Virtual Reality and neurofeedback, we measure the unconscious reactions of residents during the development of the spatial design. In real-time, accessible to everyone from 6 to 99 years old, regardless of language proficiency or digital skills, and scientifically substantiated.
Residents participating in our method are surprised: for the first time, they can truly see what their neighborhood will look like, and they feel that their feedback has been taken into account. On average, they give an 8.5 on the question of whether they would recommend their neighbors participate.
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More info?
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We develop
Designtools for the happy city
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How it works:
Meet - Develop- Design
It starts with talking
Meet the people where they live!
Residents know their living environment better than anyone else. That knowledge is the starting point — not the drawing board. Professionals and residents are on equal footing in our process.
Ultimately, it is about taking care of each other, the city, and the environment together.
By involving people in the process, we simultaneously improve the social cohesion of the area. It will lead to places where people feel at home.
Develop it together in Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality and spatial design
With VR, residents can experience their own square, street, or neighborhood before a single brick is laid. They see what it will become, by day and evening, in various scenarios. They co-design using tools compiled by experts. Their choices are theirs—and they are justified by them.
Design with what people really feel
Neurofeedback
measures the brain’s unconscious responses to a spatial image — faster and more objectively than a textual questionnaire. Does someone feel safe or alert? Relaxed or stressed?
How do women and men react, what do older and younger people think? This data provides designers and policymakers with specific and fundamental insights that they cannot obtain from anywhere else.
Greater support. Lower risk. Better cities.
Effective participation pays off — literally. Research shows that a solid participation process prevents many objection procedures, reduces construction delays, and increases the final value of projects.
Our tool integrates a unique design element: the unconscious response of residents is converted into objective, measurable data on how groups of residents experience a design.
For Municipalities:
Better substantiated participation under the Environment and Planning Act.
Fewer surprises in later phases of the project and a design that enjoys greater support from the start, resulting in fewer objections and more confidence in the city administration.
For project developers:
Greater support. Lower risk. Better cities.
Lower risk of costly retrofits and higher end-user satisfaction.
For Designers:
In-depth insight into how users experience a spatial design day and night, the substantiation of that response, and a distinguishing argument in tenders.
We are an urban psychologist, a spatial designer, a lighting designer, a VR expert, and an expert in Neurofeedback.
Olifantenpad CS operates as an interdisciplinary team where design, behavioral science, and technology come together. This allows us to guide the entire process: from initial participation to a robust design. The method was developed and tested in collaboration with the Municipality of Eindhoven and presented to various municipalities, architectural firms, and user groups. We are now ready for the next step: real impact with real projects.
We enjoy working with municipalities and developers who view participation not as a formality, but as an opportunity to create better public spaces. Parties who recognize that user participation is an essential component in shaping public space. Not because the Environment and Planning Act requires it—but because they know that a city that works for everyone is a better city for everyone, and also yields greater social and commercial returns.
The city can be better, and we know how.
Get in touch or complete our questionnaire—and help us build the city of tomorrow.
