As urban populations grow and land resources become scarcer, cities must adapt to new ways of living. However, discussions about densification often remain abstract and policy-driven, making it difficult for citizens to envision and engage with their potential futures.
[DEN]city is an public participation interface that I designed to bridge this gap, by transforming theoretical urban planning discussions into interactive, visual, and participatory experiences.
To ensure that users would be engaged, intrigued and could deeply relate the platform’s content, I developed an interactive concept inspired by city planning and our own research methods: we decided that [DEN]city will take the form of an interactive, exploratory digital map that visually represents future urban scenarios and questions. The experience is structured around 72 unique topic blocks, each occupying an intersecting “cell” on the map, housing discussions visualized as AI-generated posters, assisting in both navigating and exploring.
Each ‘block’ contains:
- A thought-provoking question from our research matrix (e.g by intersecting the topic of housing with the field of nature - you would access a question about the relationship between homes and nature in dense living environments)
- An AI-generated image (using Midjourney) to visualize the scenario from a personal POV.
- A space for public engagement, allowing users to react, comment, and contribute their perspectives in a generated visual format.
User Experience Goals:
✅ Intuitive Exploration – Users can freely navigate the map and discover different urban scenarios or intersect fields (e.g Transportation) and topics (e.g. Wellbeing)
✅ Engagement & Contribution – Visitors are encouraged to react, comment, and even create response posters to share their own hopes, dreams, and fears about the future.
✅ Inclusivity & Representation – Special emphasis on voices often left out of urban planning (e.g., women, children, elderly, marginalized communities).
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