Contact person
Maria Tunberg
Chef Strategisk forskning och affärsutveckling
Contact Maria
Urban Environments & Public Spaces
Many cities face challenges in designing public spaces that truly feel safe, inclusive and supportive of everyday wellbeing. RISE combines neuroscience, behavioural insights and citizen experience to help municipalities and developers create streets, parks, and public areas that strengthen safety, inclusion, and social cohesion.
Why public space quality matters
Cities today face increasing pressure to create public spaces that feel safe, welcoming, and supportive of everyday wellbeing. Municipalities, planners, and developers are navigating rising concerns around mental health, social fragmentation, and equitable access and yet often lack evidence‑based tools to understand how people actually experience the environments around them.
Public spaces that are overstimulating, poorly organised, or socially disconnected can quietly undermine trust and belonging. If these challenges remain unaddressed, cities risk environments that feel unsafe, inaccessible or unable to support the diverse needs of their communities. RISE helps organisations close this gap.
Our approach
We bring together neuroscience, behavioural insights, and citizen experience to reveal how streetscapes, parks, and mobility hubs influence stress, social interaction, and everyday recovery. Our approach turns complex human needs into clear, actionable design criteria that strengthen both wellbeing and social cohesion.
What we offer
- Neuroinclusive design frameworks for streetscapes, parks, and mobility hubs.
- Safety‑perception analysis using behavioural insights and sensory mapping.
- Tools for evaluating social cohesion, including how design shapes trust, belonging, and micro‑interactions.
- Guidance for climate‑resilient, human‑centred public spaces that reduce stress and support everyday recovery.
How we work
We analyse how people move, orient, and interact in public settings through spatial diagnostics, sensory mapping, and on‑site behavioural observations. These insights are transformed into clear visualisations and strategic guidance that help cities make confident, human‑centred design decisions.
RISE brings a human‑science lens to urban development, showing how public environments shape trust, safety, and everyday social behaviour. This insight is especially powerful early in the planning process, when design decisions set the foundation for long‑term community wellbeing.
We offer an initial conversation to explore your urban development goals and identify where neuroscience‑based insights can strengthen the design and planning of public environments.
