NeuroLandscape

01/10/2026

Day 1 of the Porto meeting agenda was fully dedicated to EEG and VR 🧠 🤖

Marcus M. and Philip Mosimann from NEUROSPEC AG were our special guests for the day. They traveled from their headquarters in Stans, Switzerland to Porto, Portugal to give our team hands-on training with the DSI-7 EEG headset.

This dry electrode EEG headset is reliable both indoors (wired) and outdoors (wireless), which is ideal for all types of in-situ recording. It will allow our researchers to capture accurate readings of participant brain activity during our upcoming neurourbanism and neuroarchitecture experiments.

The DSI-7, paired with the Meta Quest 3 VR headset, will enable our participants to experience virtual environments while their brain activity is being recorded. Using these two tools simultaneously will allow us to compare how the design of different built environments potentially effects our mental health and wellbeing.

Haeeun Lee, PhD and Ghieth Alkhateeb (our lead researchers for the BLUEPRINT EU Project and SchoolChanger Interreg BSR project, respectively) have developed innovative study protocols to take full advantage of these tools and will conduct their experiments with the support of the NeuroLandscape team, particularly Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo, David O'Reilly, Mirko Febbo and Weronika Gąsior).

Thank you all for attending this informative training session, Raul Guizzo, Anastasia Kokkinou, Lara Renhe, Denanti Nur Iwani, and everyone mentioned above!

30/09/2026

The NeuroLandscape team travelled from all across Europe last week to gather in Porto, Portugal for a teambuilding event to get better familiarised with the EEG and VR equipment that'll be central to our upcoming neuroarchitecture research projects.

Here's a recap of some of the activities the team was working on over this two-day event:

Day 1

🤖 Hands-on training with our newly acquired EEG device—the DSI-7 (thanks Marcus M. and Philip from NEUROSPEC AG!)
🥽 Learning how to integrate the EEG device with a VR headset
💻 Introduction to the EEG software & Unity LSL

Day 2
🧠 Presentations on brain science and the different forms of EEG technology (thanks Haeeun Lee, PhD and Anastasia Kokkinou!)
📖 Journal club session to discuss current published neurourbanism research (thanks David O'Reilly and Ghieth Alkhateeb!)
👥 Gender Equality and GDPR training (thanks Weronika Gąsior!)
🚶‍♀️‍➡️ A walking tour at University of Porto to explore where the seed of a PhD thesis was formed over 10 years ago. This seed would eventually blossom and grow into the research we do today at NeuroLandscape (thanks Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo!)

This training is integral to the research that we will be conducting for the BLUEPRINT EU Project and SchoolChanger Interreg BSR project. We're excited to see the results from this innovative approach to neuroarchitecture research!

Thank you for participating Raul Guizzo, Mirko Febbo, Lara Renhe, Denanti Nur Iwani and everyone mentioned above!

22/09/2026

On 5 August 2026, Chee Yung Kuan presented the Neurourbanism Index (NUIX) at the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore (URA) as part of their Urban Lab Speaker Series on AI for Cities.

During his presentation, he explored how we can scope and create surveys with empathy and scientific rigour based on neurourbanism assessment models; and how AI guided by these models can help us evaluate urban spaces quickly in order for us to identify gaps and intentionally design our City in Nature for Wellbeing.

Watch the presentation now on our YouTube channel!

(NUIX was developed under the GreenInCities Horizon Europe project)

On 5 August 2026, Chee Yung Kuan presented the Neurourbanism Index ...

21/09/2026

This summer Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo and Ghieth Alkhateeb presented at the 63rd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) Conference in Riga, Latvia held from 6-10 July 2026.

On behalf of the Horizon Europe GreenInCities project, Agnieszka gave a breakdown on the inner workings of the Neurourbanism Index (NUIX), which is a data-driven diagnostic tool designed to measure "wellbeing in place" at the neighborhood scale.

Gheith gave an overview of the research he's leading under the SchoolChanger Interreg BSR project, which is using VR and EEG assessment to determine how to optimise redesigning schools and healthcare facilities to best support wellbeing and healthy development.

You can watch their presentations now our YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/

17/09/2026

Our first deliverable for the GreenInCities project is now available online! 🎉 🤸‍♀️

👉 https://www.greenincities.eu/deliverables-summaries

Check out the GreenInCities website to learn more about Neurourbanism Assessment (NUA), a comprehensive methodology designed for the in-situ evaluation of urban interventions’ impacts on mental health at the neighbourhood scale.

NUA is not about diagnosing people, but rather diagnosing spaces for their impact on mental health and well-being by integrating insights from neuroscience, landscape & urban planning, and environmental psychology.

By leveraging portable neuroscience technologies and citizen science methods, this methodology helps us understand how the human brain responds to its surroundings, allowing cities to optimise urban spaces for mental health promotion.

Much appreciation to Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo, Nicolas Escoffier and Anastasia Kokkinou for their efforts on this deliverable and this substantial contribution to the GreenInCities project.

23/07/2026

Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo and David O'Reilly attended the GreenInCities General Assembly Meeting in Helsinki, Finland (2-4 June 2026). 🙌

At the meeting, David had the opportunity to present an overview of the innovative tools NeuroLandscape has developed under this project: the Mental Health Digital Twin (MHDT), Neurourbanism Assessment (NUA), and Neurourbanism Index (NUIX).

👉 Read more about NUA & NUIX on the GreenInCities website (scroll down to Deliverable D3.2): https://www.greenincities.eu/deliverables-summaries

👉 Read more about the GreenInCities project on our website: https://neurolandscape.org/greenincities/

20/07/2026

We're happy to announce that the Youth Engagement Activities Catalogue is now available online! 🤸‍♀️ 📖 ✏️

This practical toolkit is full of ready-to-run activities to explore how youth experience and feel about their learning or care environments, ideal for schools, children’s hospitals, and social and healthcare organisations.

We're proud of the work that Ghieth Alkhateeb (our Lead Researcher on SchoolChanger) has done to create this catalogue and our entire SchoolChanger team for their contributions (Weronika Gąsior, Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo and Raul Guizzo).

📖 Check it out now!

The SchoolChanger Interreg BSR project is made possible by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region and co-funded by the European Union.

We proudly present the SchoolChanger Youth Engagement Activities Catalogue that is a compact, practical toolkit designed to put young people at the centre of learning and local change. Whether you’re a teacher, youth worker, or community leader, this catalogue gives you ready-to-run activities tha...

15/07/2026

Chee Yung Kuan, Director of NeuroLandscape SG, presented “Neurolandscape for Designing Green Spaces” at the World Landscape Architecture Month Conference 2026 on 28 April.

His keynote on the Contemplative Landscape Model in assessing Urban Parks and Playscapes in the Tropics was appreciated by the organisers and participants alike, who recognise that this long-awaited tool is essential in designing better urban green spaces that can improve wellbeing in highly-urbanised Malaysia.

We were happy to have experts (including psychiatrists, town council members, placemaking practitioners, and social activists) reach out to us with interest to create optimal settings for their wellbeing activities. We hope to champion this cause via guidance in assessments and co-creating customised Contemplative Landscapes with future partners.

This 10th edition of WLAM is organized by the Hulu Selangor Municipal Council, managed by ILAM Centre of Excellence (ICE), recognized by the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), American Society of Landscape Architects, Malaysia Book of Records, Jabatan Landskap Bandar, and the INSTITUTE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS MALAYSIA (ILAM) as an initiative of the Landscape Architecture Agenda 2050, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and MyNBS (ILAM Malaysia Nature-Based Solutions).

08/07/2026

We love to see this! ❤️ In the summer months across Portugal, you'll see buses lined up along the beaches unloading schoolchildren of all ages, even the littlest preschoolers taking their first steps in the sand.

This serves as a reminder that oftentimes the most effective Nature-based Solution is simply taking advantage of what's available in your neighborhood and being pro-active by going out to spent time in these spaces.

These children have the opportunity to build a relationship with the ocean and the seaside starting from a young age, full of respect, wonder and joy.

All of our research at NeuroLandscape suggests that this practice is doing wonders for the children's, and the educators', mental health and wellbeing. Kudos to the local schools for making this worthwhile effort and investment!

(Photo credits: Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo snapped the cloudier shots at Madalena Beach in northern Portugal, just across the river from Porto.)

28/05/2026

In case you missed it live, you can watch Dr. Agnieszka Olszewska-Guizzo's full presentation as Guest Speaker at Mott MacDonald for May 2026. 🙌

Her presentation, "Designing for Mental Health & Wellbeing: From Contemplative Landscape Model to Salutogenic Built Environments", starts with into the origin of the Contemplative Landscape Model (CLM) and the reasoning behind using evidence-based design to improve mental health and wellbeing.

She recaps her CLM research and its real-world application as part of the Nature Rehabilitation Program in Sweden and the Therapeutic Gardens Network by the National Parks Board in Singapore.

She also gives an overview of the tools currently being developed at NeuroLandscape, including the Contemplative Landscape Automated Scoring System (CLASS), the Neurourbanism Index (NUIX), and the Mental Health Digital Twin (MHDT), and shares insights on how these tools could be used in the future. This is followed by a Q&A session.

A big thank you to Rob Playford for the invitation and the great support to our research.

📺 Now available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/HZq465vJRNA?si=BeJ2wJTIa4t4X8V8