“Neural City: Emotional Interface and Future Navigation” is an immersive XR exhibition that explores the emotional relationship among citizens, machines, and the city. Located in Huaqiangbei—the symbolic frontier between Shenzhen and Hong Kong—the project transforms real-time human emotional data (EEG, heart rate, facial expression) into responsive architecture, lighting, and robotic gestures.
Visitors navigate a hybrid landscape where digital culture, AI urban sensing, and XR storytelling merge, revealing the emotional metabolism of the future city.
‘神经城市’是一个融合 XR（扩展现实）导览系统、情绪识别交互 与 AI城市感知 的公共装置型展览，设于华强北—港深交界的城市样本区。项目以“城市作为一台情绪机器”为核心命题，通过人机交互与多感官沉浸，探索市民与游客在“未来城市”中的情绪体验与数字共生。
观众通过可穿戴XR终端与触觉反馈装置，进入一场关于 数字文化记忆、城市焦虑与情感连接 的混合现实旅程。系统实时捕捉观众的情绪信号（脑电波、心率、面部表情），并驱动展场中的 机械装置、光影系统与虚拟城市界面 动态响应，构成“人—机—城”三者之间的情绪循环。
When we look up amid the electronic shimmer of Huaqiangbei, what we see is no longer just LEDs flickering — but the neural pulse of a living city.
In a metropolis where technology continuously redraws its boundaries, human emotion, algorithmic rhythm, and urban breath begin to intertwine.
In Neural City, three interconnected scenes — Data Awakening, Urban Resonance, and Memory Loop — form a narrative of digital selfhood:
In Data Awakening, the visitor is “read” for the first time. Their emotional state becomes visible through shifting light and data particles — the birth of a new identity between human and machine. The gaze of perception begins here, both anxious and curious.
In Urban Resonance, individual brainwaves merge into a collective spectrum that generates a virtual skyline — a city shaped by emotion. When minds synchronize, the skyline stabilizes; when emotions diverge, it fragments. Urban order becomes a metaphor for collective empathy.
In Memory Loop, the visitor encounters the echo of their own affective data. Projected emotional trails drift across the corridor walls, forming a map of self-awareness captured by the city. Each participant leaves with a “map of emotion” — both personal artifact and proof of the city’s sentience.
Rather than using technology to predict the future, this exhibition uses perception to reimagine technology itself.
When machines begin to understand our emotions, can we learn to understand ourselves anew?
When the city becomes a neural network, can human emotion still remain free?
Set within the hyperreal ecology of Huaqiangbei, Neural City poses a quiet but radical question:
When emotion becomes infrastructure, does empathy still belong to humans?
神经城市系统：从数据到共情的回路
当我们在华强北的电子微光中抬起头，看到的不再只是闪烁的LED，而是城市的“神经脉冲”。
在这座被科技持续刷新边界的城市中，人类的情绪、算法的波动与城市的呼吸正在融为一体。
《神经城市》中的三个核心场景——数据苏醒、城市共振、记忆回环——构成了一条关于“数字自我”的循环叙事：
在 「数据苏醒」 中，观众第一次被系统“读取”。他们的情绪被光线与数据可视化为新型的身份符号。这一时刻，是人类与机器之间的第一次互相凝视——焦虑、好奇与不安共同组成了“感知的起点”。
在 「城市共振」 中，个体的脑电波汇聚成集体的情绪频谱，构筑出一座由意识生成的虚拟都市。城市不再是物理空间，而成为情绪流的投影面。当不同个体的情绪趋于同步，城市影像随之清晰；而当情绪分歧扩大，影像则崩解、模糊。城市的稳定，成为一种社会共情的隐喻。
在 「记忆回环」 中，观众步入数据的余韵，看到自己留下的情绪轨迹在空间中回荡。那是算法的记忆，也是自我情绪的倒影。每个人离开时，带走一份“情绪地图”——一份关于人类如何被城市感知、并最终学会反观自我的证明。
这场展览并不试图用科技去定义未来，而是用感知去重新理解科技——
当机器学会理解我们的情绪，我们是否也能重新理解自己？
当城市成为一个巨大的神经网络，个体的情绪是否仍能保有自由的震荡？
《神经城市》在华强北的现实语境中提出了一个开放的问题：
当情绪成为城市的新基础设施，未来的共情是否仍属于人类？
Boyuan YU
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Oxford School of Architecture
Boyuan YU is a PhD at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), executive editor of Landscape Architecture Frontiers (LAF), and a youth editorial board member at Human Settlements and Sustainability. And was a young Tutor at Tsinghua University (THU). He holds a Master’s degree in Architectural Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL), and has studied at the University of Oxford. Boyuan is a researcher at the Hong Kong Centre for Construction Robotics and the Oxford School of Architecture and a member of AIA HK YAG.
He also serves as a reviewer for Automation in Construction, CAADRIA, CAAD Futures, SiGraDi, and Sustainable Futures. His research focuses on HCI, MR, IVE, circular engineering, and autonomous architecture. Boyuan's work has been featured in published Nature| npj materials sustainability, Resources Conservation and Recycling, SiGraDi, Nature Portfolio, Parametric Architecture, Amazing Architecture, Design Boom, Wood Central, and the Bartlett B-Pro show with Bronze prize, London Design Awards, NY Architectural Design Awards, CAADRIA Commendation Award. His research also received support from TDLEG and the Design Trust Grant.
Jianing LUO
Oxford School of Architecture
University College London
Crowley LUO is a researcher and architectural designer. He earned a Master of Architecture with Distinction from The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and a Bachelor of Architecture and Urban Design from Chinese Culture University. As a former research assistant at Tsinghua University, he has focused on digital fabrication, sustainable building design, virtual and augmented reality, and the use of upcycled materials in generative design. His work, which explores ecological community facilities through the metaverse and automation technologies, has been supported by a Design Trust grant and has earned accolades including the B-Pro Show Bronze Prize from The Bartlett and a Platinum Winner award at the London Design Awards.
His work as an architectural designer and researcher is a direct response to a curiosity that formal education could not satisfy—a hands-on exploration into the dialogue between technology, materiality, and sustainability. His practice is a testament to the untaught wisdom of making, where the supposed limitations of upcycled and repurposed materials become the very source of innovation. Through a process of intuitive tinkering and experimental prototyping with large-scale robotic fabrication, he has developed a unique methodology that pushes beyond the textbook. This is knowledge born from doing; from the trial and error of manipulating waste materials and discovering the unexpected structural and aesthetic qualities they hold. Each project is an act of personal discovery, a series of mistakes that evolved into a method, revealing how the embedded histories of found objects can be interwoven with digital precision to create architectures that are not only resource-efficient but also rich with stories that no one teaches you how to tell.
Mingming ZHAO
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cornell University
Mingming ZHAO holds a PhD in Architecture and is a LEED AP. She is a Research Assistant at the Design + Augmented Intelligence Lab (DAIL) at Cornell University, Executive Editor of *Design Principle & Practice* and *Amps*, and a committee member of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) and the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). She previously served as a visiting reviewer at the Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT) School of Architecture.
Mingming Zhao has served as a reviewer for several international journals and conferences, including CAADRIA, SIGraDi, EDRA, ANFA, and Child Architecture. Her research focuses on neuroarchitecture, mixed reality (MR), human-computer interaction (HCI), brain-computer interface (BCI), multimodal physiological signal monitoring (EEG/HRV/eye-tracking), and 3D spatial emotion perception assessment, aiming to provide data-driven optimization strategies for the design of stress-sensitive spaces such as office and medical environments. Her research findings have been published in journals such as Journal of Environmental Psychology, npj Materials Sustainability, ACADIA 2024, EDRA 2024, and CAADRIA 2023, and have also received funding from the CUHK Seed Funding.
Her installation work, Inhabiting Boundaries: Body, Space, and Emotion, explores how the multisensory dialogue among materials, the body, and digital technology can inspire innovative thinking, with a focus on "Intuition and Perception in Design: Digital Craftsmanship and Bodyivity."
Supervisor:
Adam FINGRUT
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Adam FINGRUT is a senior lecturer and researcher in architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), with a teaching and research focus on computation, fabrication, and construction systems. He received his Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles and his Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He teaches graduate-level design studios, undergraduate lectures, and electives across both streams in computational design and architectural technology.
Adam’s research focuses on understanding how new technology can innovate design, fabrication, and construction methods in architecture, channelled through publications, articles, workshops, installations, and creative construction works such as the Yard of Environmental Sustainability (YES) and the ZCB Bamboo Pavilion. He is also the Co-Director of the Centre of Robotic Construction and Architecture (CRCA) at CUHK, a collaborative research platform with the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE), which explores the use of advanced design and robotics for innovative architecture.
Adam has developed an innovative teaching pedagogy with his architecture students. His teaching demonstrates how emerging technology is integral to design thinking by exposing students to a process of discovery learning. Tools are introduced to stimulate an iterative design and problem-solving approach, where a cycle of action, observation, reflection and reaction can be applied to an architectural problem. Adam continues to receive grants and develop workshops that give students access to advanced architectural tools and techniques.
Over the past 15 years, Adam has gained professional experience working with international practices in Hong Kong, China, the US and Canada, most recently with Zaha Hadid Architects and the Laboratory for Exploratory Architecture and Design (LEAD) as Design Director. His practical experience in the Hong Kong construction industry is an integral component of his approach toward teaching and research.
Adam HOLLOWAY
Oxford School of Architecture
University College London
His career as an architect and educator is built on the principle that the most profound knowledge originates from practice, not merely from instruction. He is dedicated to the intersection of traditional crafts and advanced digital technologies, a field requiring constant innovation and new methodologies. His teaching philosophy is grounded in a structured experimental approach, where prototyping and iteration are crucial. This process emphasises the development of tacit, concrete knowledge—understanding that can only be gained through hands-on creation—and views challenges as vital learning opportunities.
This philosophy stems from his own professional work, where the need to solve complex design problems led him to develop innovative open-source digital tools. This personal journey of exploration now influences his collaborative approach to creation and has been successfully applied to significant public and cultural projects. In his practice, he has led collaborations between his own studio, leading engineering firms, and traditional craft experts to create meaningful architectural installations. These projects demonstrate a new way of learning, where knowledge is not derived from a single authority but is co-created by experts from diverse fields, resulting in high-value outcomes.
His ambition is to incorporate this learning model into academia formally. As a Senior Scholar and Project Leader at Oxford Brookes University, he conceived and launched a new Master's program focused on digital crafts and manufacturing. This course focuses on collaborative inquiry, enabling students to work with industry partners to complete real-time research briefings. His role is to help students formulate more refined questions, provide a framework for their independent exploration, create an environment that fosters confidence and skills, and help them pave their own paths.
Shenzhen Biennale Foundation, UABB 10th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture 2025 Hong Kong & Shenzhen, China