“Where urban data meets humanity”

Cities are not just built—they are lived, perceived, and felt.

Urban Being Lab is a research group housed within the Thrust of Urban Governance and Design at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou). We envision cities that are not only efficient and measurable, but also perceptible, equitable, and humane. By treating cities as living entities and humans as central ‘urban beings’, the lab aims to reshape how urban data informs policy, planning, and design—placing human experience at the core of future cities.

The mission of the lab is to advance human-centered, data-driven urban research to understand the interaction between urban environment and people and draw real-world implications based on quantitative evidence. At the interface between cities, people, data and design, our research spans a variety of topics including place theories, environmental exposure, public space behaviors, LLM-augmented planning/design, and future smart cities.

What is the Urban Being ?

Urban  Being

I. City as an entity

This notion treats the city as a living, evolving system with its own spatial structure, visual character, and environmental dynamics. It emphasizes understanding urban form, infrastructure, and patterns as coherent entities that can be empirically measured and interpreted.

Urban  Being 

II. Humans in the city

This notion foregrounds people as central to urban research, focusing on how individuals and communities perceive, move through, and emotionally respond to urban environments. It highlights cities as lived spaces where human experience, behavior, and well-being are inseparable from physical form.

We incorporate three principles.

Urban Being Lab prioritizes the collection, processing, and interpretation of empirical data that reflect real-world urban conditions, leveraging large-scale visual, spatial, and behavioral datasets to ground urban theory in observable evidence.

I. Empirical Data

Rather than relying solely on abstract geographic or administrative units, Urban Being Lab interprets urban data from a human-centered perspective, emphasizing perception, experience, and everyday interaction between people and their environments.

II. People-Based Approach

Urban Being Lab aims to translate analytical insights into meaningful implications for urban policy, planning, and design, supporting the creation of cities that are more inclusive, legible, and supportive of human life.

III. Real-World Implications