Urban Psychology Lab

Using urban psychology to inform design, policy, and positive urban transitions

The Urban Psychology Lab at LKYCIC studies the emergent psychological and behavioural networks that shape how people experience, navigate, and adapt to city life.

Drawing inspiration from mycelium in natural ecosystems, the Lab’s research focuses on the psychological, behavioural, and social processes that connect people to places, infrastructure, technologies, and one another. These networks, some visible and others less so, shape how cities respond to stress, change, and opportunity, often before impacts become apparent at the surface.

The Lab studies how people sense, move through, and adapt to urban environments, spanning everyday mobility, environmental stressors such as heat and noise, technological transitions, and shifts in work and social life. Rather than viewing urban issues in isolation, the Lab traces relational pathways, examining how behaviour, perception, policy, and design influence one another across scales.

Research in the Lab functions like mycelial tendrils:

• detecting early signals of strain or resilience in communities,
• redistributing knowledge across disciplines and sectors, and
• enabling new forms of coordination among citizens, planners, designers, and institutions.

Through this lens, cities are understood not as static systems but as living, adaptive ecologies. Urban psychology becomes the connective tissue that allows urban systems to learn, respond, and regenerate — supporting life-centred, inclusive, and climate-resilient urban futures.

Lab email: urbanpsylab@sutd.edu.sg