Feeling Nature

Biophilia

The positive emotional effects experienced when humans interact with nature.

Biophilic Settings (BS)

The distribution of natural elements (e.g., trees, grass, water) in the city, analyzed using street view images and visual AI.

Biophilic Perceptions (BP)

The emotional response to natural elements in urban environments, based on a global survey of 400 participants across eight cities.

Description

Biophilia refers to the benefits that contact with nature brings to humans. But do we value nature the same way across biomes? In Feeling Nature, we trained a visual AI model using surveys from residents of eight cities in different biomes to explore this question.

Using street view imagery, we quantified exposure to natural elements (biophilic settings). By integrating survey responses, we identified which features matter most in each biome (biophilic perceptions). Feeling Nature maps how people perceive and value nature worldwide.

Team

Carlo Ratti Director

Fábio Duarte Research Supervisor and Project Manager

Deborah C. Lefosse Research and Project Lead

Arjan van Timmeren (TU Delft) Research Supervisor

Rohit P. Sanatani Research

Yuhao Kang Research

Yinan Dong Visualization and Website

Publication

Lefosse, D. C., Duarte, F., Sanatani, R. P., Kang, Y., van Timmeren, A., Ratti, C. (2025). Feeling Nature: Measuring perceptions of biophilia across global biomes using visual AI. npj Urban Sustainability (Nature).

Press

Download the Press Materials

The material on this website can be used freely in any publication provided that:
1. it is duly credited as a project by the MIT Senseable City Lab
2. a PDF copy of the publication is sent to senseable-press@mit.edu

In Collaboration With

For more information, senseable-contacts@mit.edu

Accessibility

Bio​phil​ia