Urban Sense invites us to reimagine the city not as a static infrastructure of roads and data cables, but as a living organism — sensitive, adaptive, and continuously evolving.
Through an interplay of art, technology, and environmental sensing, the exhibition visualizes how urban environments can be understood, measured, and nurtured. It reflects on how data reveal invisible processes — from air quality and heat-island effects to patterns of biodiversity and waste — and how these shape both our shared environment and the well-being of its inhabitants, human and non-human alike.
Presented at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, Urban Sense represents Prague’s transformation from an early, technology-oriented Smart City — driven by enthusiasm for innovation — toward an aspiring resilient, responsive, and human-centered metropolis, where technology becomes a tool rather than a goal.
the exhibition
All exhibited artifacts embody our perspective, informed by interviews and observations with city policymakers, and inspired by ongoing smart city projects in Prague.
They do not offer definitive answers but rather invite reflection, dialogue, and imagination — encouraging visitors to sense, interact, and co-create meaning. Crafted with a sense of playfulness and material sensitivity, the physical artifacts evoke the haptic dimension of urban intelligence — one that can be seen and felt, not only measured.
at Urban Sense
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Urban Sense is a collaborative exhibition developed by OICT, the municipal company of Prague responsible for Smart City development, and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM).
It builds on Prague’s recent innovation initiatives — including Smart Prague, SPACE, Prague Pixels, and the New European Bauhaus–related projects CrAFt and NEB-Star.
Presented at Smart City Expo World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, Urban Sense reflects the city’s growing ambition to to turn the city into a space of learning through experience. It transforms urban data into physical encounters where understanding arises not from explanation, but from participation, curiosity, and play. Technology becomes a medium for empathy and awareness — revealing hidden rhythms of the city. In this way, Urban Sense invites visitors to learn by sensing, to reflect by engaging, and to imagine together how cities can evolve not only through innovation, but through shared experience and collective learning.