Emotional City, a global conference

27th & 28th September 2025

Multi-purpose Hall, 8th Fl., Seoul City Hall,

On the 27th and 28th of September 2025, a group of 400 business leaders, creative champions, community organisers, neuroscientists and city planners will gather at the start of the 2025 Seoul Biennale to spark an urgent global conversation about how cities get built.
The conference aims to set a new urban agenda and help make buildings and cities radically more human. Through a mix of ground-breaking research, expert speakers, citizen-led projects and creative interventions, the event will explore the impact of the outside of buildings on our health and society; and how to create buildings that are loved and last, instead of being demolished and rebuilt.

Day 1, Saturday 27th September, 10:00 - 18:00

The conference will be opened by the Mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, before Thomas Heatherwick delivers a keynote speech, setting out a vision for making cities more joyful and engaging. He will then be joined on stage by a very special guest, to discuss their shared passion for making cities work for the passers-by.

Brand new research will be presented by Cleo Valentine of Cambridge University, with collaborators from Yonsei University, exploring the impact of building facades in Seoul on the human brain, before Professor Rebecca Madgin of Glasgow University illustrates how you can measure emotion.

In between these sessions, Professor Hyunjoon Yoo, host of the YouTube channel, 'Sherlock Hyunjoon', will chair a panel discussion involving Mayor Oh Se-hoon alongside citizen, academic and design voices. And we will hear from two major developers in Japan and the UK, who believe that investing in human buildings makes good business sense.

Day 2, Sunday 28th September, 10:00 - 17:00

On Day 2, General Director Thomas Heatherwick will open the session with a talk on creating architecture that is loved and last, and the idea of ‘1,000 year buildings’.

Lay Bee Yap, Group Director of Architecture and Urban Design at the URA, will discuss with architect Jeong Im Kim when to adapt and when to demolish, using examples from Singapore and Korea to suggest which choice to make in what context.

Abigail Scott Paul, Global Head of the Humanise Campaign, will present a pioneering new study, revealing public attitudes to buildings in Seoul, together with colleagues from Seoul National University.

Then a series of quickfire presentations from 7 extraordinary designers will reveal how to be a good ancestor, by creating buildings that will be loved and cherished for centuries to come.

Emotional City will climax with presentations from 9 citizen-led projects in Seoul, commissioned through an Open Call, that explore how to make buildings radically more human from the perspective of communities themselves.

And the two days will also be woven through with three specially commissioned performances by from Seoul, helping the audience to imagine a world where the buildings truly are more joyful and engaging.