Sensing Trento

Citizen science approaches, which actively involve citizens in collecting environmental data and proposing urban solutions, are becoming key tools for identifying safe, pleasant urban corridors and pinpointing areas in need of intervention by local authorities, particularly in response to increasing thermal stress and urban pollution. Climate and sound walks, along with mobile applications for citizens to assess urban environments, are prime examples of tools that allow residents to observe the city from their perspective.

These methods provide fresh insights for decision-makers and challenge the limitations of top-down planning based solely on physical environmental data. Additionally, these approaches recognise the multisensory nature of human experience, evolving from individual analyses (such as sound or climate walks) to a more comprehensive understanding that highlights interactions and trade-offs faced by citizens in environments with multiple simultaneous sensory stimuli, known as sensory walks.

Sensing Trento is envisioned as a day of collective discussion, using the city of Trento as a testbed for multisensory and participatory approaches to urban experience during the summer period. The event will provide both a physical and sensory characterisation of the city. The day will feature a public sensory walk, held in Italian only, during which environmental data will be monitored along a predefined route. At the same time, participants simultaneously collect subjective data regarding their perception and evaluation of visual, thermal, sound, and olfactory landscapes along the way.

Following the walk, a roundtable discussion will provide an opportunity to share experiences, research, and tools for urban planning and design based on multisensory approaches. The discussion will bring together national and international experts, citizens, and policymakers. The roundtable will be open to the public and held in a hybrid format, ensuring broad participation. 

Program

14.00 – 16.00 Sensory walk in Trento
Meeting point at the entrance of the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Via Verdi 26, 38122, Trento.

16.00 – 16.30 Refreshments
Aula Kessler, Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca sociale, Università di Trento, via Verdi 26, 38122 Trento

16.30 – 16.35 Opening
Rossano Albatici, Director of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) - University of Trento 

16.35 – 16.50 Living Cities in a Changing Climate: Thermal Experiences and Their Impact on Pedestrian Satisfaction
Giulia Lamberti, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory, and Constructions (DESTEC), University of Pisa

16.50 – 17.05 Exploring Outdoor Air Quality through a Smellscape Approach
Giulia Torriani, PhD candidate at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) - University of Trento and Institute for Renewable Energy, EURAC Research

17.05 – 17.20 Collecting Urban Soundscapes Across the World
Tin Oberman, Senior Research Fellow, Bartlett Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, University College London (UK)

17.20 – 17.35 Exploring the Visual character: perception and assessment of urban landscape
Anna Codemo, Research Fellow at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) - University of Trento

17.35 – 17.50 Odour Regulation and Perception in Rural and Urban Settings
Luca Adami, Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) - University of Trento

17.50 – 18.05 Multisensory aspects in the perception of the urban environment
Laura Battistel, PhD candidate at the Centre for Mind/Brain Science (CIMeC), University of Trento

18.05 – 18.30 Q&A and closing remarks
Sara Lenzi, Senior Researcher (Assistant Professor), Universidad de Deusto and Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao (Spain)
Lorenzo Giovannini, Associate Professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) - University of Trento
Gianluca Maracchini, Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) - University of Trento

Registration

The event is free to attend. The sensory walk will be held in Italian only. The conference will be held both in Italian and English (the content of the slides will be in English). Registration for the sensory walk and the seminar is mandatory.

A maximum of 40 participants will be allowed at the walk.

The seminar will also be live-streamed. The participation link will be sent to the registered email the day before the event upon request.

Bios

Luca Adami completed his PhD in Environmental Engineering in 2015, specialising in river morphodynamics through remote sensing analysis and modelling techniques. He subsequently broadened his research focus to include sustainable water management, circular economy, and circular ecology, with a particular emphasis on environmental impacts, especially in atmospheric and water systems. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Trento, where he teaches Fluid Mechanics and Environmental Sustainability.

Laura Battistel is a final-year PhD candidate in Cognitive and Brain Sciences at the Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, in collaboration with terraXcube (Eurac Research). Her research focuses on how people perceive environmental temperature and how this sensitivity is integrated with the perception of other sensory stimuli, thus investigating thermal perception within a multisensory context.

Anna Codemo is a researcher at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) of the University of Trento. Her research explores solutions for climate adaptation and energy transition in the built environment through a landscape-inclusive, co-creative, and regenerative approach. In 2023, she completed her PhD, focusing on tools to facilitate the planning and design of photovoltaic energy landscapes, including the perceptions of inhabitants.

Tin Oberman is a soundscape researcher at University College London, Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, with a background in architecture, landscape and urban planning, and music. He received his PhD at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb in 2015. In 2018, he relocated to London to work on enhancing the existing noise management frameworks by incorporating perceptual information in a quantifiable manner. He is working with spatial audio, 360 video, and environmental measurements to enhance the understanding of how people perceive built and natural environments. Tin is equally fond of data collection in the wild (which includes cities as well) and running laboratory experiments. He manages the immersive Audio Lab at UCL and is part of the Silenzi in Quota collective. Tin produces The Rest Is Just Noise podcast, for which he received a science communication award from the Acoustical Society of America.

Giulia Lamberti is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory, and Constructions (DESTEC) at the University of Pisa. In 2023, she defended her PhD thesis, focusing on thermal comfort and its influence on occupant perception, with a particular emphasis on school buildings. The same year, she began a Research Fellowship at the University of Paris-Est, investigating energy efficiency and comfort in Le Corbusier's historic buildings. Since 2024, she has started a research grant focused on predictive models for assessing urban environmental quality.

Giulia Torriani is a PhD candidate at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) at the University of Trento (Italy), collaborating with the Institute for Renewable Energy at Eurac Research (Bolzano, Italy) and the Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) at the University of Trento (Italy). Her doctoral research, titled “From Neutrality to Dynamic and Multisensory Variability in Office Buildings: Rethinking Indoor Air Quality Comfort through Smellscape Modelling”, explores innovative approaches to indoor air quality (IAQ) design and management.

The event was organised as part of the project Sounding Trentino: Sound Identity as Intangible Cultural Heritage and its Relationship with Sustainable Tourism in Trentino, curated by Dr. Sara Lenzi and funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento (Visiting Trentino 2024 call).

In collaboration with the Fundraising Office of the University of Trento.