Mosaic: more-than-human sustainable and inclusive smart cities
Transforming cities for multispecies cohabitation, with the help of digital technologies
About
Businesses, governments and citizens all have a role to play in supporting urban biodiversity. How might digital technology help? And how can we design more-than-human smart cities in practice and policy, and in ways that work for citizens?
Mosaic is a four-year programme of collaborative, interdisciplinary, and cross-sectoral research and innovation that will deliver a step‑change in how we design, plan and build our cities for thriving multispecies cohabitation.
Funded with a £1.6 million investment through a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship awarded to Dr Sara Heitlinger, the research is investigating large‑scale transformation of smart cities from a human-centered perspective, to a more‑than‑human one. A more‑than‑human perspective of cities is one that acknowledges and designs for the interrelations between humans and non‑human others – including plants, animals, bacteria, as well as water, air and sensors – in urban space.
This transformation is crucial given that 68% of the global population will live in urban areas by 2050, significantly impacting biodiversity. But current smart city initiatives focus on efficiency gains that privilege human needs. The broader ecological context and citizens’ social practices are often overlooked. Mosaic proposes that a human‑centric view is unsustainable given unprecedented species extinction rates and their impact on human and non-human communities.
Approach
Innovative methods
We are using innovative and interdisciplinary methods such as multispecies Live Action Roleplay to decenter the human. These methods help to reveal values, needs and challenges in place-based communities which will inform how we design and plan more-than-human smart cities. We are bringing together ecologists, technologists, third sector organisations, creative practitioners, businesses and policymakers to help develop and test open‑source digital tools for getting to know our multispecies neighbours. We are developing novel data visualisation techniques that communicate data collected from the tools, and help increase more‑than‑human participation in urban decision‑making.
To get a sense of some of our ways of working from previous projects, you can watch click on the video on this page, visit MoTH Cities, Algorithmic Food Justice, or Connected Seeds and Sensors.
Living Labs
The research adopts a Living Labs approach, establishing real-world testbeds for co‑creation and innovation through public‑private‑people partnerships. The Living Labs focus on different types of urban infrastructure including community gardens and parks (green infrastructure), streets and buildings (grey infrastructure), and rivers and waterways (blue infrastructure).
News
27 MAR 2025
Mosaic visitor – Damiano Cerrone
Damiano Cerrone, researcher at Tampere University and Co-Founder of UrbanistAI, came to meet the Mosaic team to share insights on AI-driven participatory planning and multispecies urbanism. On his visit, in an informal session, he demonstrated the UrbanistAI platform, showcasing how artificial intelligence can support inclusive urban design by integrating diverse perspectives. Cerrone also introduced his work on MUST – Enabling Multispecies Transitions project, exploring multispecies cohabitation and considerations in everyday urban life and planning, emphasising the need to design cities that accommodate both human and nonhuman inhabitants. An example of these ideas introduced in policy was the Multispecies City Report. His visit sparked engaging discussions on the role of technology in shaping more inclusive research and ecologically responsible urban futures.
21 MAR 2025
Talk by Stanislav Roudavski – Design for, with, and by All Forms of Life
We organised a research seminar by Dr Stanislav Roudavski, which was on Design for, with, and by All Forms of Life. Stanislav Roudavski is an academic at the University of Melbourne and founder of Deep Design Lab, which explores more-than-human design. In his compelling talk, he urged a shift away from human-centric approaches toward inclusive, ecologically responsible practices. Roudavski presented innovative projects, including prosthetic nests for owls, artificial trees for arboreal wildlife, and intelligent lighting systems that reduce environmental disruption. He emphasised the ethical and practical challenges of designing with nonhuman agents, raising critical questions about governance, success metrics, and justice in emerging ecologies. In this way, his work is challenging traditional design paradigms and advocating for a future where nature and technology coexist in ways that prioritise the well-being of all life forms. The talk was part of the Mosaic series, and Roudavski was a visiting researcher for 3 days in HCID, hosted by the Mosaic project.
The video for the talk can be accessed here: Stanislav Talk.mp4
19 MAR 2025
Living Lab Spitalfields City Farm: Workshop 1
We ran the first workshop for the Mosaic project at our first Living Lab site at Spitalfields City Farm. The workshop explored: How can we secure the future of the farm? By co-creating community visions for it to survive and thrive in the future. The day started with a series of talks at the Kobi Nazrul Center with the invited speakers from Spitalfields City Farm, Loughborough University, Wildlife Gardeners of Haggerston and the East London Waterworks Park. We continued the workshop activities at Spitalfields Farm with activities aimed at understanding the social, ecological and more-than-human value of the farm, as well as ways of evidencing this value to create new strategies for local and global human infrastructures and systems. The event was attended by around 30 participants from diverse organisations, including Defra, Arup, UCL, LSE, British Ecological Society, Natural History Museum, Stepney City Farm, Social Farms and Gardens, Melbourne University, Robin Hood Gardens, and Hammersmith Community Gardens Association. If you missed out, do reach out to us, sign up for our newsletter and come to the next workshop.
28 FEB 2025
Talk by Chloe Treger from Dark Matter Labs discussing TreesAI
We organised a seminar talk by Chloe Treger from Dark Matter Labs on TreesAI. In her talk, Treger spoke about urban forests and how they play a crucial role in cooling cities, improving air quality, enhancing well-being, and mitigating flooding. However, they are often overlooked in infrastructure planning, and these initiatives struggle to secure long-term investment. The TreesAI initiative is redefining urban nature as critical infrastructure, alongside roads and bridges, by developing innovative financial, digital, and design solutions; and positioning the planting of trees in urban areas as a valuable, investable asset for climate-resilient cities. Treger shared real-world examples, use of technology modelling and data visualisation as ways to recognise natural infrastructure to be essential for urban well-being and economic growth. The talk was also the first in a new series of talks co-hosted by HCID and the Mosaic project.
The video for the talk can be accessed here: Chloe Treger Talk.mp4
03 MAR 2025
Medium Article: Untying the knots of measuring, monitoring and marginalisation of more-than-human worlds
The article critiques human-centric ecological monitoring through visits to London’s Natural History Museum (NHM) & SHIFT at Olympic Park. NHM’s Victorian ethos of collection & curation of specimens influence its biomonitoring initiatives & SHIFT’s struggle to translate data into impact exposes how biodiversity data often marginalises non-human entities and reflects colonial legacies. The piece calls for a shift from extractive, human-centred frameworks to participatory, decolonised practices that respect the intrinsic worth of the more-than-human world beyond measurement & control. https://medium.com/@simchopra/untying-the-knots-of-measuring-monitoring-and-marginalisation-of-more-than-human-worlds-cd1225978ad7
19 FEB 2025
Visit to Interaction Research Studio
Together with HCID colleagues we visited the Interaction Research Studio situated at the University of Northumbria, London campus. We met with the studio’s directors, Professor Bill Gaver and Associate Professor Andy Boucher, and their team to discuss the new studio and maker space they use to create practice-based project research products, methodologies and conceptual insights. We later learned about their recent work for the Museum of the Home, London. The Room of the Future that they designed and built is an immersive space that makes the visitor imagine what real peoples’ homes may look like in the future, amidst societal challenges such as climate change, social inequality, and technological advances. We look forward to keeping the conversation going and collaborating in the future with the Interaction Research Studio.
24 Dec 2025
Kick-off meetings with project partners
We had our project kick-off meetings this week and last week with partners and collaborators including Arup, Defra, Translating Nature and Furtherfield. In these meetings we discussed our motivations and commitments to the project’s aims, how we want to work together, and what we all hope to get out of it. As we are working with a diverse set of stakeholders from different sectors and disciplines, we’re trying to ensure that we manage relationships respectfully and that the project adds value to everyone’s practice. We hope to be able to draw research insights into how to conduct cross-sector research of this nature, and what factors are amenable to scale.
21 Nov 2024
EcoLandS workshop
Sara attended a workshop at Loughborough University for codesigning tools for citizen‑led ecological land stewardship. The workshop was run by researchers at Loughborough University and Dark Matter Labs, and funded through the Ecological Citizens Network+. Fang-Jui Chang and Calvin Po from Dark Matter Labs presented the Re:Permissioning the City platform they are developing and we discussed how non‑human residents might be able to participate in such a decision-making system, including how Mosaic might contribute to these scenarios.
20 Nov 2024
Natural History Museum’s new wildlife gardens
The Mosaic team and colleagues from the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design visited the NHM’s new wildlife garden. We met with Dr John Tweddle, Head of the Museum’s Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, and lead scientist on the Museum’s Urban Nature Project. We also met Ed Baker, a data researcher at the Museum. We discussed how Mosaic could help provide use cases for their extensive wildlife monitoring and public engagement projects.
14 Nov 2024
Regenerative Business Summit
We were invited to attend the Regenerative Business Summit at the London Wetlands Centre, as a plus-one of Phil Tovey from Defra, who was speaking on a panel about “Inspiring and igniting regenerative mindsets and cultures.” While not our typical conference venue, we found the talks on embedding ecological values in business, finance and banking very thought provoking. (And we got to see some very cute otters.)
12 Nov 2024
Spitalfields City Farm Visit
Project lead, Sara Heitlinger, has been working with Spitalfields City Farm for 15 years (in work described here). We recently met farm manager, Phil Nichols, to discuss establishing a Mosaic living lab at the farm. We also got to see the newly erected glasshouses funded through a City St George’s Regional Integration Fund secured by Sara, which will provide new teaching and research opportunities.
1 Nov 2024
Dr Simran Chopra joins Mosaic
Dr Simran Chopra has joined Mosaic as a postdoctoral research associate. Simran is an HCI researcher and interaction designer, who completed her PhD in Computer and Information Sciences at Northumbria University, and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Design Informatics at Edinburgh University. Welcome Simran!
19 June 2024
Designing More-than-Human book launch and symposium
Mosaic lead, Dr Sara Heitlinger, organised a one‑day symposium and book launch to mark the publication of the book Designing More‑than-Human Smart Cites – Beyond Sustainability, Towards Cohabitation, co‑edited by Sara Heitlinger, Professor Marcus Foth and Dr Rachel Clarke and published by Oxford University Press. Read a write‑up of the event.
Team
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers and computer scientists working collaboratively with ecologists, urban planners, technologists, communities, artists, businesses, and policymakers.
Project team
Team
We are based in the Centre for Human‑Computer Interaction, in the School of Science and Technology at City St George’s, University of London.
We will soon be recruiting for a fully‑funded PhD position, and a creative technology postdoctoral researcher. Please join the mailing list, or check back here, to be the first to hear about these and other opportunities to join the team.
Dr Sara Heitlinger
Principal Investigator
Sara is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, and Co‑Director of the Centre for Human‑Computer Interaction Design. Her research at the intersections of urban sustainability, more‑than‑human perspectives, computer science, and participatory design draws on methods from the arts and humanities to find ways for co‑designing more just and inclusive smart cities. She is the co‑editor (with Professor Marcus Foth and Dr Rachel Clarke) of Designing More-than-Human Smart Cities: Beyond Sustainability, Towards Cohabitation (published by Oxford University Press, 2024).
Dr Simran Chopra
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Simran has a disciplinary background in design, and industrial experience in graphic, UX and design research in India. Her PhD from Northumbria University was a transdisciplinary approach to Sustainable HCI focusing on practices of Participatory Visioning in grassroots communities. Her prior work has focused on sustainability, critical design, and discourse of technology use in everyday life through art, design, and social action.
Project Partners
Collaborators
Ruth Catlow
Furtherfield is a London-based arts and technology not-for-profit that has developed LARPing as a collaborative research tool with academics, artists and policymakers. For over 25 years, through nearly 70 exhibitions, and over 125 national/international partnerships, we have developed alternative systems of co-creation and co-organisation across digital and physical networks. Furtherfield will support the co-design activities in the Living Labs through development of multispecies LARPs.
Dr Julie Freeman
Translating Nature works in collaboration with artists and scientists to produce artworks that use data drawn from nature, creating new ways to experience and understand the living systems around us. Julie Freeman will work with us in the Living Labs to produce interactive data visualisations from data from the prototypes we will develop.
Advisors and mentors
The project will benefit from support from diverse mentors and advisors from different disciplines:
- Professor Stephanie Wilson
- Professor Jo Wood
- Professor Duncan Wilson
- Professor Bill Gaver
- Dr Izzy Bishop
- Associate Professor Donna Houston
- Professor Ann Light
- Professor Marcus Foth
- Dr Lara Houston
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We are actively looking to connect with policymakers, businesses, and third sector organisations. We also welcome enquiries from the press.
Email: contact@morethanhuman.net
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