Making Complex Environmental Data Accessible Through a Multi‐User Perspective: Learnings From the COUP System

Abstract

Growing urban complexities and urban planning increasingly rely on participatory approaches based on digital technologies to democratise access to information and enable citizens to shape healthier and more inclusive cities. However, traditional GIS interfaces often exclude non-expert stakeholders, thus limiting genuine collaboration. A promising alternative is tangible user interfaces (TUIs), which combine intuitive physical interaction with computational geospatial analysis. Still, knowledge of diverse stakeholders’ experiences remains limited. This study reviews the implementation of COUP (Cockpit for Collaborative Urban Planning). It is a hybrid tangible-digital interface integrating physical city models with real-time environmental simulations. The system enables users to manipulate physical building models while immediately observing wind comfort, noise propagation, and pedestrian flow through projected visualisations. The presented use cases from the past six years span diverse contexts and stakeholder groups, from the use of the interactive table in deliberation processes and expert discussions, the development of immersive reality components, to the remote use of the web interface and its application in higher-level educational contexts. The findings provide empirical evidence and multiple perspectives on the system’s capacity to support data-informed, collaborative urban design and advance understanding of how tangible geospatial interfaces can translate complex environmental data into actionable planning insights accessible to diverse stakeholders. This review offers recommendations on how participatory digital tools can empower users, shape urban spaces, and consider multiple stakeholders’ needs while supporting evidence-based environmental decision-making essential for building healthy, inclusive, and climate-responsive cities.