From a call for collaborators
to an open invitation.
The 2020 piece was a call. It asked whether the built environment could be measured by the contemplative life it permits. Six years on, the question has only sharpened — and the apparatus to keep asking it is finally in place. The Index is v1 of that apparatus, and the invitation is open.
A research project, a hypothesis, a call.
"Intentional Meditation Spaces × Intentional Meditators = Conscious Places." Published May 20, 2020. A pandemic-era proposition that public space, used with intention, was the missing infrastructure for mental health at scale.
A 100-day update: a seed grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering, first city site Kathmandu, parallel discussions in Hillegom. The Big Sit, launched at Guoco Tower on Mindfulness Day 2020, became the practice arm of the research.
An index — measurable, comparable, contestable.
The 2020 framing was the seed. The 2026 framing is the apparatus: a three-pillar index (Spaces × Practice × Stewardship) scored across twelve indicators per city, with a geometric mean composite so that no one dimension can mask the absence of another.
Anchored by The Big Sit's footprint across Singapore, London, and Jaipur. Sitting now inside XDG Labs' habitat intelligence practice — urban systems, lived experience, governance, stewardship.
Six years.
Twelve cities. One quiet revolution.
The Conscious Cities Index is open to collaboration — institutional and individual. If you've read this far, you're already part of the field.