As AI, spatial computing and submersible technologies rapidly move from experimental innovation into everyday life, a new question is emerging for designers, architects, professionals and cultural institutions alike: What does it really mean to design for people in a highly submerged world?
As part of Design Milk’s Design Conversations at Clerkenwell Design Week 2026, the discussion “Embedded Spaces: Technology, Empathy and Human Experience” examines the shift that is underway: from designing places that people simply look at to designing spaces that people live in emotionally.
From AI-responsive retail spaces and flexible workspaces to immersive cultural experiences and multi-sensory social installations, the next generation of spatial design is no longer only concerned with aesthetics or efficiency. It is increasingly about behavior, emotions, participation and commitment.
As embedded technology becomes more and more common in public spaces, workplaces and cultural spaces, the conversation is moving from innovation to responsibility. The question is no longer just how space can be immersed, but how it responds intelligently, morally and humanely to the people who walk in it.
Photo courtesy of Adipat Virdi
Designers are now exploring how AI, Spatial Computing and multi-sensory storytelling can create flexible, sensitive and emotionally aware environments and spaces that can respond to human behaviour, attention, mood and need in real time. From workspaces that promote wellness and collaboration to cultural spaces that deepen participation and reflection, immersive design is beginning to redefine how people relate not only to technology, but to others.
At the same time, this evolution challenges designers to think carefully about the systems they build:
• How do we create an experience that feels truly inclusive and accessible?
• How can immersive spaces encourage reflection, connection and presence rather than distraction and overload?
• What does it mean to design places that not only attract attention, but support people’s experiences in meaningful and responsible ways?
Rather than treating immersion as a mere spectacle, the discussion explores how emerging technologies can create responsive, participatory and emotional spaces designed not just to entertain audiences but to understand and support them.
The discussion will explore how emerging technologies are reshaping the relationship between people, matter and space and why empathy may be one of the most important design principles of the next decade. Central to the discussion is the idea that immersive design should not be seen as spectacle alone but as a means of shaping behavior and emotions.
Photo courtesy of Adipat Virdi
Using my Empathy Engine Framework, I argue that a powerful immersive experience is not one that transcends the audience through technology but rather one that repositions people as active participants within meaningful systems of interaction.
Developed over years of work across immersive theatre, XR, AI-driven storytelling and spatial experience design, the framework explores how empathy can be created within spaces, thus, transforming audiences from passive spectators into emotionally and ethically engaged protagonists.
This approach reframes the embedded space not as a layer superimposed on architecture but as a living system of relationships capable of shaping attention, behavior, memory and social interaction.
At a time when AI-generated environments, responsive interfaces and smart spaces are rapidly becoming commercial, the discussion asks whether the future of immersive design will simply maximize interaction or whether it can help cultivate understanding, reflection and belonging.
Finally, “Focused Spaces: Technology, Empathy and Human Experience” is not just a discussion about technology but it becomes a discussion about what kind of human experience we want to create in the spaces of the future and what responsibilities come with designing spaces that increasingly think, respond and feel close to us.
