Building Empathy and Attunement through VR In January 2016, I visited Paris for a dialogue with Blaise Agüera y Arcas in la Nuit des Idées. We brainstormed on designing a deliberation process in virtual reality, entering the architect’s visions and interact with them in real time, making it enjoyable to participate — like watching and acting in a 3D IMAX movie. In this talk, I will share best practices built through collaboration with teams in Hangzhou, Madrid and Taipei. Scenarios include: * Informing citizens with full affective-environmetal context * Facilitating mixed-reality discussions through telepresence * Augmenting participatory design processes with VR spaces The overarching theme is the overview effect — participants become more attuned to each other and to the environment, resulting in higher-quality deliberations.