Project goals – DigiCivics @ APL

Digi Civics 2020 Blog Entry 1

Welcome to the first blog entry for TCP2031 Digital Civics. Today we had our first seminar where we all met each other and Sebastian – who will be our module leader this semester. Our team is made up of urban planning students and architecture and planning students. In our group we have me, Juliet from London, Jimmy from Germany, Hadrien from France, Lois from Canada, Mindaugas from Lithuania, Patrick from York and Angus from Alnwick, who unfortunately could not make the first seminar.

After introductions, we took a look at what our own strengths and weaknesses are and shared this with one another, from doing so we realised that overall we have a collective strength with visualisations and are individuals with an eye for detail and that we all have the ability to do research and analysis but we prefer to work with visuals and design work mostly.

During the seminar we discussed the project brief, covering what the overall aim of the project would be and talking about the area of Bensham in Gateshead; where our project is based. We looked at the area on Google Maps seeing its location to us at the University and also some of the statistical information such as deprivation levels, employment, and feeling of belonging. We had to set out some aims and objectives to what we want to achieve through the project this semester, our main objective is to produce an app or website that supports an issue that we will identify with our project partner so that we can help the locals of Bensham. This highlighted to us that the purpose of the module is to enable a connection between people and their community digitally. Lastly, we had to prepare some questions we would ask our project partner (when Jayne from Best of Bensham comes in) and to residents of Bensham.

Here is a list of some of the questions we have prepared to ask Jane next week so that we are informed on the needs and wants of Benham and the Best of Bensham group.

What groups of people is Best of Bensham comprised of?
What led to the formation of Best of Bensham?
What are the key issues that Best of Bensham feel are present in the area?
What is the typical method to event promotion by the group?
What groups of people are most in need of help?
What kinds of community involvement are already in place?
Is there a main meeting place for locals to speak with those working for Best of Bensham?
What groups of people live in Bensham?

Juliet

Week 2- Team 2- Chase Park

A diagram from talking to a couple of the stakeholders.

During seminar two we met with a few key stakeholders of Chase Park. Within this meeting, we got to know Clare Ross from Gateshead Council, as well as Alan Scott and Ken who are involved with Friends of Chase Park. During this session as a group, we found talking to Clare, Alan and Ken most helpful. Clare focuses on communities as well as being involved in Friends of Chase Park. Alan is one of the key founding members of Friends of Chase Park. Ken is also involved with Friends of Chase Park and is their chancellor.

During the session, we mapped out the stakeholders in order of their priority as well as discussing the main issue: creating pride and ownership in the park. Talking to Clare, Alan and Ken we came up with a list of stakeholders and prioritised them in order of influencing ability and how important they were when it came to achieving our team goal. The stakeholders with the highest priority were; Gateshead Council, Friends of Chase Park and Front Street Primary School. Those who classified as medium priority were, Local residents and Kick the Dust. Members of the bowling green were seen as low priority when it came to achieving our team goal.

At this stage in the project, our long-term goal is to provide an app or video prototype which will be aimed at young people to encourage them to use and respect Chase Park. In order to meet these goals as a group, we are going to look round Chase Park with Ken in order to give us a better idea of what we are dealing with. As a group, we will also be attending a Friends of Chase Park meeting in order to explain what our intentions are and if they have any advice or opinions on the matter. Clare and Ken are also preparing for us to go and talk to year 5 students within the local primary school. At this moment in time, it is unclear how we are going to interact with the children around the subject of Chase Park. As a group we are unlikely to interview the children as there is a large number of them. Instead, we are likely to split them into groups and get them to do an activity to produce information which will, in turn, help us to produce our prototype. By setting short term goals of going to see Chase Park, sitting in on a meeting of those involved in the Friends of Chase Park and meeting children from Front Street primary school, the hope is that we can make a prototype specific to the needs of our stakeholders.

Week 2 Log – NUTC

Log week 2

This week we have welcomed Ben and Miki, who has become members to the NUTC. We also met with one of our project partners, Ali Lamb, who is the Engagement officer at Newcastle City Council. She talked a bit about her role and the project proposal for Heaton Road, as well as informed us about where it stands today. We then asked a couple of questions regarding the project and got together to identify the main stakeholders and the long-term goals what we want to achieve through a number of objectives.

The main stakeholders

With the help of Alis intel, we have done a mind map that presents the main stakeholders as well as their opposition towards the project proposal. The colour ‘Red’ represents the group that disagrees with the proposal, ‘Green’ represents the group that agrees with it and ‘Yellow’ represents the group who still remains undecided.

The stakeholders that disagree with the project proposal are:

Residents along Heaton Road
Services and facilities, such as Heaton medicals and Rugby/Cricket Pitch (University’s Sports ground)
The Corner House Pub
The People’s Theatre
The churches, e.g. St Gabriel, and the mosque

One reason to this has to do with them losing a number of parking spaces they will be facing. The stakeholder that would benefit from this cycle route project, and hence agree are:

The primary/secondary schools, who look for safe alternatives for their children to get to school, e.g. St Mary’s catholic school

Freeman Hospital
The Tax Office HM Revenue & Customs, who has over 10.000 employees
Cycling groups
Streets for people
The elective counselors important stakeholder, who also have the final say on which scheme goes forward, they support this project. Although, they are also heading towards an election so the project will be presented to the public afterwards.

Aims and objectives

Within our last blog we questioned what the actual form of the project would be, the state of the current situation and how connected it will be in the end. These were all answered by Ali and she helped us to understand the objectives of the project more along with the main aims.

Aims:

Advertising a cycling route for all and not only the existing minority of cyclists today
Convince the resistant stakeholders of the advantages with this project

Objectives to achieve the aims:

Site visit
Read findings report
Find other alternative transportation/parking options
Start with the concepts

Next Steps

Based upon the latest lecture we believe our next step is to focus on user research and how it would be more effective towards the outcome of the project if we have a plan for it beforehand. After speaking with Ali Lamb we have concluded that the website common place and the public platform streets for people will be the best way for us to conduct our research and gain a greater understanding of the public’s views on the subject matter.

Another next step we have considered is participating in a site visit to Heaton Road and beginning to survey some of stakeholders within the area, for example the local church, schools and businesses.

Using this diagram we intend to analyse the stakeholders and see their weighting within the project and see how we should act upon their perspectives on the project.

This week helped us to truly understand the main goal of the project and how we will play a role in the final outcome. Besides the research and site visit we now hope to also develop an understanding of what the best approach would be towards our users and how to get the most beneficial outcome from anyone involved in the project.

SIA Week 2 Log

This is the second log by SIA for the Wingrove project. This week we met with Nigel Todd who is a local resident and City Councillor, as well as Chair of the Greening Wingrove CIC and Secretary of the WEA Green Branch. The WEA Green Branch undertakes activities such as courses and workshops that can help community groups understand sustainability and work better as a community. With his various roles, Nigel gave us a greater insight into the project and helped us understand what aims and goals the WEA Green Branch has for the task.

This week we made a mind map that discusses all the different stakeholders involved in the project and the various links between them.

Mind map:

We began by naming the main stakeholders such as families, local residents, community organisations and WEA Green Branch, then branching off from these, connecting in other local groups. We discovered that the WEA Green Branch would have a link with the Greening Wingrove Community Interest Company and also with investors (who provide grants for events and developments). Volunteers and students from Newcastle University were also interlinked within this group as they would help provide support for many of the events done by WEA and Greening Wingrove. Another connection was found between the WEA and schools in the area, as education centres are a central hub for community connection. We felt having schools as one of the key stakeholders would help disburse information more effectively. Lastly, from schools there comes a link with families, the police, businesses and the council, therefore creating a bridge between the different interest groups within the area.

Stakeholder Groups:

Below are the three main stakeholder groups (the council, local residents and community organisations) we have found for the project:

In order for the project to be a success, each group’s wants and needs must be taken into consideration. Therefore communication with the three will be very important when working on the project.

Indicative Project Aims:

After speaking with Nigel, we found that the primary focus of the project was to develop ideas for community uses of the new buildings on Arthurs Hill Terrace. He mentioned existing ideas included a café, offices and potential for a music studio in part of the building. There was also a plan for rooms in the building to hold children’s activities and youth projects. However, the council and community organisations were open to any new/different ideas. Finding ways of enabling neighbours to get to know each other and feel comfortable about interacting is another of the key project aims. From the talk with Nigel it is clear that finding an appropriate use for the building will be a key stepping stone in creating public togetherness and community cohesion in the area.

There was also discussion of creating a digital platform for locals to interact with each other and finding a platform (such as an app, website, etc.) that would be suitable for everyone.

Next steps:

During the discussion, questions of how we could involve as many people as possible in the project arose, as it is unlikely every user or stakeholder group will agree on the outcome of the renovation idea or digital platform. Nigel himself did hold some reservations towards a larger digital platform, as different groups in the community may exploit it by uploading or sharing inappropriate or negatively opinionated content. At this stage with his hesitance, collecting user research from the local residents would be a natural progression.

Therefore, out initial next steps are to visit the Arthurs Hill Terrace building and the area of Wingrove in general. We are planning on going to the open day at the Arthurs Hill Terrace building on the 16th February where the future use of the building will be discussed. Visiting the area and building will help us collect user research on possible uses of the building and find out which digital platforms locals would be interested in for information distribution and social connections. It will also enable us to get a better insight into the project as a whole, understanding the people and area we are working with.

SIA Weekly Log 1

Week 1 Log (Wingrove Connected Digital Neighbourhoods):

Social Interactive Agency
Members: Sophia, Tham, Alex and Zhaodong

This is the week 1 blog done by Social Interactive Agency for the Wingrove Connected Digital Neighbourhoods project. Social Interactive Agency consists of Sophia, Tham, Alex and Zhaodong. Our group has a range of different skills and backgrounds, with the group having both urban planning and architecture and planning students. We also all bring different skills to the group such as creative visualisation, planning knowledge, research and analysis and collaboration. We feel as though these different backgrounds and skills will help with the project as we will have different ideas for tackling the issues and this will help produce the best outcome.

The project allows us to connect with a real neighbourhood and enables us to use what we have learnt whilst being at university in practice, such as designing for public engagement, planning to improve community organisation and improve environmental awareness as well as practicing sustainability. Being able to meet with clients and listen to their requirements needed in order to enhance the planning and organisation of the area is another aspect which will be invaluable experience for future client interaction and meeting client briefs.

The Wingrove Connected Digital Neighbourhoods project has the aim of enhancing neighbourly cohesion in order to create new public awareness of new developments happening in their locality and improving environmental and social sustainability locally. By creating a local social platform for users to post on and respond to, the project will not only expand the efficiency of data and information distribution, but also connect their area into an integrated and tight-knit group.

Neighbourhood activity and communication is a vital part of modern social life. Digital civics allows for easier and faster distribution of information, response to issues and a flourishing social hub of interaction.

We believe having Creative ideas is the key to the solution, and with technology we can fulfil the need of client directly. This project requires a lot of responsibility and time. This week we had a conversation relating to social interaction and we came up with an official group name. We want our project to be done professionally and expecting to further our career of this project in the future. We are confidently saying that Digital Civic is an important fraction in planning as now we have step into technological world. Therefore, we will be focusing toward the quality of the outcome by utilise our existing resource such as social platform for the best solution and importantly, it is free of charge. However, we must’ve considered minimising our budget in this project and ensure it is low-risk but high returns as in case this project require an extra money.

Initial questions:
• What are the current major downfalls of how they connect and share developments as a neighbourhood?
• How actively used is the current Facebook page for Sidney Grove and how many people currently use it?
• How would we initially promote our prototype so that locals know it is there?
• What can we do to ensure that only locals have access to the model?
• When would we carry out market research?
• How often do they have interaction with each other?

Week 1 Blog – Team 2 – Chase Park

Hello,

This is the first of our blog’s for our project, ‘Engaging Young People with Video’, with our focus are being Chase Park. We are a team of four, Laura, Kathryn, Louis and James. We believe that the four individual skill sets we possess will allow us to work effectively as a team. We believe that, together, we can produce a successful project and also learn and develop new skills from each other along the journey. Between us, we believe we have strong presentation skills, creativity, great organisation and a useful understanding of the digital world.

We chose the Chase Park project as, the use of video in the planning world is something we all found innovative and wanted to learn more about. Furthermore, the project itself is something, as a younger generation, we feel we are informed on and potentially have an advantage when deciding what does and does not work.

The stakeholders in our project are widespread from Gateshead Council, to the Friends of Chase Park Group to Front Street Primary School. We are excited to meet the stakeholders as we feel they can give us a more informed idea of what is required of us and how we can meet expectations.

The main aims of our project include

– Making the park a more attractive place to visit, central to this we will explore the vandalism problem currently in the park
– Making the park accessible to all age groups, ensuring no group feels they are unwelcome there
– Using video to express our ideas and encourage the surrounding community to make the most of their available green space

The next step in our process is to meet the stakeholders. We are intrigued to find out more about the park itself, the community it serves and the priorities the community have for their park. We believe this next step will leave us in a better position to make our plan of action for the project.

6) North Tyneside Youth Council (week 6 blog)

DISCUSS AND DESCRIBE WHAT USERS CAN DO WITHYOUR PROTOTYPE

Users will be able to engage actively with a game component of a website. It will include improving the environmental problems in North Tyneside throughout the game. The player can only achieve this by answering the correct questions that either directly relate to North Tyne side or globally. The website will also have areas such a blog space. Where people can post thoughts about the community and areas of concern. These will be viewed by the youth council and can become a platform for many people to post thoughts. Additionally, there would be are of the website that includes all upcoming community events that engage the youth directly such as clean ups in the area including time, location etc.

Our main goal is to create a digital method that is educational and will create long term change in North Tyneside. With particular emphasis on schools and the learning program as the students are the next generation and have a platform to create change.

Long term goals can also include the possibility for the website to cover other issues potential planning and developments in the area that the council wants feedback on.

CONSIDER HOWYOU WILL CREATEYOUR PROTOTYPE

Marvel
Indesign/photoshop
Invision

5) We love bikes week 5 mid term presentation

After the midterm presentation it was made clear that we needed to rethink our design and function of the project. One key point that was brought to our attention was the fact we needed to find some way to improve the accountability of the council to the forum. After research we found a webpage called “Fix my street” that involves an interactive map where people can point out different places in the city that they find problematic, upload images of the issues they find on the spot and also leave a comment where they can describe the issue and also make suggestions for improvements. The council then address these problems and change the status of the issue to fixed so people can see that the council is accountable to these problems.

Another issue that needed to be addressed was that the notes and minutes don’t always get sent out to the forums email list and that the minutes on the internet were not easy to access and not organised clearly. During our research to remedy this we found an organisational website called Trello that clearly organises information and shows which are the most important issues that need to be dealt with first, software like this would be ideal for the forum so that can rob can see which issues of cycling in newcastle need to be tackled first.

We started to think about how we could make a website that would address these issues raised above. We settled on a webpage due to our user research findings that showed this to be the most accessible format for the communication of information. The main feature of the website would be an interactive map of newcastle that would show all the areas that have been raised as an issue for cycling. Clicking on each individual point would show comments made by the forum and profile users on the site and also show a progress bar that fills when the comments have been addressed by the council and if these issues have been fixed to improve the accountability of the council to the forum which might encourage groups such as the newcastle cycling campaign to engage with the forum. There will also be a way for people to vote on which issue needs to be addressed. We’re choosing this as a feature so that the organization of the issues raised can be improved and rob and other council members can see which areas of newcastle’s cycling infrastructure needs to be improved first. When each issue is selected on the map it will redirect you to a page where there is more information on the issue and an area where you can view comments on the issue and write them yourself. A side note to the website will be a page that clearly and chronologically organises the minutes from the meetings so that people can access these whenever they want in a clear format. We decided to do this as this was one of they key problems that the stakeholders brought to our attention with the minutes from the forum.Users have the ability to create their own profiles on the webpage this will allow them to receive notifications and emails about the progress of projects this is in order to keep people interested in the projects taking place. Users involvement in the website is also rewarded for raising issues and voting on projects users will gain points which will gamify the website encouraging more user interaction. Once users have received enough points the can be redeemed for financial rewards.

Blog4 Self-built housing

Blog 4

Ⅰ How the goals going

The intimal project goal is ‘To make the co-design self-built homes become more accessible to people. Improving the current weakness of co-design self-built homes, finding a way to promote their ideas (like workshop/website) and then widening public’s community participation.’

Our goals are mainly stay at the same, however, we do some small changes reflected on our interview. As a team our aim is to provide and design a website and an app, through this platform we would help those people who are already involved in self build houses, to become more involve with the design processes.

Detailed wants and wishes from the client. What are their aims and what they want to achieve?
Provide some easy soft wears and make it easier to understandable for non-professional self-build through our app and website.
Make a better link between our non-expert and expert such as (workshop, one to one contact, and online communication.
Make the design process smoother to understand.
Provide design concept e.g. 3D.

Ⅱ Search for relevant related project

Example1: Protor Homes

This establishment takes the idea of self-building to a more self-chosen type of style.
Proto homes take the self-build ideology to a more prefabricated manor.
The organisation from the off go incorporates the customer with design. For example the customer chooses a pre-made design, and can edit to their own needs. Useful in thought that people can see the development of their homes designs and other self-build activities.

Example2: Site For Self-Build

In addition, we thought the gallery would be a great concept when it comes to the sketch up. A gallery / portfolio of houses of which aspiring self-builders can look and choose depending on what they see fit. We thought that an interesting concept would be to have a more interactive design concept, which is where the sketch up idea came. Pre-designing houses over sketch up gives people great access and interaction with the design process as a whole.
The way in which the company involves the customer is clear from the get go. The Home page of Proto Homes’ website provides a potential and current self-builders a whole catalogue of dated events. This therefore gives both consumer and organiser a whole platform of interaction. We feel that using a similar idea on the home page of the website would be useful.
This organization is more of a platform to enable people to look at self-build organisations within their area.
The group describe themselves as self-build creators and offer their professional services to individuals, groups and private enterprises.
The organisation enables people to start and join self-build locations also, and have a large team enabling high quality of service.Also, the addition of blueprints and maps on their website is very useful. When it comes to the location of any build, it is important and also well worth doing research. We find that providing maps and location diagrams gives people understanding of that given self-build. Using Blueprints of the area, or potential blueprints, the consumers of the self-build project will understand that they can have influence on the project from the foundations.

(Here is the initial design of the format of website)
The website of Site For Self-Build had strong social links. Compared to the West End Housing Association, and Proto Homes we felt that Site 4 Self build has much clearer contact methods. The whole point of this project is to get people more involved with the design, and this is obviously done by contacts and connections. A strong and explicit few of methods of contact I feel is essential for this type of project to go ahead. Especially, the phone number. Giving that other self-build projects have out of country numbers such as the Proto homes, a recognisable number I feel would suggest clarity and trust too.

Young People Engagement – Week 5

After a successful site visit, we came together as a group and discussed the different possibilities of creating a digital device. We were inspired by a number of non-digital and digital ideas. We came across ideas such as having a VR hologram projecting the user’s propositions of the development. We debated other potential ideas, like the use of chalk to make graffiti visualisations on a surface that could show the user’s proposals but chose to keep a more digital approach to our final project because we considered the non-digital ideas to be less suitable for our users.

At first, we thought of making a QR code. The idea was that the code would be scanned by the users which would lead them to a government related website with information about the current development site. We knew this idea would appear quite late during the planning process and thought it might have an affect on the user’s propositions. We were also worried that the website would provide too much information at once for the users which would not be easy to understand nor enjoyable to read.

The second concept we were trying to develop was an app. We thought the proposition of an app would allow the users to take part in the planning process at an earlier stage, therefore giving time to the Council and developers to consider the user’s propositions. The app would work like a visual interface. The app will allow for new topics and activities to be created. How does it work? Well, once the app is opened, a plot of land would show up on the screen. Through its tools, the app would support a large variety of subjects, like inserting different types of infrastructures or ponds onto the plot of land. A dragging feature would allow the plot of land to be filled with houses, schools, parks, roads, shops. These would be designed through Sketch Up (One of our design software’s) and then integrated into our app with the help of our technician. We want these animated features to reflect what the users want to see in the new development like leisure centres, open spaces and well linked roads. We also suggested that the app would have a share button indicating that the user designs can be commented on by other users, or shared with developers and the community and downloaded for future use. This is where we have got to so far, next week we’ll be looking into more detail about our concept while discussing it with our project mentor.

photo-on-10-11-2016-at-18-18