Our brief

Creating an engagement demographic sea-change in a hovercraft

Digital Urban delivered

Thanet District Council want to engage with a younger demographic in their work to overhaul the town centre and harbour area. They’ve come to the right place.

Our tools are great for engaging with young people.

Young people, generally, are not interested in ‘traditional’ public consultation. But stick them in a VR headset in a pedalo or a hot air balloon and it’s amazing how interested they become.

And it’s amazing what incredible feedback they give. It’s raw, honest, to the point but often very positive. Perhaps they’ve not been ground down by public consultation quite as much as the rest of us!

But there’s a really serious point here.

These young people are the ones who are going to be living with whatever we design the longest so surely it’s essential their views are taken into account? There’s a quote that “we borrow the earth from our children”, and the same is true of the places we live and design.

The Digital Urban difference

And even better? If you can reflect their ideas in the designs, they are much more likely to look after them, feel that sense of ownership and attachment to places.

So we’re designing an immersive VR hovercraft experience to zip the people of Ramsgate through proposals for the town and harbour area.

We’re also building the future of Ramsgate into our Digital Urban Explorer software – a gamepad version that lets participants walk and cycle around as if they were playing a computer game. Our ace developer, Mark, is working with the project team to incorporate a series of tasks – so we can guide people to where their feedback is needed the most.

Our digital tools help participants form an emotional bond with a future space or place. Communities often report how they ‘feel’ in our digital worlds of the future, helping strengthen the bond to a new place and drawing them to want to return.