http://www.youarethecity.com/

This blog website is well set out and the essence of its ethos and activities is quite relevant to my research thinking for an idea to develop a source hub for towns.

The ‘SOURCE HUB’ or ‘URBAN PORTAL’ would be developed as an interactive  reference point to enable a wide range of participants and diferent organisations including specific stakeholders to have an up to date information resource  that everyone can feed into and gain insights into  the wide variety of issues and projects that affect the town.

This could develop stronger links between groups and allow more understanding of how co-operative thinking can produce a more integrated development within the urban spaces  and activity events that occur within towns.

Stakeholders may range from :

TOWN CENTRE MANAGEMENT, RETAILERS, PLANNERS, PROPERTY DEVELOPERS, GREEN -ECO GROUPS,  RESIDENTS, BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AREAS, CIVIC SOCIETIES, MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES, SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE,  LOCAL AUTHORITY COUNCILLORS, TOURIST BOARDS, HOTELS , CHARITY ORGANISATIONS, THEATRE TRUSTS, SPORTING GROUPS, EVENT ORGANISERS, COMMUNITY GROUPS from SUBURBS, ARTISTIC abnd CREATIVE GROUPS, DESIGN and ARCHITECTURE FIRMS etc..

IDEALLY the ‘URBAN HUB’ would be the main source point for historical, current and future information for all stakeholder participants in any town.

The form that this ‘HUB ‘ would take could be developed in a variety of ways but initiallly a website blog wiyth interactive links could be the initial form taht it takes to be able to ‘SELL’ the concept idea  to the stakeholders.

Each town would develop an identity brand that would be unique to the physical environment that each urban space  has.

In order to gather enough information and research various methods or techniques will require to be used to establish evidence of the process and development of the MDes Research Project.

WORKSHOP ACTIVITY              QUESTIONNAIRES                  FOCUS GROUPS

INTERVIEWS with STAKEHOLDERS                     BLOGGING ON LINE       

DRAWINGS and DIAGRAMS                      MAPPING OUT  CRITERIA

CREATE KNOWLEDGE SWATCHES         CREATE 3D MODELS / DISPLAYS