How to work online on better cities

BLOC prefers to work online: to save up our own energy, to decrease our travel times and to drastically lower our footprint.

Super effective sessions to tackle urban challenges

New fabrication methods. New business models. New ways of working, living and meeting. These novelties needs a city that suits them well. And that city needs solutions for its own challenges. Let those two things come together. Let’s collaborate on a better city, in an innovative way that suits our ambitions.

Let’s combine the promises of technology, the challenges of the city and the effectiveness of online collaboration.

Step one: clear case description

Fertile ground is created by stating a clear demarcation and working on an analysis of the case. What is the biggest chance to add value to the situation? What user groups can be determined? Which themes and philosophies are relevant?

Result: an introductory presentation with a clear central question and a canvas to work in.

Step two: bring in the end users

We organise an interactive session with the end users and discuss challenges, possibilities, quick wins, large wishes and urgent demands. We record the sessions and structure all the information real time on a canvas via Mural so all participants can engage with it.

Result: a very clear view of how the end users could be (better) enabled by their environment.

Step three: bring in the experts

Together with a selection of our pool of experts (in technology, design and societal developments) we generate a lot of ideas of how we can realise the ambitions stated in the earlier sessions.

Result: a canvas filled with wild, feasible, inspiring, tempting and attractive solutions as an answer to the question as stated in the first step.

Step four: distill

We go back into our home offices and do some thorough desk research. What are the most relevant ideas? Which strategies would fit hem best? What do we need to arrange first and what can be done later?

Result: a concise yet elaborate, visually attractive and concrete presentation of our vision package of solutions, guidelines and strategy for the stated challenge.

Step five: present and iterate

The result of the previous step is presented to both the decision makers and the end users and discussed. We process the feedback into the presentation and develop an advice for next steps and iterations for the decision makers. If possible, we proceed with the build of prototypes of proposed solutions.

End result: a clear answer to the question as stated and the perfect start for building prototypes.

By working in iterations we are able to swiftly test and implement solutions instead of remaining stuck in discussions what to do.