Community21, working with our graduate enterprise partners BlockBuilders have been engaging members of the Brighton community in envisioning a future for a public space in the centre of Brighton called Valley Gardens.

We deployed our 'digi-tools' that are effective in enabling members of the community to be creative and reflective in expressing their thoughts about the neighborhood in which they live.

Using our 'talking heads' process to develop short animations young and old people from the area devised ideas for new uses for the site which compliment the city councils view of a more vibrant and diverse public environment.

We used ageing and 'young-ify' processes to foster inter-generational exchanges and to develop empathy in the different age ranges attending. Young and older people were able to explore each others ideas and opinions and build understanding of the varying views and issues faced by each age group.

By using Minecraft, young and old people were able to model the ideas they had developed using other tools and turn them into interactive three-dimensional representations that can be explored through game-play. This enriched understanding of how these visions might work in reality.

This project forms part of a larger consultation where students and staff from across courses at the University are exploring diverse potentials for the site as an evolving cultural and community space.

For more information contact nickgant@community21.org