The ‘Future of the High Street’ project aimed to support the high street as a successful, vibrant and liveable place as we emerge from Covid-19. Led by Jenny Elliott on behalf of Edinburgh Futures Institute, it combined citizen engagement and co-design with rapid prototyping, urban data and research to better understand high street challenges and opportunities.
The Future of the High Street project was built on the idea that you get the best outcomes when you share openly and collaborate with diverse organisations and stakeholders. This ethos was honoured through the project being nominated as Finalist for the Landscape Institute’s ‘Partnership and Collaboration’ award in 2021.
The Future of the High Street project explored and evaluated how small ‘tweaks’ to urban spaces developed through innovative co-design, digital placemaking, and user-centred approaches could create vibrant, sustainable high streets for the future.
As part of my role as Smart Places Lead at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (2019-2021), I led a number of public realm-focussed projects that mixed research and practice. A highlight was leading project ‘The Future of the High Street’ (Jan-July 2021) - from proposal through to delivery.
The Future of the High Street involved a mix of digital placemaking, co-design, and rapid prototyping to test possible solutions to current high street challenges. I led an interdisciplinary team of University researchers alongside architects New Practice to combine a co-design and iterative design approach with robust ‘collaborative evaluation’ and my previous experience leading public realm design and Public Life Studies to understand the impact of these small-scale ‘high street tweaks’ on the high street as a liveable, vibrant and successful place.
A Toolkit of 6 ideas for these ‘high street tweaks’ was developed through conversations, surveys and digital co-design workshops with businesses, residents and organisations from two high street project locations - Gorgie/Dalry in Edinburgh and Dalkeith. Two ideas were selected to be rapidly prototyped, piloted and evaluated on-site, with both leading to permanent legacy.
The project was funded by the Scottish Funding Council, and delivered by myself and the team at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and Edinburgh Living Lab in collaboration with the Data-Driven Innovation programme and New Practice architects.
Read more on the blog or watch the webinar about the project.
A transparent, collaborative, project process documented through blogs, film, webinars, illustration and reports
