Following the Design Thinking approach Dublin Business School hosted a challenge to create a concept for a new district of Dublin. In a team of 5 people I was responsible for new accommodation possibilities and their development. The jury decided: We won the first price in the competition in 2020.
- Konstantin Kost
- Paul Wieder
- Charles Masset
- Torge Heerwagen
- Jamboard
- Illustrator
- Final Cut Pro
Besides the joke being the „fifth guy“ in a group, I was responsible for creating all visual elements such as the BELGER Zeitgeist Logo or the Portlin25 logo and design. In addition, I presented new accommodation possibilities and their development of the new district. However, we did the brainstorming for all categories together.
The challenge objective was brought to us by „An Bord Pleanála“ an Irish national independent statutory body on planning and other cases (e.g. strategic infrastructure and other developments). We had to apply a vision for the vacant Docklands space, that will make Dublin the most sustainable and dynamic city across Europe.
The briefing we got was very meager: To cope with the increased customs demands following on from Brexit, Dublin Port has been relocated to a more suitable location in Balbriggan which will support more infrastructure around customs checks. The land that remains is now available for a strategic development project that will turn the ‘Docklands’ of Dublin into one of Europe's most sustainable and dynamic cities. Your project is to design what this space will become and give reference to the following;
After the presentation from DBS on how to use it, we were encouraged to use the Design Thinking Process so we did in the following. The process illustration below helped us during our work.
At first, we started to brainstorm the objective that was given to us (see below). Afterwards we could start to brainstorm the real problem.
Then we brainstormed the different topics that were given to us by the board.
After the brainstorm and empathy phase had been done, we defined problems out of the brainstorm and conducted some outdoor research by interviewing Dublin citizens (minute 2:30 of our video).
We defined four trends as the cause for all issues
Our final question to answer was:
„How can we transform the Dublin Docklands into an exceptional space to live, representing today's spirit of holistic sustainability, smart-city interconnectivity and inclusion to become a world-leading role model for future generations?“ (as seen in the background of each of the next brainstorm boards)
To answer our main question as good as possible we brainstormed again on different topics to follow the diamond shape process of the Design Thinking approach.
After collecting all ideas on the four different topics, we defined concrete concepts that could be implemented into the new „Portlin25“. A list of them can be found below otherwise they are presented with visual assets in the video.
I illustrated two logos to create more visualization of the port (color blue) and our team which is a mixed group of Belgians and Germans hence the colors of the two national flags in the font.
Since it is a concept of a new city district and due to limited time of the project (one week) we were not able to test any of our presented concepts. However, this would be the next step in the development of Portlin25. An Bord Pleanála can define which concepts need to be tested first and prioritize them.