pop-up cities expo – Planning Edinburgh

World Heritage at the Pavilion

Hello again,

On Tuesday morning Katie and I joined Jenny and Chloe from the World Heritage team at the Edinburgh Pavilion, Pop-Up Cities expo on the Mound. They are working on the review of the management plan for the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh World Heritage Site. This involves getting the views of those who live, work and visit Edinburgh. They’ve launched a consultation to get as much feedback as possible on Edinburgh as a World heritage Site.

Whilst Edinburgh is a tourist hotspot it also benefits from being a World Heritage Site – with this comes the challenge of managing a city that isn’t just a museum but a liveable place. The aim of the consultation is to understand what people need from their city in to keep its special status as somewhere that’s loved and treasured. We share this with the other famous sites such as Durham, Bath and further afield cities such as Rome, Bruges, Florence, St. Petersberg, Old Havana and the list goes on.

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Our mission at the pavilion was to help get the word out and encourage people to get involved in the discussion. To get make a your comment you can complete this online survey.

Closer to home this month, each of the Expo cities (as part of the Festival of Architecture) will give a talk on their pavilion and how it was inspired by their own unique landscape. If you’re interested check out this link to sign up for free and join us there.

Luke and Katie

Edinburgh Pavilion – Neatebox

Hello again, Katie and I are embarking upon our fourth week with the Council and we’ve met some really inspiring people along the way. On Friday (1^st July) we had the opportunity to meet Gavin and Sarah from Neatebox. The development of Neatebox is an interesting story and we’d like to share it with you.

Gavin Neate, CEO of Neatebox, at Edinburgh Pavilion — Gavin Neate of Neatebox, at Edinburgh Pavilion

In a previous job Gavin Neate, the CEO of Neatebox trained guide dogs. During this time he saw an opportunity to improve pedestrian crossings for visually impaired people. As part of a competition, ‘Edinburgh Apps’ hosted by The City of Edinburgh Council he proposed a solution to help with this problem. He had the idea for a device which activates pedestrian crossings by an approaching user. Gavin won an Edinburgh Apps competition with this idea and went on to collaborate with the Council to develop ‘Edinburgh Up Close’, an app designed to draw folk down the Royal Mile.

How it works: The ‘Edinburgh Up Close’ app can be downloaded for free. This allows bluetooth beacons in the street to trigger the app showing the user information and stories based on their location. It currently runs along the Royal Mile, so give it a go!

Gavin’s latest venture with this new technology, is to develop a customer service app that informs staff in shops (fitted with a beacon) that customers with a disability have entered the shop and staff can help them around. This improves the shopping experience for the customer.

We’re excited to share this technology, so as a taster Neatebox have fitted some beacons into the Edinburgh Pavilion at the Pop-up Cities Expo on The Mound. We’ve tried it out and would encourage you to give it a go! It’s exciting new technology and could have an innovative effect on the streets of Edinburgh.

We’ll be back soon, thanks for reading.

Katie and Luke.

#popupedin #foa2016 #iad2016 #edinburgh

Pop-up Cities – Edinburgh Collected photo competition

Hello everyone, on Thursday (30th) members from Edinburgh Collected were down at the Pop-Up Cities Expo to set up a little exhibition in the pavilion promoting their current photography competition, MyPlace Edinburgh with prizes up for grabs. You can also see other entrants works. Some of the photographs are amazing and reaffirms what a fantastic city this is!

‘This is Edinburgh’ are also covering the competition in their blog.

If you’ve not already, have a look at the Edinburgh Collected website. It houses scrapbooks that allow you to upload that one photo of the city you are proud of, they call it a ‘memory’. We think it’s a great way to keep the legacy of the people in this place alive.

Katie and Luke.

#popupedin #foa2016 #iad2016 #edinburgh