How do you persuade the sceptics to invest in your vision for a former ‘no go’ area of London? And, how do keep everyone onside for a regeneration project that’s going to take between 12 to 15 years to complete, involving 50 new buildings, 20 streets, 10 public squares and around 2,000 new homes… all in the centre of town.
What’s great about working with Argent is they’re very open to our ideas. They give us greater scope to create something innovative. They knew that they wanted a digital platform, but other than that they asked us to advise on the best approach. We thought the stuff they were doing in the area was great – street naming competitions and the like – and knew with a well designed platform we could help them reposition the area, support sales of new homes and build the all important community that’s going to make King’s Cross the ‘go to’ destination in central London.
ClientArgentServicesWebsite designLinkhttp://www.argentllp.co.uk
We designed and built a platform that gets under skin of Argent’s scheme and celebrates the vibrancy of the area. The CMS we created is great for tagging and organising content, which means the important stuff is prioritised and the site has a breaking news feel to it. We developed a number of features that animate the rest of the content, creating a site that is anything but static, exploiting social media and mobile technology to create an experience as fast-moving as King’s Cross itself.
All content on the platform is geo-located – this sounds complex, but it basically means that content is linked to the relevant geographical location, so if you’re in the area then you can quickly pull up information on your mobile about where you’re standing at that time. We also worked with Google to develop multiple layer maps, so that people can see what happening at King’s Cross as the development takes shape.
The results:
This regeneration project covers 67 acres of mixed use development, 50 new buildings, 20 streets, 10 public squares and around 2,000 new homes, but it’s going to take between 12 to 15 years to complete, so we wanted to make sure people could keep track of progress as it happens. Another great feature is that the site integrates TfL and National Rail information, so the station is at the heart of scheme.
The site has launched to great acclaim and Argent is winning business as a result. The design, structure and technology behind the platform allow for huge flexibility and expansion in this rapidly evolving part of central London.