Earlier in 2017, the Belconnen Community Council as part of its Belco50 program, created a competition in conjunction with the University of Canberra’s School of Design with the intention of generating ideas that could be used to benefit Belconnen.
The winner of the competition will be announced at theAugust BCC Public meeting by BCC Chair Elizabeth Hirst.
UC is a vital part of Belconnen and is seeking to improve its engagement with the broader community outside its campus. The BCC felt this was a good opportunity to assist students, strengthen UC ties with the community, and tap their students energy and enthusiasm for improving the built environment.
The BCC Committee decided to award a prize to a team of students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Design in a User-Centred Design course. This prize would be for a team that identified a problem through interaction and observation in Belconnen, articulated a design opportunity and prepared a brief outlining a solution that is pertinent to the Belconnen community.
The students were extremely keen to get out and explore Belconnen, with many being new to Canberra and Australia. Working in teams they came up with quite different solutions. In May the students presented their ideas to the BCC Committee and Dr Stephen Trathern of UC’s Faculty of Arts and Design.
As well as being used in their grading, and providing useful field research, the teams that place first and second will be awarded a cash prize, from the Belco50 funds provided by the ACT Government to celebrate Belconnens 50th Birthday.
We encourage the Belconnen public to attend our public meeting in August, view the different ideas, and applaud the teams that win the two prizes being awarded. They range from: improving Emu Bank, a tuk-tuk service, an improved bus interchange, and a Farmers market (there are more ideas!).
All the ideas the BCC Committee have examined are good, and each team has satisfied the brief. It will be very difficult to come up with a winner!