Aarhus in 2037

Challenge

How will the city of Aarhus look in year 2037? That question is what a cross disciplinary think tank has been working with for two years. For the final workshop the client, the Department of Business and City Development, wanted a structured creative process in order for the participants to come up with visionary and innovative ideas about the city’s infrastructure, settlement and education.

Solution

Since the participants, who came from all areas of the public sector, academia and the business world, were only gathered for half a day, it was a matter of keeping the creative process simple, yet very effective. We split the participants into three groups and distributed a mock newspaper front page ”The Aarhus Post” with futuristic headlines and pictures to encourage extraordinary ideas. Each group had to write a future scenario about Aarhus year 2037 on the front page and thereby use a well-known medium as an unusual way of presenting their visions.

Outcome

The approach worked very well to harness the participants’ ideas in the limited and valued time they had together. The Department of Business and City Development obtained insight of great value to implement in future strategies and development plans.

About the Client

The Municipality of Aarhus governs the second largest city of Denmark. The Department of Business and City Development is a unit that belongs under the Mayor’s Office.

More information?

For more information about this case, please contact Peter Dreyer, peter@seismonaut.com or 21457783