Futurecity was commissioned by GL Hern to input into Ipswich Island’s development potential review undertaken for Associated British Ports, and explore how cultural placemaking approach might kick-start the change of use and change of perception within the town.
Futurecity’s cultural audit indicated a cluster of key placemaking assets, with culture and retail interlocking with innovation skills and training, and with the heritage, industry and leisure maritime offer. Crucially, Ipswich receives fantastic per capita funding support from the Arts Council, positioning it alongside major cultural cities in the UK. As such it offers a new narrative for Ipswich, one which places culture at its heart and reaches out to all sections of the towns social and business infrastructure. As Ipswich Island is at the centre of the town’s changing urban heart, it has the potential to become the magnet that attracts all the best USP offers from the town to cluster as a distinctive destination.
The resulting Placemaking Strategy positions the island as a new public realm for the town, positively impacting on Ipswich’s health and wellbeing. With the wider strategic connectivity work of the bridge crossings, it is the site to redefine Ipswich as a 21st century creative capital that is accessible to all, creating employment, innovation, recreation, education and homes from future generations. Thus, Futurecity proposed a new vision for Ipswich as East Anglia’s Creative Capital. It is a vision of a scale that presents Ipswich as a ‘city’ in terms of its cultural offer: a place to create and build ideas, projects, and lives.
Image: Ipswich Waterfront by Nick Rowland (CC BY-ND 2.0)