APPLICATIONS are being sought for an ambitious new project which will see a series of portable ‘bubbles’ and ‘pods’ along the River Foyle used as creative, business and entrepreneurial spaces.
The ‘Foyle Bubbles’ scheme forms part of ‘Our Future Foyle’, launched in early 2016, aimed at looking at how the riverfront can be ‘designed to improve the health and well-being of everyone using the area’.
The project will be made up of a series of 40 ‘pods’, which will house small businesses as well as arts, educational and well-being initiatives.
The pods, pictured above, would rest on wheels, so they could be easily located at any point along the river and help create what those spearheading the project hope will be a new riverfront community which will in turn help create new business opportunities.
The project came about as the result of a partnership between the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, based at the Royal College of Art in London, and the Public Health Agency (PHA) as part of efforts to use design to ‘reimagine an area that has come to be associated with poor emotional well-being’.
More details of the project were revealed online at placemakingresource.com in October of last year, where it emerged that the project team is working with 30 stakeholders from community, voluntary, public and private sectors, including the emergency services and charities such as the Samaritans.
The brochure for the ‘Foyle Bubbles’ project describes the spaces as ‘aimed at increasing footfall, and creating destinations on the riverfront as well as offering new employment and business opportunities to the community’.
Individuals or organisations within the pods will undertake free training and if possible, offer young people alternative education such as work placements in return for reduced or free rent, ‘enabling them to promote everyday health and well-being within the community and make the river a better place’.
In addition, the ‘Foyle Bubbles’ project will allow members to support each other in ‘starting a new companies, creating a community on the riverfront and taking care of the pods, making day to day decisions’.
“Each member working in a pod will be trained for free in first aid, mental health awareness and support and business training,” the brochure adds.
“The pods will move around the riverfront allowing users to be close to the action, respond to festivals and social need around the river front.”
Work has already begun on the Future Foyle project, with team members Lizzie Raby and Ralf Alwani having already developed a series of community engagement projects, the first of which they recently completed at the Foyle Maritime Festival 2016.
This was the recreation of ‘Dopey Dick’, a killer whale found in the Foyle in the 1977, presented at the festival as wooden structure in which visitors were invited to write down their hopes and aspirations for the future of the river on pieces of shirt fabric, reflecting the city’s legacy of shirt factories.
Another aspect of the ‘Our Future Foyle’ scheme is an interactive art installation, the ‘Foyle Reeds’, made up of artificial reeds containing an LED spanning the length of the Foyle Bridge, aimed at improving the look of the structure.
Consideration has also been given for members of the public to be given the opportunity to sponsor or adopt one of the reeds.
Commenting, the Sinn Fein MP Elisha McCallion urged local people to get involved in the project.
“This project, I'm glad to say, is moving on significantly,” she said.
“It is currently looking for expressions of interest for those out there who are interested in potential usage.
“So whether you are a budding entrepreneur with an exciting idea or a group with a project idea let your voices be heard and put forward your expression of interest.”
Interested parties seeking to occupy a 'Foyle Bubble' along the Foyle can email ourfuturefoyle@gmail.com for an application form.
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