READER OFFER | Explore VU.CITY Manchester + Liverpool

13 July 2020 10:22 Comments (0)

VU.CITY, the fully interactive 3D smart city platform, which now covers 124 sq km of Manchester and Salford and has launched digital twins of Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and 15 other cities, is currently offering a free trial on any of their cities.

Among the organisations already using VU.CITY in the North West are Salford City Council, who have successfully implemented the Platform for use in the urban design and planning process to create a better Salford for the local community. It has also been widely adopted in London with over 80% of London’s local authorities using the platform.

As well as being used by local authorities, it is widely used by architects, developers and planning consultants, VU.CITY helps people create, communicate and collaborate to make better planning decisions, faster.

For developers VU.CITY helps them find and understand the potential of a site, speed up appraisal, increase collaboration and trust with local authorities and ultimately avoid abortive costs.
VU.CITY supports architect users with effective creation, sharing and collaboration on designs with clients, design teams and local authorities throughout the design journey to create the best possible buildings.
For planning consultants VU.CITY helps collate and share information, reducing the effort and technical skills required, whilst also increasing stakeholder understanding and involvement through a shared visual means.
Local Planning Authorities use VU.CITY to increase understanding throughout the journey of a scheme, from visualising local policy, pre-app, public consultation and planning committee to help make better decisions.

These 15cm accurate regional city platforms are available securely in the cloud, supporting users to work from wherever they need through a browser on any computer.

Bennetts Associates uses VU.CITY to gather information on sites and assess how designs will look in and work in context, gaining a competitive advantage by becoming one of the first architects to adopt the technology provided by the platform.

Simon Erridge, director of Bennetts, said: “Architecture is essentially a 3D discipline, so VU.CITY is effectively showing what is already in an architect’s head in a way that hasn’t been possible before. The platform enables you to immediately understand the cityscape, the context, constraints, daylight, sunlight and the view angles, not just as it is today, but how it will be in the future. That’s incredibly valuable.”

Iceni Projects use VU.CITY to support townscape and heritage impact assessments, enhancing preliminary viewpoint studies. This helps the planners make more informed decisions and changes prior to pre-app, leading to better collaboration and trust on projects with clients and architects.

Ailish Killilea, associate, built heritage and townscape at Iceni Projects, said: “We liaise with the designers and the architects and we import their 3D model that they have worked up, and within VU.CITY we’re able to carry out our preliminary view point studies.”

VU.CITY has an office in Manchester, shared with GIA, one of the co-creators of VU.CITY.

As we all adapt to new ways of working, VU.CITY is currently offering a free month trial.

Start a free trial today

On Tuesday 21 July at 11am BST, VU.CITY will be hosting an in-action Manchester-focused webinar on how VU.CITY helps built environment professionals make better, faster planning decisions.