Experts from Harvard's Graduate School of Design in Massachusetts are in Belfast this week to showcase their visionary ideas for recasting the face of the city in the new century. The findings of the 'Belfast Recast' studio conducted at Harvard's Graduate School of Design (GSD) were unveiled by Professor Richard Sommer, who is the Director of Harvard's Urban Design Program, the study examines design issues central to Belfast's metropolitan future. Professor Sommer is also undertaking a long-term study of urbanisation in Northern Ireland and Belfast in his capacity as a visiting American Scholar and O'Hare Chair in Property Development and Design at the University of Ulster.

Professor Sommer said: "The city of Belfast has recently undertaken many impressive and significant projects, but is at serious risk of not achieving enough synergies between all these new investments. There is still too much of a 'silo' mentality: sites come up for development and projects proceed without any way to measure or guide the contribution they might make to the Big Picture. And there needs to be a Big Picture through which to proceed, even if in acknowledging the pluralities of interest in Modern Belfast (and actually in any city), this picture may have to be comprised of several overlapping frames.

"This is what Urban Design, properly conceived, does best: creatively reveal not only needed relationships between new and old parts of cites, but that there may even be some important parts that are missing and need to be designed. In some ways, Belfast has been studied to death by planners and economic consultants: yet they end up offering the same solutions one finds applied everywhere, without having really engaged what makes Belfast physically and culturally unique. Here, just like everywhere else, people are always using the term 'vision' to talk about the future of cities, but to be frank, from a visual, design perspective the proposals and plans that have been offered are either terribly thin, or incomplete, or both.

"How many citizens understand, let alone find something to be inspired by in BMAP (the Belfast Area Metropolitan Plan, currently under public review)? In a democracy, planning schemes should engage the public in such a way that they can see their interests addressed and their futures enriched. While market and real estate interests are the engines behind urban development today, these forces, by nature, act in an ad hoc way. Working with the market, the design and planning community must provide a creative framework to work within, or as I have said a compelling, big picture.

"While I have been looking at the whole city in the context of Ireland, the Belfast Recast Studio, conducted with students at Harvard, has focused on how to forge better networks between the existing city centre, surrounding neighborhoods and upcoming port area developments, including the Titanic Quarter project. The proposals the students and I are presenting capitalise on the unique characteristics and waterfront setting of the industrial quays, and show the transformation potential of new forms of architecture, re-contoured landscapes, and new ecological corridors and waterways.

"One preliminary proposal envisions the creation of a mid-city Capitol district, which relocates the Northern Ireland parliament out of Stormont to a key location in Belfast." The study group includes Professor Sommer, his colleague Dan Adams and three interdisciplinary teams of advanced graduate students from Harvard‚s Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design programs.

Professor Jim Berry, of UU's School of the Built Environment said: "Our linkage with the Harvard Graduate School of Design has been a very positive experience for education in Northern Ireland. It has provided an excellent learning opportunity for the University to work with global experts in bringing innovative design thinking to bear on key sites across Northern Ireland and has promoted linkages between the academic, public and private sectors focused on the intensive study of the challenges offered by mixed use sites and the creative reuse of the urban fabric of our cities."

"The 'Belfast Recast' Studio centered on the Titanic and harbour areas and provides an exciting opportunity to project innovative urban design possibilities for the regeneration of one of the largest mixed use waterfront development sites in Europe as well as engaging and enriching students who will be the next generation of leading experts in the planning, design and development of our environment."