Despite this May being one of the wettest on record, we didn’t let the gloomy skies bring us down. We had a bright month at DG Cities, which included experimenting with virtual reality technology, submitting an exciting new bid and meeting with the team (in person!) to visit our new office. But before we wave goodbye to this soggy month and welcome what looks to be a much sunnier June, we’re rounding up the biggest developments and achievements from our May at DG Cities.

After being confined to our homes for the past year, you could say that our realities have been running on the dull side. But some lucky members of the team got a chance to liven things up by spending time experimenting with VR headsets. This is part of DG Cities’ work to develop virtual reality experiences and simulations of autonomous vehicles for Project D-Risk. The plan is to design innovative and immersive engagement activities that will be open to the public, which will allow us to gain further insights into people’s perceptions of autonomous vehicles (AVs). If having your say on the future of AVs or trying out cutting-edge VR technology sounds of interest to you, you won’t have to wait long to participate. We plan to set up these activities (in person) in the coming months, and you can follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn to get the latest updates. And, speaking of public engagement, we are pleased to say that we confirmed the venue for Greenwich’s public Project Endeavour trials, which are set to take place this August! Sound exciting? Take your first step to get involved in the project by filling in our Project Endeavour survey here.

Another significant update from the month was our work for Greenwich on the Future Neighbourhood 2030 programme. This programme was established to tackle the challenges of climate change and pollution while supporting the growth of London’s green economy. We worked with Council colleagues and put together a proposal that has community empowerment and behaviour change at its centre. We look forward to finding out if the bid has been shortlisted later this month.

One of the biggest highlights of the month was the team finally being able to meet in person. There were no muted mics or laggy connections, just a good old-fashioned (masked) face-to-face reunion as we visited DG Cities’ new office in the Greenwich Peninsula’s Design District. We’ll be based out of The Institute for Creativity and Technology, which recently received a glowing review in The Guardian: 

Finished in highly reflective aluminium as changeable as London’s skies, it has the air of a piece of precision computer hardware, making a fitting place for Ravensbourne’s experiments in the future of tech. 

We couldn’t think of a better sounding home for DG Cities, and we’re looking forward to settling in.