2016 Bronze Anvil Winner Highlight: BASF: Co-Creating Solutions for Urban Neighborhoods of the Future

PRSA

BASF celebrated its 150^th anniversary in 2015 and used the milestone to address the question, “What can we do today to prepare for tomorrow’s challenges”? 

For its campaign, BASF developed the Creator Space™ program, a collection of co-creation activities aimed at engaging external and internal stakeholders on solution development. 

One component of this program was the Creator Space tour held in New York City, May 26-31, 2015 to achieve the following goals:

• Raise awareness about Urban Living challenges society will face
• Connect and collaborate with creative thinkers to begin developing solutions for Urban Living challenges by asking this main question: What will the cities of the future look like? In conducting its research, BASF learned from the United Nations that by 2050, more than 70% of the world’s population could be urban dwellers. Using this megatrend as the backdrop, BASF developed three focus areas for discussion during the tour: Habitat, Citizenship and Resilience.
• Red Hook, a Brooklyn neighborhood in need of urban transformation due to its isolation, population decline, and post-Hurricane Sandy devastation, was used as a case study. 
• BASF collaborated with architects, urban planners, construction experts, academics, media, and government reps. to develop solutions that could be extrapolated to other coastal cities.

Unconventional formats were used for collaboration with approximately 450 guests:

• Summit: This two-day forum focused on addressing challenges related to Habitat, Citizenship and Resilience.
• Built Environment Jamming session: Teams focused on answering the challenge question: “What are innovative ways to create tomorrow’s carbon neutral built environment?”
• Design Competition: Participants used design thinking to answer the question: “How can we revitalize Red Hook’s built environment to invite people to work, play, and move around better to improve urban living?” 
• Urban Mobility Jamming session: BASF partnered with its customer Adidas for a jamming session on contemplating the future of mobility and movement in urban areas.
• Creative Challenge: BASF partnered with City Art Lab to provide high school and City College of New York Art Education students a venue for expressing their creative solutions for urban living challenges through art. 
• Cultural activities: These public events featured exhibitions from world-renowned artist Emilie Baltz and the design firm Terreform ONE, as well as the documentary film, Urbanized, by Gary Hustwit, to demonstrate the intersection of culture and urban living challenges.
• Creator Space online: A platform that featured blogs from prominent experts, and enabled users from all over the world to participate in discussions in real time and brainstorm solutions: https://www.creator-space.basf.com/nyc 

In addition, media relations, a press conference, advertising, and social media were used to support the campaign.To help plan and curate the event content, BASF assembled technical and local expertise, and also utilized detailed planning instruments to guide the tour development. 

Members of the Creators Board included Dr. Mitchell Joachim and Maria Aiolova, Terreform ONE; Ron Labaco, Museum of Arts & Design; and Professor Alexander Washburn, Stevens Institute of Technology.  A group of BASF experts acted as consultants to ensure content relevance to BASF, and BASF partnered with Red Hook natives for verification of content and invited them to contribute their personal perspective during the events. VOK DAMS advised on event formats, including planning and executing logistical and technical aspects.     ICIS Chemical Business News, TriplePundit, Justmeans, GreenBiz and the Red Hook Star Revue positively captured key messages from the Creator Space tour NYC. Additional media outlets shared the news release, resulting in nearly 240 website posts with a potential reach of 20 million viewers.5.4 million impressions were gathered across all social media channels; 14,000 users engaged Creator Space online, and there were more than 12,000 page views during the six-day Creator Space tour in NYC.The six-day event generated 110 new ideas, with 23 actionable concepts after clustering. A published White Paper, “Co-Creating Solutions for Urban Neighborhoods in Coastal Cities: A Look at Red Hook, Brooklyn,” summarized five solutions for rebuilding Red Hook and revitalizing its economy.The winning team’s video in the Design Competition presented a reimagined vision of Red Hook’s Van Brunt Street that addressed the periodic coastal flooding and mobility challenges that Red Hook faces.For more information, click here: https://bit.ly/2018anvils.