Experience Castlegate: AHRC Immersive Experiences

This interdisciplinary project was a collaboration between Live Works, UoS colleagues from Archaeology and Computer Science, and partners from industry and the local community. It worked to demonastrate how immersive digital technologies can harness the power of cultural heritage and community engagement towards more inclusive urban regeneration strategies in post-industrial cities. It received £75k of funding from the AHRC/EPSRC Immersive Experience programme. The project explored the capacity of immersive technologies to inform heritage and community-led urban regeneration strategies. Using Augmented Reality technologies, we explored how to harness the power of cultural heritage to foster a dialogue with local government, community heritage organisations and the wider public. This project focussed on the Castlegate area of Sheffield, a now largely run-down part of the city centre, but with a rich history of 800 years of continuous occupation and the site of Sheffield Castle. The project is intended to offer a model for engaging the public with their heritage and empowering community groups to work with urban planners and local government to demand imaginative regeneration.

Project outputs included:

• the production of the first 3D digital model of Sheffield Castle

• a geo-located AR prototype of Sheffield Castle for viewing on-site via smart phone

• an installation at Festival of the Mind 2018 using AR to showcase the Castle on a scale model of contemporary Castlegate, alongside visions for a community-led regeneration of the site, see here: Experience Castlegate: Festival of the Mind 

 Publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01790-3_13