Building on The RSA’s heritage and inclusive growth ecosystem Model. Portview will develop a contextual model of the potential impact the sites transformation will have long term. This will act as a measurement and assessment tool so other sites can build from the knowledge transfer of sustaining heritage sites in innovative and holistic ways.

Portview and National Museums NI have established a relationship based on co-operation, understanding and mutual support of new ways of thinking. A memorandum of understanding has been agreed and the organisations are partnering on a series of meanwhile uses to inform longer term ambitions for the concept of a living museum on the site. The purpose of the working partnership is to explore how the Belfast story narrative, heritage and innovation can act as a gateway to collections for new audiences. Development will explore themes of past, present and future, while addressing societal challenges of education, climate and access to opportunities.

Through a Tourism NI grant in partnership with National Museums NI, Portview is developing a spinning archive of mill stories. The archive will build on collecting local stories of the mills and the people connected to them while creating opportunities for linens relevance today. Exploring themes like how could the material shape our future? And the role of bio composites and linen in contemporary fashion. The archive will transcend the industrial decline of linen to its potential new rise, integrating content with SME’s creatives and local people. As Portview’s main community face the archive will set to engage with over 60,000 citizens to inform the sites long term vision over the next three years.

Portview has allocated 700m2 of vacant heritage space to be transformed into a socially distanced compliant co-design and agri-tech living museum all set within a banana plant-filled greenhouse of immersive lighting and content. Yes, Tourism NI, National Museums and Portview are bringing back bananas to the East. Plants nurtured by local community groups will facilitate existing growing and foraging experiences, create a strong narrative through building stories for visitors by local communities and pilot a significant chapter offer of the Belfast Story concept, it will even develop the banana beer within its onsite brewery. The narrative grew out of the story about local resident William Richardson the first person to successfully grow ripe bananas anywhere in the British Isles.

To fully embrace the philosophy of a circular economy requires innovative thinking and adoption of new concepts. The smaller the closed-loop system, the more value can be retrieved from the materials without further input of energy and resources. At Portview, consideration will be given to new onsite innovations that reuse wastes and materials onsite to minimise the movement of materials and provide efficient and local opportunities for maximising resource value.

9 out of 10 people are expected to live in urban areas by 2050 within the UK. with densification of our cities, increasing demand to improve our wellbeing and the pandemic presenting a further need for going local. Urban farms provide the required components to green our grey spaces, nurture education, feed us as well as improve our mental health. The portview farm will facilitate onsite produce that directly links opportunity for young people and SME’s to take part, edible roofs will not only be an attraction but aide reduction in pollution, provide public space and attractions, help cool our buildings and reduce flood risk.

The farm will shorten Portview’s food chain and promote local food consumption. This concept provides fresh, locally grown products whilst also cutting the typical transport emissions associated with food production and will limit the need for preservatives and packaging.

On top of this the new Urban Farm intends to pay homage to Portview’s historical and current status as a place of innovation by cultivating crops not traditionally associated with a Northern Ireland climate – bananas! This unique and innovative growing concept can form part of the wider food offering at Portview, but can also serve as a focal point for educational, cultural and heritage hybrids.

Climate Adaptation: This is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate. Improving climate resilience involves assessing how climate change will create new, or alter current, climate-related risks, and taking steps to better cope with these risks. At Portview, this will include water efficiency, Sustainable Drainage, avoiding overheating and excessive heat generation (and resultant CO2 emissions), and other initiatives such as a Rain garden and Rainwater Harvesting Tanks.

Portview want to exceed the ambition of the Belfast Climate Commission, and have an objective of becoming a net-zero carbon innovation hub by 2030.

The National Grid in Northern Ireland and the wider UK is decarbonising rapidly. Currently, Portview is an ell-electric site. This is a positive first step as by being an all-electric scheme, Portview is future proofed for decarbonisation – because as the carbon associated with electric production falls, so will the carbon associated with the electricity consumed on-site.

In our environmental strategy you will see how the site has set out its ambitious to achieve this integrating the tenant community and a sustainable ethos towards its development as part of the approach

Zero Waste lab is an international concept run across many cities around the world. They engage citizens in learning about the recycling process of plastic, circular economy and locally ran schemes using waste plastic.

A zero Waste lab will be integrated into the Portview site and through a communal bin and library scheme, waste products and off cuts will start to be invested into new research projects of the tenants and training communities choice. Capitalising on cutting edge digital manufacture and opportunities from the proposed training facility and greenhouse makerspace.

The image is from the zero waste lab based in lisbon, portugal a consultation partner in portviews development

Image: Zero Waste Lab Project

Bananas are a great food for anyone who cares about their carbon footprint. For just 80g of CO2e you get a whole lot of nutrition: 140 calories as well as stacks of vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium and dietary fibre. All in all, a fantastic component of a low-carbon diet. Advancing a ‘low-carbon’ diet and consumption chain will be a key feature at Portview. All produce grown on site will come with a ‘carbon stamp’ indicating the life-cycle carbon of the product from seed-to-mouth.

Challenge led programmes situated within an industry environment providing innovative training opportunities and responding to growth trends.

Portview will establish a training facility that will support communities to acquire ‘in-demand’ skills as a catalyst for socio-economic development locally and within the greater Belfast region. Successfully securing a partnership with the Louth Meath Education and Training Board and Fit the facility will establish a significant cross-border dimension to offer the skill requirements for an increasingly digitised economy.

In delivering a multi-faceted regeneration project addressing social, economic, cultural, historical and artistic ambitions a key composite in the Portview Training strategy is to provide within this facility, a capacity that addresses ‘in-demand’ skills needs of Belfast employers in a manner that delivers quality employment opportunities to local job seekers and stimulates career ambitions and enterprise prowess within the wider community.

A working partnership with the new Advanced Manufacturing & Technology Training Centre of Excellence (AMTCE) in Dundalk will see portview establish a cross-border facility. The use of innovative technology will be used to improve products or processes. Drives local company resilience, create higher value jobs and downstream employment.

From the research a multitude of key sectors of the Northern Ireland economy -that require adaptation and the adoption of new skills and practices as IIoT technologies transform methods of production and delivery. Belfast City Regional Growth deal recognises this through skills growth, inclusion and preparing for a digital future

Portview will be a cornerstone to this response of growth and prosperity and transformation in rebuilding the economy through delivering in demand skills for future or existing workers and young people on an all-ireland basis.

The GreenHouse is a venture design and maker studio which exists to enable people to develop their ideas for building sustainable and social impact ventures from Belfast. The framework aligns with the values outlined by BCorp and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The world as we know it is experiencing climate change and unprecedented challenges in how we grow food, process waste, use clothing, generate energy and reduce dependency on plastics. And the pandemic has taught us the importance of resilience, wellbeing and the requirement of innovation with social impact.

The greenhouse will promote the notion of advocacy through social innovation and a tenant base ecosystem. Its key principles will be to Cultivate ideas which could become projects, prototypes and/or ventures.Nurture people of all ages with a focus on the young to prepare them for work in the Knowledge Economy. Grow impactful business models which generate healthy sustainable profit and attract the right investment.

Building on its own revenue from the tenant ecosystem portview will establish an innovation fund that will be integrated into an onsite venture model to engage young people in the process of invention, to work directly with the onsite SME tenants and provide opportunities for internal and external investment.

It will expose participants to pathfinding opportunities for innovation in the world of industry and equip them with the knowledge and tools required to develop ventures from ideation to implementation by providing space and support for the critical incubation phase. If successful, it will develop a knowledge economy of ‘makers and tinkers’ by developing a safe space to be agile, to fail and to develop deep, broad and wide skill sets in order to provide young people with opportunities for entrepreneurship. The legacy and impact of this programme will be found in the new jobs and investment that will result from building the networks and infrastructure that enable innovation. This will only be possible by connecting across sectors, individuals and communities within Belfast and beyond to help contribute to a better future for all.

Since the decline of the spinning industry in the 1980’s, the mill has reinvented itself as a centre for small innovative businesses. The site currently houses 47 ground-breaking SMEs in workshops, studios and offices.

From an award winning ceramist, beers and coffee to tech companies, fashion, artists and architects, Portviews expansion will allow for an estimated 100 SMEs that can scale from desk to private offices amongst winter gardens, shared resources, a talent pool from the training facility and onsite visitors to promote their services.

Through a new social tenancy embedded into the lease agreements, organisations will be empowered to collectively provide educational opportunities, think green and make social impact as a collective. The portview model will develop knowledge transfer for how landlords and tenants can work together to provide meaningful transformation onsite and around the site through a shared ethos.

Image:
Portview tenants, Derek Wilson, Boundary Brewing, Root and Branch

Portview focus is to establish a 450 person coworking space which allows individuals to up-scale onsite and into other locations of Belfast. Developing one of belfast's largest networks the hub will facilitate an international presence developing strategic membership partnerships with members and hubs that share an ethos of building entrepreneurial communities that make impact a scale. A home for ideation, opportunity and for individuals that buy into the portview ethos of sustainability and social impact, the site will offer workspace, community, start up and tenant support and programs/events.

The hub will promote peer to peer support, start up growth, diversity of sector and members, acceleration programmes and neighbourhood integration.

Portview are exploring the establishment of co-living residences to tap into unique neighbourhood tourism and digital nomad experiences. The pandemic has taught us workcations are in increasing demand with what was once a niche, digital nomads have accelerated this trend. Promoting longer stays through ‘temporary localhood’ with wider East Belfast partners portview will cater access to workspace and a lively professional community offering a sense of place and experience, a touch point for new audiences to engage on site but have a base point for their Northern Ireland expeditions.

A sustainable communal living experience would allow the site to attract new talented individuals from this market to integrate into a workcation-programme engaging other tenants, skill sharing and positive community contributions.

Building on the local artist community capacity and providing an enriching environment of arts and cultural pursuits as well as all forms of creative industry is an essential part of portviews outlook to develop a place that fosters community character and identity.

Part of portviews proposal is the development of an artisan souk which looks to house state of the arts studio space on the newtownards road as a placemaking catalyst to the sites main entrance. The souk will provide significant and secure artist studio space with community workshop, gallery and shop frontage to promote neighbourhood tourism.

The project is currently being developed alongside the Urban Villages Initiative, The Executive office who have identified the project to be supported for development subject to business case completion.

Portview is envisioned to become an authentic rooftop attraction, industrial cultural venue and a destination of neighborhood tourism. An iconic, yet authentic tourism destination which forms an extension to the Titanic tourist trail, develops the offering in Belfast and specifically in East Belfast, while promoting heritage.

The ambitious neighbourhood approach will be delivered across four key objectives ‘A destination within a destination’, A catalyst for the neighbourhood ‘, A place of attraction’, A signature spectacularity and reason to go for visitors,’ A place of Activity’, visible, lively and ongoing activity all year round and a ‘place of community, in reflection of the local identity and stories as a place to meet and engage.

The project is positioning itself as a key collaborator to develop the neighbourhood signature piece of the Belfast Story as part of the regions city deal’s destination hub and visitor attraction.

In tourism, there is often talk of “reason to go”. The experience – whether tangible, tasteable, touchable, instagrammable – is the key driver if visitation and in the end, also the key driver of visibility and word of mouth.

At Portview that will be our rooftops! marrying the hybrid of connectivity, experience and accessibility our proposals think vertically. One of the key flagship components of the architectural development will be the establishment of a rooftop destination with a running track for the community and a viewing destination for visitors which will give uninterrupted views of Belfast.

Similar to the ARoS Art Museum in Aarhus Portview will truly host a spectacle.

A place to eat, shop, relax or meet, the food hall at Portview will create a new friendly and welcoming heart to the site. By opening up the entire ground floor visitors, students and tenants will be able to enjoy this new neighbourhood focused destination where flexible units offers vendors the chance to cook & sell local produce. The food hall will become the heart of the East where multiple activities will take place.

Promoting SMEs up and coming in the food scene, hosting eco focused markets and a social supermarket or a place to shop. The entire ground floor of the original mill will open up to fans of music, sustainable fashion, coffee lovers, sunday brunchers, people who work, lunch, learn, look at art or just want to hang out there.

The site will promote sustainability through onsite produce growth and tenant commitment to the portview stamp which will limit the carbon footprint generated on the site. Example heritage site, Darwin Eco-Village in Bordeaux.

A new flexible venue space like no other. A rich programme of events in Partnership for National Museums and local SMEs will see the first exhibition open to the public in summer 2021. The space draws on the educational, cultural, heritage and tourism information gathered over the course of the process. It will offer a unique and vibrant experience not currently available to the community of East Belfast.

As part of the sites long terms offer we aim to develop a series of cultural spaces for exhibitions and events including a 1000 person capacity events space for performance and visual arts offerings a cultural venue space like no other in the city.

The Portview approach to tourism is to develop forward thinking moments that build on the past and transcend into the future, generating local pride and international attention. Why should that experience stop iat the foodhall, gallery or cultural events space?

Throughout the site moments such as a restaurant in the middle of an advanced robotics lab or a chance to peek into the operations of tenants, such as our artisan souk or the brewery will form part of the living museum concept, a place of doing and a place to be inspired.

The Connswater Greenway runs to the rear of the Portview site, linking it to the Titanic Quarter and East Belfast. Whilst the newtownards road is a direct link into the city centre.

Working in partnership with the likes of the Titanic Quarter and East Side Partnership we want to promote Portview and the East and compliment the development of the titanic quarter by better accessibility and connectivity, Like the cycle track in copenhagen or the river experience in Limburg, Belgium, Portview will collaborate with partners to develop the character of the East and improve experiences for both locals and visitors alike that want to visit, live, work and play in our neighbourhood.

One of the sites key strategic moves will be to open up the ground floor external parts of the site as public space for everyone to enjoy and experience.