Swansea Bay City Region’s City Deal is based on major investment in the region’s digital infrastructure, which will revolutionise the way sectors like energy, technology, health and social care are delivered. The deal, worth a total of £1.3bn, is the biggest of it’s kind seen in the UK and it is estimated to deliver a £3.3bn boost to the regional economy over 15 years, generating over 9,500 new jobs. The City Deal contains a number of projects in Swansea, including a new digital village on Kingsway for the city’s tech businesses. A digital square and digital indoor arena on the St David’s development site would also be enabled, as well as a ‘box village’ and innovation precinct at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s SA1 waterfront development that would provide incubation and co-working spaces for start-up businesses.
The team at iCreate were asked to develop a flythrough animation with the main objective to sell the vision for the city centre to a broad audience of local businesses, the local community and to developers, instilling confidence in the likelihood of delivery, the future of the city and the wider region. The 6 minute flythough features a wide range of developments being planned or already happening, including those led by City & County of Swansea Council as well as other partners such as Coastal Housing, Swansea University, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay and others. To create the drama and excitement, buildings are shown emerging from the grounds to grow to their completed heights. Since being completed, the flythrough has quickly become the main communication tool used to help the public understand the proposals and to successfully inform and attract occupiers for a number of City Centre projects.