With a rapidly changing climate and a growing population, the streets of the future are going to look very different. The Prototype Street activation functions as a mini ‘future streetscape’, allowing residents, workers, students, visitors and businesses to experience, test and learn in the public realm.
Prototype Street at Melbourne Knowledge Week
Prototype Street is key exhibit at Melbourne Knowledge Week each year. It’s interactive, visual and fun, and allows our community to experience current and emerging urban technologies and interventions.
In 2019, Prototype Street transformed Blackwood Street in North Melbourne into an experimental space where Melburnians tackled the opportunities, urgent challenges and everyday issues facing our future. Exhibitions and activations throughout the week included:
- An autonomous bus offering passengers a taste of a driverless future.
- A virtual reality biking experience allowing participants to ride the city streets through a cyclist's eyes.
- A lighting installation with scenes to improve perceptions of safety after dark.
- An artificially intelligent see-saw designed to have a conversation with you while you ride.
- Raised garden beds designed for rooftops, schools and community gardens demonstrating how urban agriculture can contribute to a sustainable future.
- Smart bins showcasing a more efficient, real-time, data-driven waste collection system.
- A tiny house incorporating smart design principals and sustainable materials.
- A ‘Cooling the City’ experiment using temperature sensors and the internet of things to plan a more liveable city in the face of extreme heat conditions.
Prototype Street was activated for the first time at Melbourne Knowledge Week 2018 as a pilot program for and within Melbourne Innovation Districts City North on Cardigan Street.
In 2018, participants tried out water-sensitive permeable pavement, discovered the latest innovations in 3D printing and manufacturing, and learnt about cycle-friendly streets with free bike servicing. Prototype Street also featured new ways of working and learning through a free co-working space and collaborative student lab throughout the week.
Prototype Street - a test site
Prototype Street is an example of a test site – a designated area in the public realm for prototyping new technologies, temporary design interventions, business models and interactive experiences.
Test sites exist to support fresh ideas into a prototype stage, to enable students, startups and other innovators to take risks, fail, learn and grow in public. Test sites aim to be as visible as possible in order to enable public engagement, inspiration and collaboration. Melbourne Knowledge Week is the primary vehicle for City of Melbourne’s temporary test site, Prototype Street.