Waltham Forest has been crowned the London Borough of Culture 2019 and we are pleased to have played a role, along with Metric and SVA Projects, in their bid for the title.

We created a ‘digital forest’ website which was used in their execution of the bid; please view at walthamforestofculture.co.uk.

The website uses the Google Maps API to allow school children and residents from across the borough to:

1. Nominate a person or place that represents Waltham Forest’s culture for you — by using the Oak Tree template and then uploading back to the website.

2. Suggest an idea or something that is missing to improve the culture in the local area — by using the Acorn template and then uploading back to the website.

The site was also made accessible with a high contrast option and font scaling. There is also a ‘Resources for Schools’ download package, for the templates and instructions.

The images below show three of site’s stages of submission:

The London Borough of Culture award is a major new initiative launched by the Mayor Sadiq Khan in June 2017 – inspired by the UK City and European Capital of Culture programmes.

The award offers more than £1m of funding to two winning boroughs to stage a programme of ambitious cultural events and initiatives, and to develop a plan to make culture an integral part of the boroughs’ future – placing communities at the heart of decision-making and programming.

In total, 22 boroughs submitted bids to be named London Borough of Culture and Waltham Forest is the first to be awarded the title for 2019, followed by Brent for 2020.

If you would like to learn more about our web design and build services, please be in touch with us at [email protected].