UTV

Urban design experts have drawn up a stunning vision of a futuristic Belfast, complete with showpiece new Parliament buildings at its heart. And the team from Harvard University will today reveal their grand plan for reshaping a city being revitalised by development. Project leader Professor Richard Sommer has been examining design issues central to Belfast`s metropolitan future as part of a long-term study into urbanisation in Northern Ireland. He said: "The city of Belfast has recently undertaken many impressive and significant projects, but is at serious risk of not achieving enough synergies between all these new investments. "There is still too much of a silo mentality: sites come up for development and projects proceed without any way to measure or guide the contribution they might make to the Big Picture. And there needs to be a Big Picture through which to proceed, even if in acknowledging the pluralities of interest in modern Belfast - and actually in any city - this picture may have to be comprised of several overlapping frames.