Caring together for the landscape of the future
With sustainable area development, K3 is working towards a Netherlands full of beautiful, nature-rich areas where people can enjoy living, working and recreating. But how do you offer an online experience that does justice to a physical visit?
Once upon a time, K3 began as a sand and gravel miner. But as a family-owned company, it looks beyond what's left at the bottom line. Today it transforms mining areas into beautiful landscapes, for now and for future generations to enjoy. To make them also accessible online, we developed an experience that shows the areas in all their glory and gives insight into the complex work behind the new nature.
Win-win areas
The large-scale extraction of raw materials for construction causes enormous damage to nature worldwide. K3 wants to show that it can be done differently, that their method does not create a gaping hole, but beautiful landscapes with space for nature, high water, recreation and the generation of renewable energy. And so we went looking for a way to offer website visitors an experience that does justice to a visit of the transformed areas.
A message that transcends generations
"What are you leaving to future generations?" For a family business like K3, this is a fundamental principle that makes sustainability a very natural starting point. It was the outcome of a two-day Brand Sprint with storytelling agency StoryDiggers. In a collaborative process with K3's communications team, their marketing partners and corporate identity designer Anton Vos, we arrived at a razor-sharp positioning, a catchy brand story and a clear communication concept for the website.
Design Sprint to an interactive experience
Addressing the beauty of these areas online required more than a "talk and a picture. In a Design Sprint, we explored the challenge together, explored possible solutions, designed a prototype and had it validated by the target audience.
Each area has its own story
In the resulting design concept, we chose to give each area its own environment. In this way, we offer every space to their unique characteristics and invite local residents to immerse themselves in their transformation. A visit to an area page mirrors a real visit in this: a journey of discovery in which all facets of the area reveal themselves to you step by step.
Not a visit but a discovery
In this, Ermin de Koning's high-quality 360º drone photography provides additional experience and interaction. On a map, we plot vantage points that provide views of in-depth content about the location in question. They offer a view through to other locations and thus form an alternative way to navigate. In this way, an online visit becomes a digital exploration.
Content as varied as areas
An interview with the forester on duty in an area, a video portrait of the fishing club for the disabled that has found its home there, the project manager talking about the innovations that have made the transformation possible or an impression of the artwork that depicts the development, the different types of media give visitors a varied picture of the richness of each area.
Scalable and three-dimensional
The areas were brought together in a 3D environment developed in ThreeJS and linked to a React web application. All content in the Drupal CMS is also enriched with geographic data. This makes it ready for expansion into mobile or even augmented -and virtual reality. And although all areas have their own domain, a multisite design allows them to be centrally managed and easily expanded with new areas. This makes the solution scalable and manageable, even in the long term.
A spearhead for communication
So great was the enthusiasm for the area pages that they now have a central place on K3's corporate website. They are the business cards for the K3 organization and an inspiration for new projects.
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