Water Front Communities

The project relates to the re-development of Harbourfront areas with focus on Urban Design Quality and the Public Realm. Special emphasis is put on the following key themes: 1. The global/local role of the waterfront in the post-industrial city; 2. The re-composition of the waterfront as a paradigm of urban complexity; 3. Architectural quality and harbour scape; 4. Complex liveable city quality and the public realm; 5. Sustainability in redesign; 6. Tools and methods related to urban design and planning processes. These key themes are all related to the main theme, “Urban Design Quality”, and they have been subdivided into a range of key concepts and key questions. The new conditions for redevelopment of the harbour gateway are no longer linked to the transport of goods and people. The new challenge is to develop and integrate a wide range of new leisure activities, modern residential and office areas and new types of culture-based industry, and then integrate these with new types of public spaces. The new situation provides an excellent opportunity to hand back the former “closed spaces of the harbour” to the public, and to link these areas to the inner-city area behind.