Waterfront Design: The Latest Architecture and News

National Museums Liverpool (NML) has revealed a revised version of the redevelopment of the city’s waterfront, led by architect Asif Khan and artist Theaster Gates. The plans include the redesign of the public spaces at Canning Dock, a historical area central to the Liverpool docks. As part of the Waterfront Transformation Project, the interventions aim to create accessible public spaces to better serve the community and to create a link between the surrounding museums. The preliminary proposal is now open for public consultation.

+ 4

First drafted by Renzo Piano and developed by RPBW and OBR, the Waterfront di Levante is a project that aims to transform what was previously the back of a port into a new urban front on the sea. The development is planned to become a new landmark on the seafront of Genoa, Italy, by bringing new urban and port functions, both public and private, to an underutilized area. By controlling the built-to-open area ratio, it also seeks to enhance the connection between the city and the sea. The project introduces functions such as the new Urban Park, a new dock, residences, offices, student housing, retail facilities, apart-hotels, and a new sports hall.

+ 7

Between rising water levels and global migration to cities, architects and designers need to critically reimagine the relationship between coastal landscapes and public space. Cities are facing entirely new risks and environmental conditions. Resiliency, infrastructure, and ecology are increasingly common terms, reflecting the growing demand to address the spatial and formal challenges faced by cities worldwide. Rethinking boundaries and edges, designers have unique opportunities to help shape public understanding of these conditions through waterfront parks.

+ 7

A lot can happen in the space between a book’s title and subtitle, as A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (Island Press, 2021) demonstrates. Here, in a reversal from the norm, the subtitle assumes the more evocative bent by elevating design to the same status as economics and policy. To some, this might seem a spurious move, but the volume lives its creed: Its editors include two design academics and a business school professor, to say nothing about the myriad backgrounds of its contributors.

Blueprint goes deep into the policy decisions that have shaped the brittle condition of coastal infrastructure. It coalesces into a convincing picture of the wider context in which design operates, with the aim of making the built environment more equitable for those caught on the front lines of certain climate change cataclysm.

In this week's reprint from the Architect's Newspaper, author Patrick Sisson tackles the implication and participation of communities in New York in shaping their built environment, especially their waterfront. He also asks about the roles of representation and if "the city’s community boards and Uniform Land Use Review Procedure act more like gatekeepers than catalysts for equitable development?" especially that a lot of new developments are labeled as housing projects.

With its historic but dilapidated waterfront, San Francisco has decided to restore the shoreline that could greatly influence the future of the city both environmentally and economically. The Port, contemplating between a piecemeal rebuilding pier-by-pier and a singular comprehensive construction of the waterfront, invited architecture and landscape firms to submit the reimagined proposals.

Global design firm HASSELL, known for their innovative recreational projects, envisioned an approach to preserve the significant history and culture of the pier while creating a sustainable green corridor in a playful manner. In order to activate the Embarcadero as an "interconnected greenway," HASSELL plans on developing the ecological areas along the waterfront as well as improving the accessibility between the recreational land with the surrounding transit hubs.

+ 7

+ 33