The Lithuanian architectural office AFTER PARTY wins the 1st prize of the Turku Linnanniemi Area International Competition with its project submission for the redesign of the area around the medieval castle of Turku, which has been preserved until today and is located in the middle of the harbour traffic. The project is to be carried out in several phases, with the first phase to be completed in 2029, the 800th anniversary of Turku, and the entire master plan to be completed in 2049.
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Turku is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. Linnanniemi – a gateway of Turku, squeezed between the city and one of the most prolific archipelago‘s in the world marks the point where both conditions should meet. Situated mostly on a land that was once the sea, the area of natural setting to the medieval castle turned into a grey territory for industry and transportation. This transformation left the area not only as just a transfer point but also vulnerable to the future posed threats of climate change.
Only by reintroducing nature as part of the story for Linnanniemi it can become the link connecting to the vast archipelago. At the same time extending the city programs to complement the impressive heritage will make the area a destination for its residents and tourists joining the city and the archipelago into a united narrative for the future of Turku. AFTER PARTY collaborated on this project with traffic consultants Sitowise and Finnish architect Santtu Hyvarinen./
Three Characters of Turku
The area of the masterplan comprises three strong themes: historical background with the medieval Turku castle, the Aura riverfront of vibrant, growing city and a busy harbour welcoming many visitors throughout the year. These three themes shape the three distinct characteristic zones of the area – as if three puzzle pieces interlocking together to link the city to the hundreds of islets around.
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Castle Park
By surrounding the existing castle park with a necklace of green public spaces, the park is stretched all the way to the waterfront, extending the two green corridors of the decommissioned railway line and the new development to the North, becoming a green backbone to the area. The expanded park gives back Turku castle the promi-nence it deserves, becomes the culmination of a densely populated surrounding areas, and at the same time naturally adapts to the climate risks of the future.
In order to expand the Castle Park, the program is efficiently densified in the neighbouring areas and spread through the masterplan allocating the majority of residential at the Maritime Neighbourhood while dedicating the Western part for office, hotel and services. The castle is surrounded by the necklace of public and active commercial functions.
Maritime Neighbourhood
The Maritime Neighbourhood to the East mixes living with city programs and Forum Marinum functions extending the vibrant riverfront to a shared zone for local community and city visitors.
Harbour City
Lastly the Western tip of the masterplan is dedicated to the active Harbour City which besides ensuring the efficient and diversified city and archipelago connections, also combines variety of services, turning the area from a transfer point into a destination – a true gateway of Turku with sustainability and innovation at its core.
Public Loop
The three zones are joined together through a sequence of diverse public spaces with the most prominent anchor functions attached, creating a loop of exuberant experience throughout the area. By introducing the new water connections the existing loops of the city are linked to the scenic archipelago, making Linnaniemi the place where city meets the sea.
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Diverse Water Connections and fighting Flood Risk
The optimised vehicle traffic system allows for most of the area to be freed from cars and become pedestrian friendly public space prioritising soft mobility and public transportation. The introduction of diverse water connections throughout the masterplan creates strong links to the archipelago with the culmination at the Harbour City where Ferry terminal and Water transport hub is located.
The flood risk for the low lying area of the masterplan is tackled with two main measures: creating a barrier from the sea at the waterfront edge by elevating the whole ground floor level of the buildings or introducing a raised border.
More frequent storms caused by climate change poses another flood risk. The intensified green spaces and landscape ponds of the park helps to absorb excess rainwater. While the central Harbour City water axis acts as a continuous open gutter and water storage system.
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Text Credits: AFTER PARTY.
The Local Reference Plan for the Riihimäki Station Area of a multidisciplinary team of Finnish architecture and planning offices brings together disparate and detached neighborhoods separated by a bisecting railway line. The plan reconciles different socio-economic conditions to create a more egalitarian society in keeping with Finnish values.
The Local Reference Plan for the Riihimäki Station Area was published by the city of Riihimäki on 25th August 2020. The plan includes land use, traffic planning and detailed master planning for an area of 80 hectares, which is home to 5000 inhabitants. The multidisciplinary team consisted of Arkkitehdit LSV, Jolma Architects, TUPA architecture, Nomaji maisema-arkkitehdit and Ramboll Finland. The plan is to bring together disparate and remote neighborhoods separated by a bisecting railroad line and covers three plan areas: the historic core, and the two districts of Jokikylä and Peltosaari. The Local Reference Plan is an approved supplementary planning document that is based on the adopted Master Plan which was also completed by the same design team.
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The historic core
A vibrant downtown area has been created around the refurbished historical train sheds, train station, and the travel center. The historical buildings are very well preserved and should be accessible for new forms of use. An important aspect for the planners are sufficient transport connections including the change to sustainable modes of transport: The traffic junctions are integrated into the public open space, where the higher hotel and office buildings act as landmarks. The planners took into account the historical environment of the existing buildings when scaling the proposed buildings and choosing complementary materials. City center functions of mixed-use housing, retail, entertainment and offices bring vibrancy to the downtown area. The transformation of Eteläinen Asemakatu into a vibrant green street, which also provides ecosystem services of rainwater management and amelioration, creates a pleasant environment for walking.
Jokikylä
The character of Jokikylä’s townscape is determined by the proximity of nature, which is found in the lush meadow and shore vegetation of the Vantaanjoki River. The river design serves as a flood protection and at the same time provides a comfort value in the flooded meadows. The river bed and the habitats along the river banks have also been diversified to create a better habitat for wildlife. The low two to five-story buildings and their arrangement create an intimate, village-like character that surrounds the central park. The parking lots are located along the railroad line and provide an acoustic barrier that creates a peaceful environment in the village of Jokikylä.
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Peltosaari
Infill and new development in Peltosaari supports and improves the existing built assets with new residential and service buildings, creating a service center that serves people of all backgrounds. The area is well connected by the main pedestrian and bicycle network as well as by public transport and car routes. The central main square is directly connected to the railroad underpass and the multi-purpose building, thus enlivening access to the city center through public art. The different heights of the buildings ensure that sufficient sunlight penetrates to the street level. The tallest buildings are located along the trackside to provide acoustic buffering for the rest of the development. The blue and green infrastructure in the area, especially the proposed Karlskogan Puisto Park, will significantly improve the amenity value of the area while providing much needed flood protection.
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Text Credits: Jolma Architects
Huangpu River stretches 113 kilometres across the urban realm of Shanghai and separates the city into two parts. Urban life is and has always been connected with the river and its banks. However, the riverfront has been generally used for trade, commerce and industry, and was thus inaccessible to many. So, what happened to the banks after the redevelopment of the historical promenade The Bund, and after the World Expo 2010 – two correlated projects that aimed at opening up Shanghai’s waterfront to the public? In one of the fastest-growing cities in the world the only answer is: a great deal.
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The Huangpu River has always been the lifeline of the Chinese metropolis Shanghai, with its almost 30 million inhabitants. The river is 113 kilometres long and grows to a width of almost 800 metres before it flows into the Yangtze. In the city, the river’s large loops separate the seven western inner-city districts (Puxi) from the Pudong District, which occupies the entire eastern bank of the river. The high bridges of the various motorway rings dominate the city and various road and metro tunnels connect both banks, while those on foot can use the more leisurely ferries. Since the foundation of the city, the banks of the river, as is often the case elsewhere, have been generally used for trade, commerce and industry, and were thus inaccessible to those who did not work there. The legendary Bund, i.e. the riverside promenade in front of the British colonial quarter’s representative buildings, was the only exception to this. After the establishment of the Pudong Special Economic Zone in 1990, the Central Business District (CBD) was created in the Lujiazui District on the opposite bank, with its illuminated night-time skyscrapers that characterise the iconic image of today’s Shanghai.
The river is 113 kilometres long and grows to a width of almost 800 metres before it flows into the Yangtze
The opening of China to the West was also associated with a radical change in the country’s own economy. China experienced a tertiarisation of its industry, and previous production plants quickly became wastelands. This post-industrial structural change has been particularly visible on the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Expo 2000, which took place across extensive areas on both sides of the river south of the city centre, was the clearest expression of the fact that redesigning the banks of the Huangpu was a new challenge. The question became all the more pressing as the World Expo closed its doors. What to do with the former Expo areas? And what to do with the areas along the riverbanks throughout the city that were previously used for industry? Thus, improved flood protection and the management of brownfield sites became current issues, and the objective was to ultimately redesign and reprogramme the zones adjacent to the river. An important figure in this context was Sun Jiwei, a politician who was trained as an architect at Tongji University, and who had previously promoted contemporary architecture in the satellite cities of Qingpu and Jiading. He promoted the idea of transforming the unused area around the first commercial airport south of the city centre (Longhua Airport, which opened in 1917) into an art district. This resulted in the West Bund Cultural Corridor, which consists of museums, galleries and exhibition halls. One of Sun’s coups was to persuade collectors from the Long Museum in Pudong to build a branch at the West Bund and to then put them in contact with Atelier Deshaus, which was founded in 2001 as one of the first private architectural firms in China. The architects used an existing underground car park that belonged to a failed construction project as a foundation, and built the museum building on top of it, integrating a number of historic coal bunkers in the process. In 2015, one year after the opening of the Long Museum, the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season (SUSAS) took place for the first time, and is now held every two years. This biennial for art and public space wanders through the city and consists of a main exhibition site, a reference area and various satellite exhibitions. The theme for 2015 was the management of old industrial sites, which is evidence of the interest in industrial heritage that is gradually emerging after an era of tabula rasa. Atelier Deshaus’ biggest contribution was a conversion of the threatened Laobaidu coal bunker on the eastern bank of the Huangpu into an exhibition space that has since been used by the newly founded Modern Art Museum Shanghai, and which was integrated into the new design of the river bank by YiYu Design in 2017. This was the same year Atelier Deshaus also devoted itself to the granaries of Minsheng Wharf a few kilometres downstream in Pudong, which had long dominated the riverbank. Through the use of a cascading glass staircase, the architects made the top floor accessible as an exhibition space for the SUSAS 2017 – although after the end of the event it was (and still is) unclear what will happen to the location. In the meanwhile, the Pudong District took the initiative of launching a competition for the redevelopment of the eastern banks of the Huangpu River – 22 kilometres, stretching from the inner ring’s Yang Pu Bridge in the north to the outer ring’s Xu Pu Bridge in the south. In 2016, Agence Ter won the master plan, which was based on binding basic principles to ensure the riverbank parks were designed in a uniform manner, yet allowed for each section to have its own character. A common element, not only on the so-called East Bund but also on the western side of the river, (a total of 45 kilometres of riverbank) is formed by a trio of footpaths, bicycle paths and jogging tracks. These sometimes run together, but split up when necessary according to the different speeds of movement – and have to cross the channels and tributaries flowing into the Huangpu again and again by means of bridges. Further aspects of Agence Ter’s master plan included the covering of the flood protection wall by a designed, partially terraced landscape, distinct vegetation zones – low towards the river to keep the view clear, higher towards the land on the other side – and finally the accentuation of the route by towers every kilometre that are illuminated at night. After winning the competition in 2016, the 22 kilometres were split up between a number of teams. Agence Ter’s projects included the Park of the Cement Factory in the far south, the waterfront in front of the former Expo site and the waterfront at the Lujiazui CBD. Further downstream, West 8 took over – with ornamental paving and large amoeba-like planting troughs lined with benches. At Minsheng Yard, in front of the silos converted by Atelier Deshaus, the baton was passed to Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects (ALYA). The paths here thread their way through the substructure of the loading bridges, and continue their way in the form of a circular crossing over a small side harbour. The redesign of the eastern riverbanks ends just beyond the bright red Yang Pu Bridge in a park created by the Design Land Cooperative (DLC). Walking along the riverside parks, pavilion-like buildings that have not yet found a use are a common sight. According to local regulations, five per cent of the riverbank may be built on, while another regulation prevents their being used commercially. So here, as elsewhere in Shanghai, you search in vain for riverside cafés; the only things available are from vending machines at the entrances of the parks or in some small buildings.
The Huangpu River has always been the lifeline of the Chinese metropolis Shanghai, with its almost 30 million inhabitants
Kuo Yi-Fong, a partner at ALYA, is waiting for us at Minsheng Wharf. She talks about the difficulties in planning, i.e. parts of the land belong to the city, others to the district, and the area directly along the river is also under the jurisdiction of the state. And time pressure was enormous: A mere two years passed between the start of planning in 2016 and the completion of the East Bund’s 22-kilometre-long riverbank zone. But in China, says Kuo laconically, you always have just one opportunity. All in all, the situation for independent architecture firms in China is much more difficult at present than it was a few years ago, according to Atelier Deshaus, and they have therefore joined forces in a collaborative called AnAlliance with ALYA, Atelier Z+ and other planners in order to increase their clout. AnAlliance was then involved in the redevelopment of the opposing riverbank to the west in Yangpu County, the reference area for SUSAS 2019, where the industrialisation of the city began in the colonial era: Shipyards, factories and power plants once lined the riverbank. The main exhibition site in 2019 was an old warehouse in the middle of the area where Shanghai’s industrial development began. On the way downriver from the historic Bund via the Hongkou district, one passes the former dry docks of the Shanghai Shipyards and the Yangshupu Waterworks, a picturesque ensemble of buildings with towers, battlements and orientalised lancet windows built in 1883 by the British architect J. W. Hart. An additional 2.7 kilometres of riverfront east of the Yang Pu Bridge was opened together with SUSAS at the end of September 2019. New parks have been created here, and historic port facilities and factories embellished, sometimes with an excess of creative ambition. A certain degree of “over-design” is typical of Chinese landscape architecture, and while investing in landscape architecture here is certainly a good thing, as is concern for human and financial resources – this concern has a completely different status in Asia, and design sometimes appears to be overly orchestrated. Kuo Yi-Fong points to a park with simple grasses designed by ALYA – it took an enormous effort to implement this simple planting, because it is not generally perceived as being beautiful here. Under the leadership of Zhang Ming, the deputy head of the Department of Architecture at Tongji University, a number of landscape architects and architects were involved in the latest SUSAS projects. Although the hinterland remains tabula rasa, Shanghai is still reflecting on its industrial heritage. The Green Building, a stepped concrete structure that was part of a former tobacco warehouse, has been planted and was one of the attractions of SUSAS 2019, and port cranes, industrial halls, and the pipelines of a former soap factory now converted into a café are also passed on the way downstream. Not too far from here is the Riverside Passage, the ninth project of Atelier Deshaus on the banks of the Huangpu River. It is based on a long concrete wall, the relic of a former coal storage facility. The newly installed viewing gallery is covered by a steel mono-pitch roof that rests on the top of the wall by means of filigree supports, sloping down towards the back to provide protection for a second passage located directly on the platform at the rear. Two different spaces with two different views – one of the spontaneous vegetation in back of the wall and one of the river in front of it – have been created. The local authorities actually wanted to tear down this relic, but on the initiative of Atelier Deshaus it was preserved, and in the end it was unofficially included in SUSA’s programme. It is probably the most poetic, subtle and least intrusive project along this section of the riverbank.
On November 19, the oldest city in Russia hosted the final jury meeting of the Open International Competition for the development of a master plan for the Derbent Urban District. Experts reviewed the concepts of the three finalists and chose the best design.
First Place
The first place was awarded to a consortium led by Novaya Zemlya, which included Groupe Huit (France), Mae Architects (United Kingdom), West 8 (Netherlands), and NRU HSE (Russia). This international consortium’s master plan is, at its core, human-centered. The key principle is to turn Derbent into a “compact city”, as measured on the human-centered scale; this implies further developing territories that already have an infrastructure in place, and thus prevents the emergence of isolated commuter districts. The architects want Derbent to be green again: Pleasantly landscaped streets with all the proper amenities will link the city districts together and improve the state of the local environment.
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The embankment is to be transformed into the city’s main community space. The old industrial zones will be replaced by new hotels, modern multi-purpose residential areas, and natural parks. It will also include a system of continuous pedestrian routes. At the heart of it all will lie a multifunctional waterborne space that will serve as the culmination of the route from the Naryn-Khala fortress to the sea, and a place where the old and the new Derbent meet. The winning project’s goal is to highlight that Derbent stands at a cultural crossroads, where its ancient past meets its future.
Second Place
Second place was awarded to a consortium led by IND Architects, which also included ADEPT (Denmark), SWA (USA), Knight Frank (Russia), and RussiaDiscovery (Russia). Their master plan has “Derbent spreads its wings” as its motto, as it proposes transforming the city’s outlines by giving it two wings: an urban oasis in the north, including orchards and an innovative agricultural park, and a community of master craftsmen and craftswomen in the south, home to a consumer goods industry hub. The urban garden network is to be enhanced by green streets, the quarries are to be converted into ecoparks, while the Samur-Derbentsky Channel at the mountain foot is to become a linear park, preserving water for the local community.
The historical center should be merged organically with the creative and business clusters, public recreation spaces, and entertainment zones. The embankment could be turned into a park, blending gradually into the natural landscape with its favorable microclimate.
Third Place
And finally the judges awarded third place to a consortium under the leadership of the Genplan Institute of Moscow (Russia), which also included the Ginzburg Architects Bureau (Russia), and SKTS (Russia). They have thoroughly analyzed the strategic documentation of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Dagestan, as well as industry policy papers. They have also accounted for the current benefits and opportunities presented by Derbent and its agglomeration. The consortium’s architects follow a stage-by-stage principle of urban development, moving from the city center to the suburbs, while retaining a space-efficient urban layout. During the first stage, they propose developing infrastructure and transport, repurposing inactive facilities, and redesigning the embankment. The subsequent stages are to result in the creation of an entirely new urban district, which will be used for residential housing, community interactions, and business purposes, along with an agricultural and industrial complex, and a tourism infrastructure.
Text by Agency for Strategic Development Center (centeragency.org)
New York’s East River separates the spectacular skyline of Manhattan from Long Island City, the westernmost neighbourhood of the New York City borough of Queens. Until recently, Long Island City’s rather uninviting waterfront was an abandoned industrial area. Today, the picture is different. Eleven acres of former wasteland have now become the recently completed “Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park” – New York City’s newest model for waterfront resiliency.
Designed by SWA/BALSLEY and WEISS/MANFREDI in collaboration with ARUP, “Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park” achieves two things – it transforms an abandoned industrial land into a resilient infrastructure and, at the same time, provides a contemplative retreat for the neighbourhood. The park directly adjoins a currently ongoing mixed-use and affordable housing development project, the city’s largest since the 1970s.
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Connection of nature, human and urbanity
The park’s design combines infrastructure, landscape, architecture and art in order to achieve a maximum benefit for the public. Visitors enter the area with its dreamlike character via a narrow bridge. Just one glimpse later, they spot “Luminescence” – a land art installation by New York-based artist Nobuho Nagasawa. Almost two meters tall glowing sculptures depict the different phases of the moon. In her work, the artist manifests the spatial relationship between nature, the built environment and human beings. This is also the park’s overarching theme.
Narrow paths lead through sculpted grassland. Picnic promontories and wooden platforms offer space for relaxing moments. Three fitness terraces adopt the dramatic gradient of the site as a design theme. A generously designed promenade leads the visitor towards a spectacular overlook. What looks like a tremendous sculpture from a distance turns out to be a nearly ten meters tall, cantilevered platform with a unique view of Manhattan’s skyline and the East River. The overlook’s steel-clad formwork relates to the site’s industrial legacy and integrates it into the architectural design. Not only the choice of material refers to the site’s historical heritage and its unique characteristics. The use of salt-mesh as main vegetation and the multi-layered spatial arrangement of design elements anticipate the inevitable rising water levels of the East River and potential patterns of flooding.
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Integration of the past
What used to be a neglected wasteland in the past is now a dynamic public space that also offers room for deceleration. A space that doesn’t deny its past, but sensitively integrates it into its design. Especially in the context of increasingly dense urban areas such as New York, the targeted activation and densification of unused spaces is more relevant than ever. “Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park” seems to be an answer to the question on which spatial concepts offer a new design model for urban ecology and a prototype for innovative sustainable design.
The Place de la République, one of Paris’s most emblematic squares has been transformed from a car-dominated space into the largest pedestrianized zone in the French capital. The newly designed square encourages diversity and invites users to engage in multiple activities.
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Concorde, Étoile, Bastille … Paris is famous for its squares. The Place de la République is one of its most emblematic and has been completely remodeled. A space both of representation and demands, it has been radically transformed from a vast traffic roundabout where the car was king into a chiefly pedestrianized zone. Since its completion in 2013, following two years of building work, Parisians have been able to engage in a whole range of activities thanks to the provision of a platform that is open to everyone. The square’s dimensions have finally come to light, allowing for meetings, encounters and other manifestations, such as the historic march that took place on 11 January 2015.
Statue of Marianne has witnessed the transformation
The design of the Place de la République is directly linked to the construction of Paris itself, to a development by way of fortifications surrounding the city that have since become boulevards. The redevelopment under Baron Haussmann took this square from its suburban location and made it a central hub where the northern and north-eastern arrondissements of Paris converge. The statue of Marianne has witnessed this transformation; the symbol representing the French Republic faces the centre of the capital.
‘Répu’ was not a welcoming place
Until the square’s redevelopment by TVK (Pierre Alain Trévelo and Antoine Viger-Kohler) it was nothing more than the central point of a drab traffic roundabout, constantly surrounded by cars. Road traffic occupied more than two thirds of the square’s surface. Pedestrians had one single crossing, albeit a perilous one. The gardens were used by squatters, and the overall atmosphere was oppressive. Répu, as it is known to the Parisians, was not a welcoming place.
Giving public space “back to the Parisians”
TVK won the competition with a project that departed from proposals put forward by the City of Paris road planning authority. TVK’s design features a contemporary element that breaks with France’s traditional planning principles and joins the dynamic trend prevalent under the leadership of Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë, to give public space “back to the Parisians”. The city conducted a study of the square from building to building, the square measuring 280 metres in length and 120 metres in width. The town-planning architects used the findings of this study to banish traffic to the square’s two shorter sides and to its south side that links to the Rue du Temple.
Traffic flow vs. time to cross the square
The pavements surrounding the square were widened. Along the square’s northern edge an intermodal transport lane links busses and taxis serving the Metro station to the Rue Faubourg du Temple. This radical measure inverts the ratio of space given to cars with that allocated to pedestrians, taking it from 12.000 to 24.000 square metres. Viciously criticised for fear of traffic congestion, the principle to eradicate the roundabout and relieve the square of its symmetrical layout was based on calculations of traffic flow rather than the time taken to cross the square.
Largest pedestrian space in Paris
A road with two-way traffic lanes was installed and an annual drop in traffic flow was estimated to reach 2 per cent thanks to a boost in public transport and the provision of cycle and car rental services (Vélib and Autolib); while the study and the construction work were still being carried out, traffic had in fact already fallen by 15 per cent. The Place de la République is becoming the largest de facto pedestrian space in Paris, opening up a free arena for multiple activities on a ground that was designed to encourage diversity. The Place de la République is just one example for how Paris is currently raising the level of living in the city.
Find more in Topos 91 – Urban Projects: Squares and Promenades.
