Portusonline magazine publishes two articles by EDDEA experts on the conversion of port spaces
Portusonline magazine has published two articles co-written by José María de Cárdenas and Jorge Izquierdo, architects at EDDEA, exploring different strategies for transforming port spaces into urban districts, based on a survey and analysis of the main initiatives of this kind undertaken in cities around the world.
This biannual publication, an international reference for experts in port–city integration, featured in a recent issue the two architects’ account of a project in which EDDEA took part: the Kaohsiung Pop Music Centre in Taiwan, an 11-hectare complex at the mouth of the Love River.
In that text they describe the elements that made up the project, its programmes and the strategies used to transform the site – formerly a military and commercial wharf, with a long wall that kept citizens from reaching the ocean – into an urban and innovation district, a magnet for culture and a place for civic life.
In the June issue of Portusonline this year, De Cárdenas and Izquierdo set out a view of the global phenomenon of port and waterfront conversion. To do so, they draw on “a geography of study across different countries and continents in order to understand the common elements and lessons learned, as well as singular features or problems, producing a multifaceted response”.
“We looked at a series of cases, starting with Rotterdam and moving through the American proposals, as well as Argentina, Italy, Canada, Taiwan and Ireland. All of this is accompanied by a detailed review of the phenomenon in Spain, given its current momentum, and informed by our experience in developing Seville’s Port Urban District (Distrito Urbano Portuario),” they explain.
From this analysis, the authors note that the existence of obsolete or disused waterfront spaces – left behind by the relocation of port activities or former military installations – combined with new needs and the landscape value that today’s society places on the water’s edge, has turned these former enclosures, or waterfronts, into potential areas for the development of innovation districts.
Key factors
In their view, four fundamental elements explain “the alignment that has led to the location and the potential value that port spaces offer for implementing these new contemporary models of development and production”. These factors are regional centrality, returning the city to the water, unprecedented spaces and balanced planning.
On the first, they point out that port enclosures are strategically located and act as gateways to rich hinterlands, a key element in networks of infrastructure and flows. “These dynamics, built around these geographical locations, place them in a position of metropolitan and regional centrality,” they state.
The second factor reflects the fact that “reconnecting with the water, or returning the city to it, is a trend that has developed over recent decades, as ports were converted to create civic space, within a wider social tendency to value the potential of coastal and riverside areas to improve quality of life and attract tourism”.
Alongside these two, they add the presence of unprecedented spaces. “In many port enclosures we find buildings with singular architectural features that can host diverse, multidisciplinary, cross-cutting and shared spaces, adaptable to different activities – all while safeguarding the identity of the site,” they stress.
Finally, the authors argue that the model of innovation districts in ports should seek urban integration and the development of diverse, mixed-use fabrics. As they put it, “many of these enclosures have followed a path of reintegration into the city, while also recovering their historic role as spaces of interaction, entry, diversity and exchange”.
Possible adverse effects
José María de Cárdenas and Jorge Izquierdo Recorridas point out that these four elements “are not a recipe for success” and warn of two phenomena that call for particular attention: on the one hand, “the idea of an innovation district emptied of content and detached from its local context”; on the other, “the gentrifying effects that these operations may produce”.
In conclusion, the EDDEA architects note that “what we have learned from this analysis is the need to understand that these projects must be conceived in terms of integration, so that they include society, avoid the gentrifying effects mentioned and harness the momentum this population generates to enrich the development and make it viable”.
The full articles are available here:
