This one-million-square-meter waterfront development, the single largest regeneration project in Serbia’s history, aims to create a world-class, sustainable destination for civic and cultural attractions, forging human and physical connections to the Sava River where none existed before. Located near the historic town center of Belgrade, the site’s new 2-kilometer promenade is a key part of the development, acting as a full-scale investigation into the project’s potential. The area is already more popular than the city imagined, and new construction, including the SOM-designed Kula Belgrade, continues to define the evolving waterfront at a pace of 50 meters per month.
SWA’s design created a series of places that enhanced year-round programming and activation strategies. The city’s culture is realized in many design details, including the use of cast-off railway parts from the site’s historic core. Planned public transportation, stormwater and digital infrastructure, and walkable pedestrian-scaled neighborhoods and districts will incorporate existing floating restaurants and bars; specific waterside improvements will target the cyclists and fishermen who have long populated this post-industrial “edge landscape.”
Shekou Promenade
A gateway for China’s open-door policy, Shekou has revitalized its fragmented and hazardous coastline into a dynamic six-kilometer promenade that masterfully captures the area’s cultural and natural essence.
The promenade repurposes the disconnected former industrial waterfront into a celebrated open space system with new recreation programs...
SIPG Harbor City Parks
This new riverfront development is located on the Yangtze River in the Baoshan District of Shanghai. This area boasts some of the highest shipping activity in the world. However, in recent years this single-function industrial zone has given way, allowing for waterfront parks to develop. Within this historically layered water front the Baoshan Park and Open Sp...
Golden Shoal Riverfront Park
Located along Chongqing’s Jialing River, this new linear public park offered unique challenges: a 30-meter annual river fluctuation, steep topography, and low-impact maintenance of a continuous riparian corridor. Adjacent new urban development, with attendant needs for green space, called for a flexible and resilient approach to the park’s landscape and infras...
Hangzhou Hubin
West Lake in Hangzhou, China, one of the world’s most romantic places and as familiar an icon as the Great Wall or the Forbidden City, has been designated by the United Nations as one of the World Cultural Heritage Sites. Seven hundred years later, the city that served ancient emperors as a capitol boasts a population of over three million and is still a...