CONTEXT
Water Cities in Flux – Urban Public Water Fronts and the Agents of Change
Traditionally settlements have formed around one key natural resource… water. Fresh water forms the basis for life and only a constant supply could ensure a settlements population, density and survival. As these settlements expanded into cities, transport of people and goods became increasingly important and navigable water was seen as an essential part of a cities development. Navigable water ensured distribution of goods as well as a connection with the world. Port cities such as London and Rotterdam are hence heavily influenced by these basic needs: water and trade. These days water comes from the tap, and goods and consumables arrive magically in our supermarkets, so why is our relationship with water and ports still so strong? Why are they still important to the urban fabric of these cities? What is it that drives us to the watery edge… these Fluid Public Spaces?

As global port city’s functions have changed urban waterfronts have gone from bustling centres of trade to industrial wastelands to the new frontiers of urban re-development (Meyer, 1999). One of the most important factor in these urban re-developments is public space and access to the waters edge—Fluid Public Space (FPS). FPS in this context refers to any part of the urban waterways of a port city including their edges, surfaces, depths and breadths that is accessible to the public.

Urban Waterfronts are influenced through policy/legislation/codes and the urban infrastructural artefacts of de-industrialisation of the city. Historically functioning ports required, were designed and governed by functionalist engineering principals that would allow for maximum efficiency of the distribution of goods. With de-industrialisation and the relocation of port activities vast areas of unused land became available for city expansions. FPSs form one of the most important aspects of these new environments and have been and are still contested spaces; contested in their use, their ownership, their perception and in their primary function.

As these vast new areas of land became available and developed the urban design methods followed the current thinking. Meyer (1999) describes the shift in development philosophy and policy from a strongly modernist/functionalist idea of urban design to one increasingly dependant on, and requiring, a strong understanding of the cultural landscape within which the land and its use revolves. This however begs the questions. Whose cultural landscape do we recognise? What history is relevant? How will our attempts at urban and landscape design be perceived in 50 years time?

Further questions that arise from these new urban environments: Why are FPS so important? How has this shift in use and policy influenced the design of FPS? What will be the new forms of FPS? How will you design in these contested environments?

Fluid Public Spaces are waterfronts of cities on the edges of estuaries, waterways, deltas, seaside, rivers, inland waterways, hidden rivers, lakes, billabongs, reservoirs, floodplains, mudflats, bogs, damns or ports.

Moving Image and the mobile public space experience.
Mobility of Experience
How we experience the urban spaces in a city, changes. It changes with the seasons, the time of day, with our mood, and even with the collection of our own and others memories. How we live in a city also changes. The way we interact or enjoy, dread or hate the urban spaces in the city are our perception which become versions of the city. We experience the urban spaces of a city in a private manner but in a public way. Public spaces in cities are the location for collective experiential flippancy—subject to our contemporaneous psychological states.

These city spaces also influence our perceptual state. Who hasn’t sat in the sun soaking up a moment of solarised tranquillity, smelt the rain on the wind and the electricity in the air prior to a big storm or stared out across the water at a distant place contemplating distant futures.

Physical
The urban public landscape in itself also changes usually slowly and with a visible collection of past influences—artefacts of urban life, society, social norms, repression, control and politics. What cultural significances does a completely new public space have? Is a blank slate really blank? How does one design for a new public?

Capture
Moving through a changing place, how do you capture the state you are in? How do you represent an experience? How do you design for that experience? As the main theme for communication this semester the moving image will be expected to be included in some form or another in your analysis, documentation and presentation of your work.

Keywords: Urban Waterways, Europe, Mobilities, Public Space, Un Public Space, New Space, Changing Space, Moving Image,

Key Locations: Rotterdam Port, Thames Gateway - London Port

Relationship to: Thames Gateway and Olympic Site Development, Beijing and 2008, Rotterdam Port Development.

AIMS:
The aims of this project are on four levels: General, Strategic, Regional and Local:
General Aims:
• To look at/perceive/immerse oneself in the urban waterfront in London/Rotterdam;
• To develop innovative, visioning proposals for a new Fluid Public Spaces;
• To expose the ideas and proposals to a local, regional and trans-national audience.
Strategic Aims:
• To understand and describe the mobilities that are influencing urban waterfronts and FPS;
• To understand and describe various agents that influence urban waterfronts and FPS;
• To highlight the influence of exiting policies/regulations/codes that influence uban waterfronts and FPS;
• To develop key strategic proposals that supports the regional and local aims.
Regional Aims:
• To develop a broad and in-depth knowledge of urban waterfronts and FPS;
• To understand and describe the regional impacts of a new FPS;
• To create links and associations with the local organisations and derive crucial local information;
• To propose a regional strategy and proposal for the development of a new FPS.
Local Aims:
• To understand, in-depth, the issues relating to a detailed section of the proposal;
• To document a detail that section of the proposal;
• To build a dynamic, scale model of the section of the proposal.

REQUIREMENTS:

Develop a theoretical framework for the question/manifesto/concept through exploring the topic/s and building a library of relevant references and documents that will inform your research and proposal development.

Understand the relevant issues around public space, public sphere, urban waterways, moving image, mobilities including: sustainability (in all its forms), policy development, cultural shifts and likely economic influences.

Document your experience in a way that will develop your appreciation of the state of flux that you and the site are in.

Analyse the available data and present the relevance of the results.

Research the agents that may have influence on the space. Local community groups, NGOs, national, regional and local government and authorities. Contact local representatives and organise meetings and or attendance at the meetings of the groups. Understand the local’s perspective, their motivations and agendas.

Understand how the influences and outcomes of new urban waterfront development and FPSs mirror or don’t other similar port cities such as New York, Barcelona, Melbourne, Toronto, Hong Kong, Shanghai.

Design a Fluid Public Space.

FINAL SUBMISSION: 19th of May 2008
This project is to be produced, documented and presented in a comprehensive, in-depth but concise digital and printed document that covers the extent of the work completed and developed during the semester.

The submission will need to describe a coherent story of the direction of the project, the questions that the project asked, the analysis undertaken and the results, the connections with the local groups and the developed proposal, and its validity with respect to the analysis.

As a group develop a coherent form for the dissemination of the content, analysis and proposals to both a local and an international audience. Develop this form to allow for both a collective and individual communication of the content, that can be read individually and as a whole.

Abstract: In addition produce, on one A4 sheet, a diagrammatic, image or text based distillation of the project proposal and analysis, which provides an exciting insight into your project and gets people wanting to know more.

Final presentation will be in a form that is agreed upon during the first two weeks.
All digital information should be submitted in pdf or .mov format that can be easily accessed from any computer.