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 Space Plan links three multi-use development districts to each other and their seafront.
Springing up among the cranes and shipping containers, with giant machines dominating the landscape the new Harbor City Parks will bring fresh life to this industrial district of Shanghai. This series of multi-faceted open space includes two large parks, one that speaks to civic and commercial adjacencies, and the other as common ground that connects two residential communities. At the terminus of both the parks running along the Yangtze’s edge is the elevated waterfront promenade and lower water side esplanade. These two corridors act as the project spine, linking all the mixed uses of the project together, while allowing sweeping views of the once disconnected riverfront. Visitors are invited to descend down to the esplanade level and reclaim the post-industrial river. As future urban development continues to push from Shanghai center, Harbor City Parks will serve as a precedent for the new post-industrial Baoshan.
Faria Lima
A new office tower, theater and café pavilion known as Alameda is being built in the high end district of downtown Sao Paulo; the centerpiece of the site design is the Alameda civic plaza. Lifted gently above the street level, four generous steps invite visitors to enter and explore the plaza while branded light pylons at all major entrances serve as place mar...
Main Street Garden Park
Thomas Balsley Associates was selected from an outreach to international design firms to design the first new park for the Dallas Central Business District in 50 years. A key component in the downtown revitalization strategy, Main Street Garden Park required the razing of two city blocks of buildings and garages making way for its transformation into a vibrant...
Peggy Rockefeller Plaza
Stretching along nine blocks of New York City’s Upper East Side, Rockefeller University is a world-renowned medical research institution with an impressive roster of Nobel Prize winners — and beautiful river views. Once a harmonious urban oasis of 19th century buildings and 20th century modernism stitched together by a renowned Dan Kiley landscape, the c...
San Jacinto Plaza
The redesign of San Jacinto Plaza, a historic gathering place in El Paso’s downtown business district provides a state-of-the-art urban open space, while protecting and celebrating the history and culture of the site. The project was the result of an intensive community process involving input from a wide range of constituents. Active programming, environmenta...