Expanding from Industrial to Mixed-Use
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"3000","speed":"300","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationShanghai, China
ClientShanghai International Port Group
Size46 acres

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.

Related Projects

Perk Park

Originally completed in 1972, Perk Park is a vestige of IM Pei’s urban renewal plan. It was built in an era when the street was seen as a menace so parks turned inward. Rolling berms around the edges and sunken areas in the middle, filled with concrete retaining walls, reflected that era. Not surprisingly, the park fell into decline; abandoned by the neighborh...

Gate City Osaki

“I do sculpture as it relates to my designs, and as the sculpture emerges from the designs it becomes collaborative. This is gratifying because the sculpture is very much in keeping with the overall landscaping concept. It is not an afterthought,” writes Tom Balsley. Here we see the full integration of his sculptural expression in the overall landscape design ...

Chelsea Waterside Park

In 1986, Thomas Balsley Associates was asked by the Chelsea Waterside Park Association to translate this community’s vision for a waterfront park into a design document that would be used to plan the new Route 9-A and the proposed Hudson River Park. Ten years later, when funding for the Chelsea Waterside Park was identified, Thomas Balsley Associates won an in...

Balsley Park

Located on Manhattan’s West Side, Balsley Park, formerly known as Sheffield Plaza, has been transformed from a barren, lifeless plaza into the community’s most cherished common ground.

Following public outcry and many failed attempts to redesign the plaza, Thomas Balsley Associates was hired to build community consensus around a new park-like image and ...

Gantry Plaza State Park

Once a working waterfront teeming with barges, tugboats, and rail cars, the Hunter’s Point shoreline of Queens slowly succumbed to the realities of the post-Industrial Age. As the last rail barge headed into the sunset, this spectacular site was left to deteriorate to a point of community shame. As part of the Queens West Parks Master Plan, Thomas Balsley Asso...

Residences at W New York Downtown

The Residences at W New York Downtown is located in lower Manhattan. The at-grade public plaza creates an urban space with a food kiosk surrounded by a large raised wood deck with table, chairs, and built-in custom stainless steel benches and bar seating along the perimeter. A series of interplaying IPE wood and pre-cast concrete benches creates seating and co...

Uptown ATX Master Plan

Previously a single-use, auto-centric office complex, Uptown ATX is a 66-acre transformation resulting in a transit-oriented, mixed-use neighborhood that further bolsters the burgeoning technology hub of Northwest Austin. Situated between the Charles Schwab campus and The Domain, the Uptown ATX master plan features 3.2 million square feet of workspace, 2.9 mil...

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...