Ports without Borders // A changing transitional landscape

Many precedent urban projects relish particular challenges where society is predicted to progress through change; inevitable changes to urban and natural landscapes, defined by growing populations and limits in space for further development. They are challenges beyond cosmetic and systemic issues. Commercial and industrial use of land has left a damaging legacy on the ecologies, and surrounding areas, particularly environmental issues. These effects continue to encroach on the natural landscape. They result from urban pressure, supporting the needs of society, and impact on the environment.

The sole purpose of industrial sites was to serve and satisfy different urban uses. They materialised only when there is a need for its use. When not needed, they become a forgotten sites. Post-industrial landscapes evolved, are a direct result of negligence, overactive past; and are scars left on the urban environment in the form of under utilised industrial or commercial sites from repeated encroachment. Social and economic trends influence the global industrial use of the land, and thus, post-industrial landscapes become an abandoned place that is disused and deserted; evolved derelict brownfield site. This creates a transition from an industrial to post-industrial site which results in a long term adverse effect on the natural and urban environment, leaving concerns on the environmental and urban surfaces as years pass being an unused and abandoned site.

The investigation examines methods of how to conceptually address a site, specifically Wellington’s industrial waterfront, to generate a transitional shift from industrial to potentially a post-industrial; and how the changes slowly readapt to the urban civic environment and the wider community. Creating an ecologically conscious space, incorporating the narrative of the site’s industrial origin, and finding a balance between functional public space and operational port.

This thesis unravels the imminent change within landscapes, through the focus on ecological regeneration, the metaphorical narrative of the site’s industrial origin, and using landscape tools to improve the site conditions. It will explore the opportunities and benefits of using post-industrial landscape as an addition to our green infrastructure. This study a method of integrating land use that does not to set up conflicting implications for the current industrial use of a site. This will create a socially interactive space, reconnect to the harbour, recover the ecologies, and promote the reuse of brownfield environmentally.