Waterfronts
Atkins has made a speciality for many years of transforming waterside places throughout the world.
Waterfronts are some of our greatest hidden assets. Run down, industrialised, contaminated and severed from local communities by roads, railways and development, they have suffered decades of neglect. Now, however, the world has rediscovered their residential, economic and recreation potential.
Communities of all kinds, from great cities to rural villages are reconnecting with coasts, ports and harbours, lakes, rivers and canals to make the most of the natural and built heritage of their waterside environment, creating places for people to live, work and play.
Atkins’ work ranges from the major redevelopment of waterside brownfield sites and resort development, through strategies for river corridors and coastal towns, to the improvement or creation of parks and spaces for recreation and for wildlife:
- we are working on a range of major waterfront regeneration projects including Almada Docks in Lisbon, Victoria Docks in Cape Town, Bay Pointe in Cardiff and the Greenwich Peninsula in London
- we are developing major new resorts such as Durrat Island in Bahrain and Jakarta Waterfront in Indonesia
- we devise strategies for coastal regions from China, to Estonia to Brazil, balancing environmental issues with development; for river corridors ranging from the Thames Strategy Kew to Chelsea to the Rio Leça in Portugal; and far reaching urban design frameworks for riverside cities such as Londonderry, Northern Ireland
- we have produced numerous masterplans and strategies designed to revitalise seaside towns in the UK such as Lytham Quays, Penzance, Bridlington and Ryde on the Isle of Wight
- we also specialise in waterfront spaces, both formal public realm improvements and more informal pathways and cycleways - our public realm improvements for Hornsea Promenade and Temple Quay in Bristol, both won awards and the waterfront recreation area at Strood, Rochester in Kent, is very popular with local residents.
Whatever the type, size or location of the project, our approach is always to respond to the quintessential sense of place making the most of natural and built heritage characteristics. Our aim is to revitalise, redefine perceptions and underpin long-term economic development and viability. Imaginative sustainable design is at the heart of our work.
Our multi-discipline teams are drawn from a wide range of specialist across our Group in response to the specific requirements of each individual project. They include:
- landscape and urban design
- heritage and archaeology
- ecology
- climate change
- water engineers specialising in flood risk, coasts and rivers
- land use and masterplanning
- transport planning and traffic engineering
- economics and funding
- sustainability and environmental impact assessment
- community communication and involvement
- building design
- site infrastructure engineering
- cost consultants.