IN DETAIL: URBAN DEVELOPMENT
World-Class Waterfront The recent announcement about the Central Harbourfront tender now being a two-stage process is good news. But will dividing the site into distinct development phases make it harder to deliver a world class urban destination? Benoy and Buro Happold, two of the original champions behind ideas for the site, discuss the opportunities, merits, and challenges in crafting a ‘world’s best’ city waterfront. – By Simon Bee
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or a while now many interested voices have been pushing for Hong Kong’s Central Waterfront to be redeveloped under a new system that considers design, creativity and placemaking as equal partners to the old-style financial bid. This is happening in many cities around the world that are keen to see the value of ‘world’s best’ design practice brought to bear for the good of the population. It is very good news, therefore, that the Hong Kong government recently announced that Site 3, as it is called, will be the subject of a two-envelope bidding process. Urban waterfront opportunities are rarely as significant as Site 3 in Central, and few sites around the world are more instantly recognisable – this place deserves the best. It will be interesting to see exactly what format of tender Hong Kong will adopt for the site, and how influential design, as a defining characteristic, will be. A traditional two-envelope bid process elevates design quality in the selection criteria to a point where unless a bid achieves a certain level of quality, through submitted design proposals, it cannot advance to the financial bid stage. And
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The potential for human scale, walkable streetscapes linking the heart of Central to the water’s edge.