water Article Planning the Urban Waterfront Transformation, from Infrastructures to Public Space Design in a Sea-Level Rise Scenario: The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Case Francesca Dal Cin 1,* , Fransje Hooimeijer 2 and Maria Matos Silva 3 1 Formaurbis LAB, CIAUD—Research Centre of Architecture Urbanism and Design, Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, 1349-063 Lisboa, Portugal 2 Department Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands;
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[email protected] Abstract: Future sea-level rises on the urban waterfront of coastal and riverbanks cities will not be uniform. The impact of floods is exacerbated by population density in nearshore urban areas, and combined with land conversion and urbanization, the vulnerability of coastal towns and pub- lic spaces in particular is significantly increased. The empirical analysis of a selected number of waterfront projects, namely the winners of the Mies Van Der Rohe Prize, highlighted the different morphological characteristics of public spaces, in relation to the approximation to the water body: near the shoreline, in and on water. The critical reading of selected architectures related to water is open to multiple insights, allowing to shift the design attention from the building to the public Citation: Dal Cin, F.; Hooimeijer, F.; space on the waterfronts. The survey makes it possible to delineate contemporary features and lay Matos Silva, M. Planning the Urban the framework for urban development in coastal or riverside areas.