Borgos Pieper were invited to participate in a limited international competition to regenerate and revitalize a 63 hectare site composed of derelict rail yards, obsolete industrial sheds and fallow fields that lie within the ring road of the city adjacent to its port. The site in turn is also bisected by major infrastructure including a high speed rail line, national motorway and local distributor roads. The brief was to generate a community that will develop over a ten year time frame and unlock the dense grain of the city in order to provide an urban scale park, civic spaces and residences for 12,000 people along with the corresponding social infrastructure to create a new district.

The ecologically sensitive proposal liberates the ground plane to create a large park area while also reducing the intrusion of traffic and the rail line cutting the site in half. A dynamic pair of boulevards with retail, civic and landscape activities will link the new district to the adjacent communities. Buildings will comply with best practice in energy conservation and passive design while also offering a new silhouette to the city on its main approach road from the south.  The client, the regional bank development company, has retained the design for future implementation.