According to early Tahitian accounts these navigators saw the Pacific Ocean as
a vast watery plain, joined around the edges of the horizon by the layered spheres
of the sky, which encircled its clusters of known islands. It was also a marae,
a sacred place where people went to cleanse themselves in times of spiritual trouble.
(Salmond, 2003)
Literature dealing with port cities has typically defined the port in relation
to its landed boundaries rather than a space in its own right. Hoyle (1967), Hoyle
and Hilling (1970) and Rimmer's (1973) theoretical framework for port cities defines
the foreland and hinterland as generators of port development. Both elements conceptually
relate to the land at the extremities of the voyage. The sea space itself and
in particular the space of the anchorage or harbour is incidental. In contrast
Reeves, Broeze and McPherson endorse the importance of land–sea interface in their
study of the Asian port city:
Such port city studies must take their start at the places [my emphasis] where
goods and passengers are transferred between ship and shore-which is, after all,
the ultimate rationale of the port-and in consecutive stages include all aspects
of urban economic, social, cultural and spatial development that are generated,
dominated, or significantly influenced by the port. (Reeves et al, 1989)
Urban design literature dealing specifically with waterfronts has emerged in
the last quarter century as cities internationally have rediscovered sea adjacencies
in their post-industrial urban centres. Publications exploring the urban revistalisation
of waterfronts and the remaking of the public realm in these locations have focused
on the governance, planning and design challenges of the land-based development
of the city and the urban quarter (Breen and Rigby, 1994, 1996; Berens, 2004)
while other studies have documented the changes in port infrastructure (Meyer,
1999) to demonstrate a variety of generating conditions for port-city edge transformations
that have resulted in successful urban waterfront projects around the world.
Typologically port waterscapes such as canals and docks have often been identified
by urban theorists as elements of urban structure or enclosed public space in
water-based cites (Bacon, 1975, pp. 100–105; Braunfels, 1988, pp. 78–109). Kostof
(1992, pp. 218–219) describes the overlays of infrastructure, walkways, vegetation,
buildings and streets that combine to energise urban waterways from Amsterdam
to Delhi. Jacobs (1993, pp. 62–74) highlights on water light and movement as contributing
to vibrant liquid streetscapes such as the Grand Canal in Venice, and Blumenfeld
(in Spreiregen 1967, pp. 246–269) interrogates civic design qualities resulting
from the careful juxtaposition of an enclosed dock, an urban square and a town
hall complex in Hamburg's Inner Alster. These latter studies in particular point
to the importance of the water space itself as a public realm.
A definition of the public realm of the port city therefore needs to make reference
to spaces, functions, technologies and activities from both urban and maritime
traditions to properly encompass the complexity of this transitional zone. Bluespace
can thus be defined as place where:
- A physical space or social activity has an edge condition or adjacency that is
coastal
- The context is urban in character
These two fundamental characteristics of bluespace can be elaborated by four
further criteria to create a matrix of nine space types that can be ranked in
terms of:
- Being analogous to a maritime space or technology
- Being located along a land–sea continuum
- Can be described in terms of a clearly defined spatial or formal configuration
- Can be mapped on to a recognised urban space typology
The nine space types that emerge as a result of this analytical process are:
maritime highways, fleets at anchor, harbour arenas, beaches, piers and jetties,
containers, docks and canals, waterfront squares and beached vessels. In each
category, three examples of the space type are identified in the matrix. An historical
and geographical range is evident, with examples from Rio de Janeiro in the 18th
century to Dubai in the 21st century.
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