Transforming Urban Spaces: Reintegrating Infrastructure Through Thoughtful Design

Large-scale infrastructure projects often aim to connect distant locations within urban areas, facilitating quicker transportation, logistics, and commercial activities along their routes. However, while these projects link distant destinations, their substantial physical presence can significantly affect local communities. This may result in the disconnection and disengagement of previously connected neighborhoods, the disruption of public spaces, and generally negative outdoor experiences caused by noise, pollution, and lack of attention and maintenance to these infrastructures.

Nevertheless, several successful built environment projects have re-integrated contentious infrastructure into the community through thoughtful design of outdoor spaces, with Paris’ Coulée verte René-Dumont being one of the first examples and New York’s High Line being one of the most prominent examples. The High Line demonstrates how well-conceived outdoor projects can address the alienation caused by extensive infrastructure, foster community reconnection, serve as cultural and economic hubs, and even spur further economic redevelopment, as in Hudson Yards.

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These redesigned outdoor spaces adjacent to infrastructures can rejuvenate public areas by fostering social engagement and redefining civic interaction. They transform previously fragmented urban spaces—divided by individual buildings—into cohesive public realms. Some projects incorporate active uses such as skateparks and exercise areas, while others focus on nurturing young energy through facilities like nursery schools. Additionally, specific projects engage with concepts of time and memory, utilizing public spaces to reveal and celebrate the community’s historical legacy. Others aim to restore access to areas previously obstructed by infrastructure, reinstating connections that were once natural to the community.

Elevated Connections

Some projects are designed with the ambition of traversing large-scale infrastructure as a means to re-establish both physical and social connections, offering residents new experiences while mitigating the impact of these structures. For instance, the Grand Avenue Park Bridge spans vast distances, bridging a five-lane highway and train tracks, adapting to elevation changes, and creating new vantage points for residents to engage with the waterfront, all while carrying essential electrical conduit lines. These “bridges” or “elevated walkways” do more than connect—they integrate moments of pause and activity into the journey. In P.E.M. Vitre, for example, the project bridges multiple train tracks. It creates dead ends and an amphitheater, spaces that encourage pauses, engagement with the infrastructure by overlooking the tracks, and social activities. These outdoor environments promote social interaction, foster renewed civic engagement, and connect critical destinations. Such structures offer residents a new perspective on the city, elevating them above other infrastructural elements and bringing them closer to the built and natural environments.

Grand Avenue Park Bridge / LMN Architects

The Bowline Park / rankinfraser landscape architecture

P.E.M. Vitré / TETRARC Architectes

Hop Park, Green Pop-up Hop into the Greeniverse / Shma Company Limited

Reimagining Disused Infrastructure

Abandoned infrastructural projects offer valuable opportunities for architects, designers, and planners to collaborate in revitalizing communities. These outdated structures, which often occupy significant space and act as physical barriers within cities, are no longer productive and can be difficult to remove. Despite these challenges, they hold historical significance and represent a tangible connection to the city’s past. Consequently, these neglected infrastructures present unique design opportunities, allowing professionals to engage in creative revitalization, transforming what was once left behind into elements that enhance and improve the urban environment.

Shanghai’s New Horizon High Land Park exemplifies this approach by stitching together a community separated initially by train tracks, recreating a fluid urban fabric and landscape. This project promotes the growth of green spaces, encourages the development of exercise areas, and provides spaces that foster incidental social interaction. Such initiatives turn abandoned areas into catalysts for urban redevelopment and community engagement, each with its distinct focus. While New York’s High Line emphasizes community revitalization and property redevelopment, other projects may prioritize community engagement and connection or, like Hangzhou’s Xiaohe Park, focus on integrating cultural facilities into the abandoned site to promote cultural development.

Hangzhou Xiaohe Park / Kengo Kuma & Associates

Shanghai’s New Horizon High Land Park & Civic Center / URBAN ARCHITECTURE

Putuo Caoyang Centennial Park / Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects

Taichung Green Corridor / Mecanoo

Reclaiming Urban Gaps: Underbridge Activations

Beneath elevated bridges or train tracks, one often encounters neglected spaces marked by dirt, trash, and a lack of sunlight. In more severe cases, these areas can become hotspots for crime. Such spaces typically present significant challenges for urban utilization, often complicated by issues related to air rights and zoning restrictions. However, these underutilized “negative spaces” within the city offer unique opportunities for architectural interventions that can transform the built environment and bring about positive change. What are some strategies to improve spaces beneath elevated infrastructures?

Contrary to typical expectations, various projects have successfully integrated these undervalued outdoor environments creatively, introducing nursery facilities, sports grounds for community engagement, and even temporary, lightweight constructions featuring light-art installations that revitalize public spaces. These initiatives demonstrate the potential to reimagine and repurpose these challenging urban areas, transforming them into valuable outdoor experiences for city residents.

Nursery School Under Elevated Railway in Machiya / Takahiro Akiyama Architects + Atelier HMC

Skatepark Under Fabiani Bridge / Scapelab

Arena Under Bridge / Atelier XÜK

Tracks of Memories

Are there alternative methods for celebrating and revitalizing infrastructural sites? In addition to focusing on social, cultural, and community aspects, some outdoor infrastructure projects engage with the concept of time by invoking the historical memories of the site. This approach centers on designing spaces that honor and rejuvenate public areas by reflecting on their past significance. Instead of prioritizing community interaction, these projects emphasize collective historical experiences. Various design interventions contribute to this aim: some preserve historical traces and imprints, while others create elevated pathways that evoke a sense of timelessness. Through these elements, memories and historical traces are integrated into the experience of walking through these spaces, thereby creating connections between past and present.

Park of Memories Aš / SOA Architekti + Ateliér KONCEPT

Landscape Of Traces / XRANGE Architects

Memory of the Land / NODE Architecture & Urbanism

This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Outdoors and the Built Environment. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.