With coastal flood risk intensified by climate change, posing a serious risk to Granton Waterfront, we delivered flood risk and surface water management strategies for the site, protecting the local community, whilst enhancing the public realm.
Granton Waterfront has been identified as a regeneration priority, yet to date the realisation of development has been slow to come to fruition. In 2018, the City of Edinburgh Council took ownership of a significant proportion of the area, presenting the opportunity to deliver a coordinated mixed-use regeneration plan of Granton Waterfront.
Waterfront connection was central to the masterplan ethos so we developed a solution which avoided significant hard defences. Working with the City of Edinburgh Council and Collective Architecture/Architecture Design Scotland, we produced concept designs for a world-class coastal park along the frontage, which will create space for flood storage and utilise integrated landscape to dissipate wave action, protecting key transport links and proposed development.
This approach provides a dynamic, resilient landscape that enhances social and environmental value by promoting biodiversity and creating amenity space by allowing ten hectares of waterfront access for activities and education. This approach — informed by the needs of the local community — was extended to the SuDS strategy for the site with an emphasis placed on source control and high-quality, landscaped SuDS integrated into the street typology of the development.