Helsingborg is one of the last cities of northern Europe to transform its waterfront. This tardiness gives us the virtue of hindsight. We have seen the dockland developments of Europe look increasingly similar. Competition between cities has ironically only strengthened this trend. A step-change needs to occur with Helsingborg.
Like many of greater Helsingborg’s neighborhoods, the H+ site is inundated with industry and infrastructure, resulting in isolated, mono-programmatic islands. Many port cities have stagnated, unable to reinvent themselves, inhabiting the interesting ‘gray’ areas that constitute the transition between land and sea. The waterfront of Helsingborg will again become a place of exchange – culture and ideas – a new center.
Our proposal is a restitching of the waterfront deep into the existing urban fabric. Grafted over the entire length of the city, a boardwalk, adaptive in its form and spatially diverse.
