The role of open spaces and greenery to the appropriation of port zones: the case of fitness endeavors in the waterfront of Rio de Janeiro and Singapore

Abstract

Port areas appear to be purely economic zones where public life has been largely pushed back (Hackenberg, 2013). In many cases, the old ports were plagued with neglect, once the primary use as an operational docking is abandoned. But historically port activities - load and unloading - were part of a social identity, not differentiated from the urban public open spaces until a century ago, when city and port dynamics went on separate ways (Meyer, 1999). Port expansion at the cost of natural landscape also leaded to depriving space for the citizens. Within a contemporary vision, followed by successful examples of Rotterdam, London and Barcelona, to quote by a few, a deep and structural re-thinking pushed the areas back to a more optimistic and transformative prospective. These emblematic examples became a trigger for a series of public space projects along their docklands, which altogether revolutionize the city's connection to the waterfront, creating an attractive, multi-layered and multi-scale landscape.