ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 describes the original methodological tool that the author has devised to integrate the analysis of the waterfront regeneration phenomenon with the representation of the waterfront’s spatial characteristics and the challenges to its prospect development, which eventually will suggest guidelines for a sustainable planning strategy. This is the Waterfront Design Matrix that is drawn from existing models and theories and adapted to the distinctive characteristics of small port towns, such as size/scale, spatial and social integration town-waterfront, resilient and territorial urban renewal impact.
The model is arranged around three distinctive Waterfront Qualities of Identity, Permeability and Dynamics, which are based on the interaction of their corresponding Waterfront Components of Cultural and Environmental Heritage, Urban and Natural Boundaries, Direct Access and Link Town-Waterfront.
Thus, the Waterfront Design Matrix facilitates the assessment of the waterfront and establishes whether it engages the environmental-ecological challenges and responds to the socio-economic expectations, and, even more importantly, determines whether waterfront regeneration interventions can responsibly balance the demand for new developments with landscape/seascape conservation.
Finally, the Waterfront Design Matrix provides the basis for the development of a best-practice model that makes use of waterfront renewal to promote environmental and socio-economic recovery that extends to the whole urban and inland areas.
The interest and validity of this model is tested across the book by demonstrating that this suggested form of sustainable waterfront design can activate the resilient and territorial renewal of the small port town, as the waterfront in this specific context, is a sensitive threshold where sea and land blend, urban and natural boundaries intersect, socio-economic networks and infrastructures interface.
