Brownfield/greenfield development

The population of Cape Town is rapidly expanding in an unstructured and sprawling manner. This is leading to severe problems with traffic congestion, pollution and social and physical segregation. The city is now looking to solve these issues through densification. The Two Rivers Urban Park is an industrial heritage site that is largely out of function. The site is situated near the city centre and would provide an opportunity for densification. However, the two rivers and the highways create physical barriers. Old industrial facilities such as a power plant and a wastewater treatment facility create further barriers to an integrated transformation of the site. On top of these physical barriers, the quality and safety of the river were also poor and needed to be addressed.

Witteveen+Bos designed an integrated strategy to develop an urban landscape incorporating the elements of connectivity, ecology and a high building density. Local and regional initiatives were integrated into the plan from the start, to ensure the strategy met stakeholder expectations and capacities. This co-operative planning process resulted in the development of a programme in which polluted sites and rivers were cleaned through phytoremediation, industrial heritage sites were redeveloped and repurposed and the liveliness of the area was guaranteed with an events programme.