Public space · Adaptive reuse

Yangpu Waterfront

A continuous public landscape reconnects Shanghai’s industrial riverfront through heritage reuse, ecological repair, and inclusive access.

Design visualization of a new public landscape passing through an industrial waterfront site — Industrial heritage becomes the armature for a connected public waterfront.

People gathering around an illuminated public bench on the Yangpu waterfront at dusk — Small civic rooms bring everyday occupation to the river edge.

Visitors walking beside water and restored industrial structures at sunset — A hydrophilic walkway reconnects the city with the Huangpu River.

Wetland planting and a pedestrian bridge in the restored waterfront landscape — Wetlands and rain gardens form a resilient edge.

Aerial plan showing the long Yangpu waterfront corridor and its industrial sites — The riverfront is understood as one continuous infrastructural landscape.

Yangpu waterfront master plan with landscape destinations and heritage elements — Master plan and sequence of public destinations.

Ecological process diagrams for the waterfront rain garden — Water balance, soil infiltration, and seasonal change inform the resilient landscape.

Industrial heritage inventory and adaptive-reuse strategy diagram — A value-based framework guides preservation, reuse, and transformation.

Multidimensional placemaking framework for industrial waterfront regeneration — The placemaking framework integrates access, ecology, heritage, and sociability.

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Project overview

Infrastructural Urbanism: Yangpu Waterfront

Shanghai’s Yangpu waterfront accumulated more than a century of manufacturing infrastructure, but fragmented property, flood-control structures, and abandoned industrial land separated the city from the Huangpu River. The project treats landscape as connective infrastructure: a continuous public realm able to carry movement, memory, ecology, and everyday life.

A limited-intervention strategy preserves significant structures, adapts ordinary industrial buildings to new uses, and transforms low-lying land into rain gardens and habitat. Floating walks bridge breaks in the shoreline while new civic spaces make the riverfront accessible without erasing the material identity of the working waterfront.

Year: 2019–2022
Location: Shanghai, China
Type: Public space · Adaptive reuse
Status: Completed
Project team: Yihao Wu (AISA) · Yinying Zhou (Urban Gene) · Rui Liu (ADRI-SCUT)
Contribution: Conceptual design and research in Tongji Architectural Design (GROUP) Co.
Recognition: ARCASIA Awards for Architecture

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