Talk: Reclaiming the City’s riverside with a waterfront renaissance

The four new riverside public spaces built above the Thames Tideway Tunnel in central London will be the subject of a City Architecture Forum talk hosted by HawkinsBrown who oversaw the projects, now open and already enhancing London’s relationship with its river.

A focus will be Bazalgette Embankment in the City, at 1.5 acres the largest of the four and the most substantial new riverside space in central London for a century. Lying next to Blackfriars Bridge, it highlights how further public realm improvements might bring new life to the City’s stretch of riverside.

The talk will also look at Tyburn Quay - a terraced foreshore along Victoria Embankment; Chelsea Quay - near Royal Hospital Chelsea and Chelsea Physic Garden; and Effra Quay and the Isle of Effra - two new destinations on Albert Embankment that expand the Thames Path with terraces of intertidal planting.

The event will explore how infrastructure projects can deliver meaningful civic space, examine the design thinking and landscape strategies supporting ecology, together with the art interventions that have shaped these new riverfront places.

Our speakers and hosts will be HB co-founder Roger Hawkins and project architect Fiona Stewart, at their Clerkenwell studio at 30 Clerkenwell Road London EC1M 5PG, 6.30pm Thursday 30 April.

The event continues our programme of discussions bringing together the architects, designers, engineers and civic leaders shaping the City of London’s built environment.