The Extraordinary potential of Rivers for Urban Renewal: Exploiting and transforming the Flow.

21/05/2026

An Urban Design Group presentation
00:00:00 – Introduction by Hannah Smart, Chair of the Urban Design Group.
00:01:14 – Laurence Pattacini: Remembering Nigel Dunnet.
00:04:12 – Riversides & urban renewal
00:04:37 – Rivers and cities. Assets and threats.
00:07:27 – Embracing ‘threats’
00:09:05 – Patrick Geddes / CIAM
00:10:03 – Historic precedents
00:11:05 – Strategic locations
00:12:17 – A river city over time
00:12:59 – Considering the ‘river space’ and urban space together
00:14:59 – Understanding and interpreting the context of riparian locations
00:18:52 – Rivers worldwide
00:19:38 – Should rivers have legal rights?
00:20:43 – The Mississippi. Evolving through time
00:22:01 – Holland. Working with rivers
00:24:14 – Abercrombie / Sheffield
00:26:19 – Key principles / Long term visions
00:28:03 – Integrating rivers and urban form
00:31:39 – Paris. Reclaiming a riverside.
00:40:46 – A summary illustration
00:43:10 – References
00:43:12 – Discussion
Laurence Pattacini presents research on urban rivers and shares insights and guidance for urban planning and design.
This highlights the potential benefits and affordance of urban rivers and their adjacent urban floodplain to create better places to live. Innovative approaches are required to ensure resilience and adaptability to respond to the effects of climate change. The focus is on former industrial areas in riverside locations because these sites provide ideal test beds to explore new urban strategies. On one hand they provide opportunities for city densifica-tion, but they are also particularly vulnerable to the impact of the climate crisis with increased risks of flood disasters. The study draws on previous publications concerned with the unique characteristics of riverside urbanity and the potential of riverside sites to pro-pose a more sustainable living environment and reconnect urban dwellers with nature (Pattacini 2021b).
© Urban Design Group
Laurence Pattacini is a senior University Teacher in the School of Architecture and Land-scape at the University of Sheffield. She qualified as an architect in Versailles and completed her masters in urban design at Oxford Brookes University. She has worked in several European countries and has extensive experience in landscape architecture practice. She has been teaching for the past twenty years and has been involved in several research projects in the UK. Her main research interests lie in sustainable urban environments and the role of the spaces between buildings to mitigate the impact of climate change. Her publications are concerned with a range of issues related to landscape, including urban forms and riverside urbanity.

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