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What can waterfront regeneration do for Southeast Asian and Chinese cities?

Across the region, rivers, canals, lakes and coastlines are under increasing pressure from rapid urbanisation, heavy rainfall, rising temperatures and development demand.

But these same waterfronts also offer rare opportunities: space for water, space for nature, space to walk and cycle, and space to create new urban districts.

Five principles are shaping our approach:

-Give water room, and people access
-Turn the river into a pedestrian highway
-Create waterfront districts, not waterfront buildings
-Design different relationships with water
-Make water connect, not divide

Across our work in Asia, we have been testing how waterfronts can move beyond being city edges and become active structures for climate resilience, mobility, public life and urban growth.

Yantai Coastal Plaza

How can a waterfront become more than a destination?

The Yantai Coastal Plaza reimagines the city's waterfront as a shared public space where urban life, landscape, and the coastline come together.

Rather than defining the site as a single-function square or park, the proposal creates a layered public realm that responds to the different ways people experience the waterfront. Landscape, open space, and everyday activity are integrated to form a place that supports gathering, recreation, and civic life throughout the year.

Drawing inspiration from Yantai's coastal identity, natural elements become the foundation of the design, shaping a public space that is both distinctive and connected to its surroundings.

The result is a waterfront that functions as an urban living room where city and sea meet through public life.

Public space for everyday life.

Landscape shaped by place.