¹The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB, UK. E-mail: q.stevens@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract

Research on contemporary urban waterfronts rarely looks below the surface to question the importance, role and condition of water in these settings, or the physical experiences these landscapes enable. Academics are often guilty of the same distant, spectacularised viewpoint for which they criticise waterfronts' designers and clients. This paper examines public perceptions and uses of urban waterfront leisure landscapes, focusing on the careful shaping of the land/water interface. It explores how designers control geographic, climatological, hydrological and urbanistic dimensions of the waterscape to create idealised urban settings that optimise consumptive leisure and place promotion. The international case studies include artificial beaches, lagoons, rivers and indoor waterscapes. The analysis foregrounds four aspects of the artificiality of urban waterfronts: taming the landscape to provide comfort and safety; augmenting the landscape to provide varied sensory stimulation; carefully positioning the waterfront within a wider climatic, thematic and functional context; and managing the temporal dimension of visitor experience.