Aarhus Aboulevarden: Alney Island Precedent?

 When considering ideas and precedents for what could potentially be achieved on the Alney Island site for this year's design project, I thought back to my time in Aarhus, Denmark in 2023, and remembered a lively and active waterside part of the city (pictured). The Aboulevarden is a waterside part of the city, full of bars and restaurants in the city of Aarhus on the east of Denmark. There was seldom an eveneing when these bars and restaurants would be quiet, this place seemed a perfect spot to sit and congregate with friends while the sun sets! 

So I began thinking to myself this week, what if I use this as a precedent for Alney Island. The site is surrounded by a river and therefore why couldn't a water channel or smaller river be diverted through the site to create something like this? If flooding were considered and assessed with this development then this could be a very successful area for trading on the island, with its proximity to the already popular Gloucester Docks not being forgotten!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oak Sett Paving

Image
 This is an image of some Oak Sett paving I photographed on a visit to Blenheim Palace over the summer. There is also an image of a sketch I did to think about how the setts would be constructed and what a typical detail build up for them may be. This is a paving material which I hadn't seen many times before, and would consider using as a different material in my designs in the future where practical. The example I saw at Blenheim Palace had what appears to be a resin or tar pointing in the joints. These are laid wiht end grain visible as it is most durable. The sub base and layers of the construction of these setts would need to be at least slightly permeable as they would otherwise rot.
Read more

Alney Island: Site Visit

Image
 On Wednesday 1st October, I went to Alney Island for an initial site visit to take photographs, walk around, and take in what the site currently has to offer. The weather was fine, with the sun shining, and very little rain in recent weeks prior to this visit, meaning a supposedly very wet site in fact seemed very dry! Notable features on the site were a historic Telford bridge, longhorn cattle which are used to sustainably manage the site, strong existing vegetation cover, and a large road and railway running through the site which bring substantial noise with them. Notably, the footbridge to the Gloucester docks from Alney Island was very narrow, and the decomissioned sub-station brownfield sites could be in the way. There is also a very convenient mixed use cycle route through the centre of the site which is a historic railway route which connected to the lock and docks.
Read more