SCARBOROUGH FORESHORE REDEVELOPMENT_

The transformation of the beach front public domain creates several new precincts, including the centrepiece of the redevelopment – Scarborough Square – surrounded by cafés, restaurants and shops. A sloping hill with views of the ocean forms the new Sunset Hill, new promenades and nature-based activity spaces, adjacent to the youth and community recreation areas, which includes skate, BMX, rock climbing/bouldering, and events and performance space.  Reclaiming the street and transforming it from a barrier to the foreshore to a human and habitat prioritised central community space. Moving vehicles and carparking to the periphery to create space for canopy trees, spaces for central events and refuge.

Configuring the foreshore in such a way it can accommodate a significant increase in visitation supports local retail and food businesses, whilst ensuring it is not one large, exposed and overtly engineered environment.  A series of active programs are woven together by bands of pedestrian zones, diverging and compressing along its length to offer a range of scales for refuge and socialising. These are places of refuge from the elements; areas protected from the off shore winds and the respite from the sun. Significant stands of Norfolk Island Pines spread over top seating terraces central to the precinct.   The foreshore is made up of many discoverable spaces where movement along the foreshore is not rigid and linear but instead fluid and inviting. No one vantage spells out the journey ahead with moments of surprise and intrigue. It is not the wave that is important but the relationships it creates between layers of programs, areas of planting, foreshore habitat and many various vantage points. The terracing is not prescriptive in use. It is both a place to occupy and place to perform for markets and events.