Zaha Hadid Architects carves out riverside promenade and flood barrier for Hamburg
![Zaha Hadid architects riverside promenade in Hamburg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/USWc3cz96QM5y2qvBsAh37-415-80.jpg)
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) is behind an upgrade of the Elbe River promenade and flood barrier at Niederhafen in Hamburg. The design combines much-needed modernisation and reinforcement of the city’s flood protection system with social space for the city, and new urban connections between different neighbourhoods.
Stretching between St. Pauli Landungsbrücken and Baumwall at Niederhafen, the walkway clad in dark, anthracite-coloured granite ebbs and flows, yet never drifts below 10m in width ensuring plenty of space for all types of activity from jogging, performing or setting up food stalls.
Now full of life, it’s easy to forget that the first aim of the promenade is its role as a flood barrier. Hamburg suffered dramatic storm surge floods in 1962 that took the lives of 315 people as well as destroying the homes of 60,000 residents. In response to this, flood barriers reaching 7.2m above sea level were built. However, in 2006 the city realised that this aging structure was overburdened and needed significant reinforcement, and launched a competition.
The new design was determined by modern analysis of Hamburg’s flooding characteristics done with hydrology and computer simulations providing much better accuracy. Carefully engineered to protect the city it rises 8.6m above sea level in the eastern section, it rises at 8.9m in the western section to protect the city from winter storm surges and extreme high tides.
Precise engineering is at the barriers core, yet the architects playfully formed the promenade around its key function, scooping out and adding where they could to create a dynamic riverside experience. At one point, a three-storey restaurant has been carved out, with a cantilevering top floor that treats diners to a panoramic River Elbe experience.
The promenade swells to the west looking downstream to the port, and compresses to the east, leading visitors to the water’s edge – all the while oscillating as you follow it, varying in width to open up wide amphitheatre-style steps in light grey granite both sides of the route. Walking along the street the urban journey is amplified by the new promenade; a cycle path runs parallel, the cut-outs from the steps reveal glimpses of the masts and superstructures of ships on the river, and space for shops and public utilities make sure no useful urban space is wasted.
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
A guide to Zaha Hadid: from architecture to making 'a big hole' in Wallpaper*
Dame Zaha Hadid was a global, Pritzker Prize-winning architect and a force of nature; in this ultimate guide to her work, we celebrate her life, career and legacy
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Reethaus is a performance space conceived as ‘a place for radical presence’ in Berlin
Reethaus, a newly opened cultural centre in Berlin, kick-starts a fresh era for the city’s growing creative neighbourhood of Flussbad
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Duplex brings two houses together as a single, raw, theatrical home in Leipzig
Duplex by Atelier ST is a raw and textured family home born of the transformation of two smaller residential buildings in Leipzig, Germany
By Ellen Himelfarb Published
-
Berlin's Atelier Gardens gets bright yellow focal point within MVRDV masterplan
The bright yellow HAUS 1 becomes a key addition to Atelier Gardens in Berlin, part of an ever-evolving, sustainable masterplan by MVRDV
By Harriet Thorpe Published
-
Bike-tyre maker Schwalbe’s HQ embraces sustainability through design
The new Schwalbe office building in Germany, featuring interiors designed by Archiproba Studios, champions contemporary sustainable architecture
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
This Berlin house balances romance and strength in a scenic plot
A Berlin house transformed by O'Sullivan Skoufoglou is both romantic and protective
By Harriet Thorpe Published
-
KHBT Studio crafts German suburban home overlooking a nature reserve
House ZdM9 is a new German suburban home for a family, set on a spectacular site close to Frankfurt and the River Main
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
A ‘contemporary palazzo’ by David Chipperfield and Studio Mark Randel rises in Munich
‘Contemporary palazzo’ housing project in Munich is designed by David Chipperfield and Studio Mark Randel
By Ellen Himelfarb Published