Svitava Waterfront, Brno

Originally, the Svitava River meandered naturally in its natural bed. However, the development of local industry gradually compressed the river into an economical and rational shape that suited the operation of factories and small factories. The “canalization” of the river was followed by the “wiring” of significant electrical lines and other engineering networks or product pipelines along its route.

The image of the river as a natural phenomenon has been transformed into a sunken industrial canal. The historical shape of the meandering river cannot be restored for spatial reasons. We have been entrusted with the care of a strip of urban landscape surrounding the Svitava River. The fundamental task is the flood protection of specific parts of the city and its organic integration into current urban structures, which in this case are quite diverse. Currently, these structures are dominated by brownfields, which occasionally alternate with smaller units of residential development. Industrial areas from the 19th and 20th centuries with a great tradition are gradually being transformed into new multifunctional complexes with housing and services. In a smaller part of them, production is still taking place, but at the same time there is also the prospect of conversion into objects for other purposes.

The transformation of brownfields into new and vibrant parts of the city is a current trend and symptom of European urbanism. In our case, there is the phenomenon of the river, which creates a natural axis and connects individual transformation plans across city districts. From the above it follows that it is not just about flood control measures and its integration into the urban structure, but that new public spaces within the urban river landscape can catalyze the process, have a beneficial effect on the development of other connected localities and help successfully overcome problematic social processes and phenomena.