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A new 'green heart' for Port Louis from Andy Fisher Workshop
The brief for the Neotown in Les Salines district, Port Louis Mauritius, offered a unique opportunity to create a new mix use landmark development for the port city. The proposed master plan covering an area of 26 hectares embraces this opportunity by reconnecting the city to the waterfront, creating a new focus for the city as well as strategically encouraging further development of Port Louis.
Andy Fisher workshop developed a concept to transform and integrate this previously neglected waterfront site into a 930,000 sq m development that incorporates a cruise terminal, tourist facilities, a marina, hotels, retail, commercial and residential precincts.
The concept for the master plan was inspired by its unique waterfront location. Drawing from the surrounding context, the concept strategy extends the urban fabric of key neighbourhood streets and sight alignments across the site, terminating in a series of public plazas along the waterfront. These plazas form active nodal points along the waterfront, activated by recreation and cultural activities along the key pedestrian promenade linking back to the CBD of Port Louis.
A new ‘green heart’ known as the Marine Park will be the new civic and cultural focus for the development and the city, providing a significant new public space and recreation destination for the community. This major linear park has been designed to reconnect the historic Robert Hart Gardens to the waterfront, with vibrant pedestrian friendly parkland planted with familiar indigenous species.
A series of streets and pedestrians links increases the permeability across the different precincts with connections to the park and waterfront. The use of local building materials in the architecture and landscape will further help tie this development to the local context. Central to master plan concept are environmental sustainable design initiatives which will be developed throughout both the landscape and architecture proposals.
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