River City Randers - City to the Water (Development Plan). C.F. Møller. Photo: Erik Nord

River City Randers - City to the Water (Development Plan)

The development plan "Our River City" adapts the future of Randers to the environment, connects the city with the water and develops the attractive areas between the medieval city centre, the river Gudenå and Randers Fjord into a unique city borne of the river.
 River City Randers - City to the Water (Development Plan). C.F. Møller
Facts

Client

Randers Kommune and Realdania

Address

Randers, Denmark

Size

59 ha

Year

2019-2021

Competition

1st Prize in competition. 2019

Client consultant

Pluss Leadership

Engineering

Niras

Architect

C.F. Møller Architects

Landscape

C.F. Møller Architects

Collaborators, other

Cushman & Wakefield | RED and Urgent.Agency

Awards
  • 1st Prize in competition. 2019

The future of Randers interacts much more closely with the river - its natural habitat and its recreational opportunities. The development of the city towards the Gudenå with a focus on sustainable nature and climate adaptation makes Randers an innovative and future-proof city.

The plan creates two different ‘blue’ spaces that characterise and activate a number of new urban neighbourhoods - a strong natural space along the river Gudenå and ‘urban water space’ around the northern harbour basin, which can serve as a recreational basin and rainwater reservoir through a sluice. With these two distinctive water spaces, the historic connection to the Gudenå is rediscovered with new natural and cultural experiences in the middle of the city.

A strategy that strengthens the city

It has been underlined that the project's vision is financially feasible and will be instrumental in strengthening the city - both for Randers' own citizens and for newcomers.

Randers' south and north sides are linked across the Gudenå river by creating attractive connections for the benefit of cyclists and pedestrians. The infrastructure is being improved with good pathway connections, cycle routes and new urban spaces. The connections plant the seed for a number of new urban neighbourhoods, which take on their character and give something very special to the city, for example through interaction with the former industrial buildings and urban nature. Together they form a diverse yet coherent and more vibrant city.

A natural presence

The project creates more natural space and a strengthened biodiversity in Randers by freeing up large areas along the Gudenå for future urban development, so as to protect the nature that already exists and at the same time create new natural areas with habitats for animals and plants. Both wild nature, where people are visitors, and nature where citizens can live their everyday lives.

The plan's environmental strategy gives priority to those places along the water's edge where investment in high-water protection provides the greatest added value for city life and the new development areas. Historical and cultural focal points along the water's edge will be upgraded to new attractive city and water areas that celebrate the pulse of the city, the city's industrial history and the meeting of water and nature. In this way, the environmental solutions in the proposal are used as an innovative way of bringing more nature into Randers, unifying the life of the city and creating renewed physical and psychological coherence between the two banks of the Gudenå river.

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