Connswater Community Greenway | Belfast

Anchor 4

Connswater Greenway Wayfinding

Client

East Belfast Partnership

Format

Urban / large

The Connswater Community Greenway was a £35 million investment in east Belfast that created a 9km linear park that follows the course of the Connswater, Knock and Loop Rivers.

As part of the project, the rivers will be cleaned and brought back to life. The Greenway will become a vibrant, attractive, safe and accessible park for leisure, recreation and community events. It will improve the quality of life for the 40,000 residents of east Belfast.

The greenway wayfinding system had to use the same structure as the Belfast Pedestrian Signage, but we adapted it by incorporating a distinctive rippled stone base panel.

The form of the panel was developed by running a 3d wave simulation, freezing and exporting the mesh, then printing a 3D maquette. Next, a to-scale model was created and used to form a mould for the reconstituted stone panels that the client is extremely happy with.

With the client – East Side Partnership - and stakeholders – local community groups and historical societies – we developed an interpretive strategy that identified 12 themes such as ecology, famous people, parks, built heritage and industrial development etc. These were used to link the various sections of the greenway.

Each sign was part of an overarching interpretive strategy that told the story of Belfast’s development as one travelled along the rivers banks. At the same time, each sign had also to function as a stand-alone, self-contained point of interpretation.