Photo: Roudaina Alkhani
Roudaina Alkhani has extensive experience in waterfront redevelopment and regeneration across various contexts. The collapse of traditional industrial and port systems around the 1960s has had multiple impacts, necessitating a new understanding of the role of ports, as well as opportunities and challenges facing cities. Key questions have emerged regarding how to support active ports and the port city economy while simultaneously redeveloping large-scale, outdated industrial and harbour sites that lie at the intersection of urban areas and their waterways. Given the vastness of harbourfront areas, complexities of finances and jurisdictions, and the wide-ranging economic, social, and spatial changes associated with them, the adaptation processes in many cities have taken decades. Consequently, waterfront redevelopment has become an exciting field for exploration and innovation in industrial port cities, particularly concerning strategies, planning approaches, administration, governance, and sustainability, which inspire urban planning as a whole. Roudaina has been actively involved in this ongoing debate both locally and globally. She had an extensive collaboration with the Worldwide Network of Port Cities (AIVP), contributing to influencing the debate globally. Her work include an influential PhD research at the Royal Danish Academy – School of Architecture, as well as publications, keynotes and conference papers and articles aimed at various audiences.
Affiliation
During her PhD work in Denmark. Roudaina was an affiliate of several highly esteemed institutions: She was a Guest Researcher at the Danish Building Research Institute, Department of Cities and Housing; an affiliate of Centre for Multidisciplinary Urban Studies and Centre for Planning at teh Danish Royal Academy – School of Architecture.
Roudaina’s research led to her appointment as a Member of he Scientific Committee of the Worldwide Network of Port Cities (Previously: Internatioanl Association Cities and Ports), and later to an Expert of the Worldwide Network of Port Cities.
PHD Research
Redevelopment and Urban Revitalization in the Changing Industrial Port City. The factors, aspects and values involved in the regeneration and planning of harborfront spaces.
Through her PhD research, 1997-2005 focusing on the North Western-European context, in particular Copenhagen as a major case study, Roudaina extensively researched changing redevelopment strategies and stakeholders’ positions under changing conditions in industrial port cities. She explored related outcomes in terms of benefit to diverse groups, the economy and the environment, and in terms of place quality and contribution to city revitalisation at multiple scales. Roudaina has a particular focus on the role of planning and urban design and the diversity of tools able to get development off the ground, including, planning, land, financial and governance/administrative strategies and their combination.
Roudaina has a passion for water corridors and their evolving role and significance within city restructuring and renewal processes and in industrial port cities’ spatial development under changing political, economic, cultural and governance conditions and innovation systems. Her integrated, systems-based approach to analysis and assessment, links various disciplines and underpinning theories, including planning and architecture. This comprehensive framework captures the diverse layers and factors that drive changes in cities, place quality and sustainability. It emphasises the role of power relations in the production of space through a strategic perspective, addressing shared interest, outcomes and how redevelopment accommodates community needs.
In addition to Copenhagen, Roudaina focused on Oslo, Gothenburg, Amsterdam and London. The research was also based on an extended interview enquiry with diverse stakeholders from the studied cities.
Publications
The Role of Port Heritage
The Role of the Port Patrimony in the Revalorization of Urban Space: its potentials, interpretations and evolution of harborfront strategies. The case of Copenhagen
12 – 13 June 2003, Lorient/France
Paper & Lecture: international conference: Know How to Manage Port-City Heritage. International Association Cities and Ports, French Ministry of Culture and Lorient City.
Redevelopment Strategies and Sustainable Development
‘Assessing Harbor-Front Redevelopment and Strategies in Terms of their Contribution to Sustainable Development and Challenges Confronted. The case of Copenhagen.’
October 2004, France
Published by International Association Cities and Ports, Le Havre, France.
Roudaina Alkhani advocated a Strategic Planning approach to drive development:
‘Why is it necessary with an overall plan for the Copenhagen harbour front?’
Article in Hovedstaden, 1998 Copenhagen, Denmark
Roudaina Alkhani’s article in Hovedstaden No.2 magazine of the Association for the Beautification of the Danish Capital in 1998 emphasised the importance of a strategic planning approach to the redevelopment of un-used harbour areas, prioritising initiatives, projects, partnerships and financing. She argued for a strategic, holistic approach comprising the harbourfront. She suggested this approach should replace the traditional ‘land-use piecemeal conversion’ approach
Roudaina was invited to write this article at the occasion of a top-level panel debate on the future of the Copenhagen harbour on the 5th of September 1998. Other invited contributors to Hovedstaden No.2 included the Minister of Traffic, the Port Director, The Head of Planning at the City of Copenhagen, and others.
Interview with Roudaina Alkhani
‘The life of the port is the life of the city – Havnens Liv er Byens Liv’,
Berlingske Tidene, newspaper, September 28-29 2009, Denmark
An exciting press interview with Roudaina Al Khani by the news paper Berlingske Tidene about her visions for the development of the port areas in Copenhagen and her PhD work. Roudaina emphasises the importance of holistic planning looking at the future benefits of these areas to their neighbourhoods and to the city in broad terms.
Research Summary published, EUKN
Waterfront Redevelopment and Urban Revitalization in the Changing Industrial Port Cities
17 March 2011, EU
About Roudaina Al Khani’s dissertation.
European Urban Knowledge Network EUKN.
Summary of PHD research published in EUKN – European Urban Knowledge Network
Active in the Debate
Roudaina Alkhani was active in the Danish debate, especially the redevelopment of port spaces and the opportunities they offer cities were much in focus across Denmark. She was commissioned by the former Minister of Interior to deliver keynotes at public debates in a number of Danish cities, including Svenborg and Odense. Roudaina was interviewed by researchers and the , e.g. Radio Odense and Radio Bremen.
Photo: Odense Harbour – This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.