Deveonport Waterfront Park

Devonport Waterfront Park forms part of the largest urban renewal project undertaken in regional Tasmania, an island of southern mainland Australia.

The Park has transformed the water’s edge into a place where people can now come together- for celebration, play, recreation, events, promenading, learning and contemplation.

Providing a much-needed connection between the city centre and Mersey River, the park contains community-focused activities, a nature-based playspace, an amphitheatre, a geological inspired mist feature, multi-use event spaces, northern Tasmanian horticultural  displays, a waterfront promenade and integrated places for sculptures and artwork

The park is based on the abstraction of three key characteristics of the place, its unique botany, its nautical location, and geological foundation. This park tells the story of the unique geology and associated landscapes between Cradle Mountain and Devonport. It speaks to the connection Tasmania and the north coast to America and Antarctica and Mainland Australia. The island’s landscape is significantly different to the rest of Australia due to its geological origins. By birth and nature it is more closely related to its “sister” continent of Antarctica than the “northern island” of the mainland.

Crucially, the park also restores Devonport’s lost connection to the Mersey River, which has been achieved by extending the city’s civic spine through a sequence of pedestrian links and activated public spaces.

While Devonport is a small regional city, the development of the Park has been utilised to increase and expand relationships with community and business via community consultation throughout development and the design of the Waterfront Park which has underlined these relationships.

Even with a complex delivery of the Park throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the project sought to include as much locally sourced material and labour possible and celebrates Tasmanian stone and North-western Tasmanian geology and flora.