Belvedere Riverfront Plaza

The Belvedere is the concrete terrace Louisville built over its riverfront in the 1970s, a raised deck between downtown and the Ohio River that gave the city a view and took away its connection to the water. Heatherwick Studio's redesign reworks the 5.5-acre plaza into a planted park, softening the hard deck into landscape and stitching the terrace back down to the waterfront and the street grid. Its two signature moves take their name from Kentucky's summer insect: the Firefly Pavilion, a sheltered gathering structure on the plaza, and the Firefly Path, an elevated walk that carries visitors across and above the site. The scheme is commissioned by the City of Louisville and is planned to rebuild the Belvedere as the city's central riverfront gathering place.