In the second of our three-part series on Cork's Marina Park, Jackie De Burca sits down again with Patrick McCabe of Redscape and Rani Izhar of Okra Landscape Architects to go underneath the park, into the philosophy that shapes the whole thing. Patrick calls it living with water. Rani has it at the top of Okra's three strategic themes. For both of them, it starts with the same instinct — one Patrick first developed in his years training and working in the Netherlands.

If you haven't heard it yet, we'd recommend starting with Episode 1 — Building Ireland's First Water Park, which walks through the vision behind Marina Park, its 15-year making, and the heritage its designers pulled out of the undergrowth.

For most of the last century, Irish cities have treated water as a hazard. Walls have gone up around rivers. Smaller streams have been piped over, built across, or quietly forgotten. Marina Park is one attempt to remember another way — water as a quality to be designed with, not a threat to be walled out. This episode is about what that philosophy actually looks like in practice.

Patrick walks through his Dutch design education and the Rivers 2040 study, and makes the case for small urban rivers as regional green corridors rather than service lanes behind the city. Rani introduces Okra's three strategic themes — living with water, healthy urban living, rediscovering landscapes — and then digs into the mechanism of the sponge park itself: a hidden valve, hours of held stormwater, and how the river becomes part of the park's identity rather than something defended against.

The second half of the episode travels further afield. Patrick unpacks the Dutch design culture that opens projects with the question what amazing thing can we do here? and contrasts it with Ireland's shift from positive relationship to concrete walls. Rani introduces Katwijk — a Dutch coastal town that turned sea defence into a public park visited from all around the world. And both end on the two-way traffic of ideas between Ireland and the Netherlands, including the possibility of floating houses on Cork's docklands.

In the third and final episode, we ask what Marina Park has catalysed since it opened — biodiversity, community, and Cork's wider future.

00:00Intro — a different way to think about water01:38Patrick McCabe on his Dutch training and Rivers 2040 — water as a quality, not a problem02:15Small rivers at the back of Irish cities — Limerick, Dublin, the Dodder, the Santry03:44Rani Izhar on Okra's three strategic themes — living with water, healthy urban living, rediscovering landscapes05:24The sponge park — a hidden valve and six hours of held storm water07:15Patrick on Dutch design culture — "What amazing thing can we do here?"09:00Patrick on Ireland's water history — from trade asset to concrete walls10:20Rani on the integral approach — overlaying green and blue networks11:59Katwijk — a Dutch coastal town that turned sea defence into a park13:25Could floating houses sit on Cork's docklands?14:37Cork and Utrecht — two medium-sized water cities, ideas travelling both ways15:25Outro — what's coming in Episode 3

Landscape architect · Founder, Redscape

Irish-born, Netherlands-based, Patrick trained at University College Dublin and then took a design masters in the Netherlands. He's the founder and director of Redscape, working across regional-scale planning, parks, heritage and water management between Ireland and the...