ISSUE 1 | VOLUME 5 | MARCH 2011

A nation’s memoriesdeserve a significant urban space

Graduate perspectivesurban design from a new angle

Cycling by design:urban form arrives on two wheels

10

02CHRISTCHURCH’S FUTURE

After the big quakes, our

second-biggest city’s future is

under review

03WHAT TO DO ABOUT CITIES?

Our North American

correspondent, Keith Hall, looks

at Columbia, past and present

04GIVING LIFE TO MEMORY

Stephen Olsen reports on a

project at Auckland’s War

Memorial Museum

10SMALL TOWNS, TAKE HEART

Small-town New Zealand is

reasserting itself, stepping out of

the cities’ shadows

13GRADUATE PERSPECTIVES

Three students of urban design

present their master planning

exercises on ‘live’ sites in Auckland

16THE SOCIAL DIMENSION

How to get social wellbeing into

planning and decision-making

18LOOKING AT SMALL TOWNS

David Pronger writes of cream

buns, entrepreneurs and modest

urbanity

21CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS

Our legal expert monitors

progress by DBH on the CC Act

March 2011 I S S U E H I G H L I G H T S

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18

04

13

The plan is to look for the best way forward in

the rebuilding of Christchurch, following the

devastating earthquake of February 22.

Warren and Mahoney director Peter

Marshall, from the firm’s Christchurch office,

says while the plan is at a preliminary stage,

the aim has been formed out of a sense of

responsibility to the city.

“We were founded in Christchurch in 1955 by

Sir Miles Warren and in many ways

Christchurch’s post-war building story is also our

story. Its modern heritage is also our heritage.

“From this shared history we feel a profound

sense of commitment to the city. Clearly

though, a careful and collective response is

required, and that’s why we have partnered

with other experts who also care deeply about

rebuilding our city,” Mr Marshall says.

Designers, planners look to shape Christchurch’s futureNational architectural practice Warren and Mahoney has set up a group of leading New Zealand urban planning, design and property services experts.

Initial members of the group are:

Warren and Mahoney – architecture and

interior design

Boffa Miskell – environmental planning and

urban design

Holmes Consulting Group – structural and

civil engineering

Colliers International – commercial leasing

and sales services

Wareham Cameron + Co. – tenant advisory

services

RCP – project management.

Don Miskell, managing director of Boffa

Miskell, says the formation of the group was a

logical response from the local planning and

design community.

“Civic leaders and government officials are

rightly focused on the immediate rescue and

recovery mission.

“Forming the group and turning our minds

to seeking integrated solutions by combining

visionary thinking with a depth and breadth of

development experience is one way that the

interdisciplinary members thought we could

contribute to the rebuilding of Christchurch,”

he says.

As an initial outcome, the group will develop

a set of key design principles and long term

development scenarios for discussion with

Christchurch stakeholders.

Mr Marshall says the group will seek to work

closely with Christchurch City Council – as well

as central government – to ensure a

co-ordinated approach is taken, and the group

will recruit other members as its role evolves.

engineers • surveyors • plannersPhone : +64 7 378 6405 Email : info@cheal.co.nz

www.cheal.co.nz

nz planning institute project award 2008 nz institute of surveyors gold award of excellence 2009 signatories to the urban design protocol

CHEAL – helping to shape the future

engineers • surveyors • plannersPhone : +64 7 378 6405 Email : info@cheal.co.nz

www.cheal.co.nz

nz planning institute project award 2008 nz institute of surveyors gold award of excellence 2009 signatories to the urban design protocol

CHEAL – helping to shape the future

2 URBAN MARCH 2011

A 1993 New York Times article ranked Bogota

fourth in Latin America and among the world’s

worst twenty cities for air pollution. The Vice

President of Planning of the Bogota Chamber

of Commerce said the city was becoming as

‘unmanageable’ as its larger peers, México

City and Saõ Paulo.1

Instead of continuing along its seemingly

predetermined path, the city’s politicians and

planners charted a new course from the early

1990s. They began tackling the city’s

problems from the high crime rates and the

deteriorating environment – with an

overarching goal of creating a liveable city

where the needs of its citizens were prioritised

first.

The city invested in projects and

programmes to benefit its citizens in direct

ways: parks and bikeways to provide

recreation and encourage healthy activity, a

better public transit system to link people to

jobs quickly and efficiently, and land use

plans and development strategies designed to

create a more attractive, liveable and humane

city. In the process, the city may have

undertaken strategies that ‘accidentally’

supported a more robust economy in the city.

Less than two decades later, Bogota is a

much safer and, by some measures, a less

polluted city. Bogota is more than safe; the

city cut its homicide rate by nearly a third – to

a level less than that of Washington, DC.

Although the city still struggles with air

pollution, Bogota’s planning and

environmental strategies have produced

positive results.2 Nonetheless, a more

prosperous Bogota has seen the number of

cars in the city triple from the early 90s, while

population grew by 62 per cent in just two

decades.3 In spite of its growth and

prosperity, only one private car is registered

for every seven residents, a low rate of car

ownership in comparison to other large cities

in Latin America.4 Nonetheless, the city’s

autopistas (motorways) are perpetually

clogged with traffic, and the situation

promises only to get worse.

Among the most innovative of its

transportation and air quality solutions has

been TransMilenio, the city’s bus rapid transit

(BRT) system. Bogota’s BRT began as an idea

to consolidate the tens of thousands of buses

operated by nearly as many private companies

into a coherent rapid transit system that would

be less costly to build than an under-ground

metro.

The first trunk line on Caracas Avenue,

Bogota’s ‘main street’, included branches on

either end to link the city’s far-flung

impoverished neighbourhoods with the

wealthy ones in the north. Bus lanes – two in

each direction – were carved out of Caracas

Avenue, along with wider footpaths, street

trees and enough space for enclosed stations

that function more like those on a train line

than those of a typical bus stop. Nearly 1.4

million passengers enter the TransMilenio

system each day; the buses are fast and

efficient, but they are typically jam-packed at

all times of day and in every direction.

Construction of TransMilenio is ongoing,

and Phase II has recently been completed.

The system now includes two central trunk

lines and seven distinct branches totalling

84km, over which more than a thousand

160-passenger (articulated) buses operate.

More than 70 feeder routes and nearly 1500

bicycle parking spaces connect passengers to

the main BRT system5, not including those

who transfer from the city’s 20,000 privatised

urban buses. Construction recently began on

the third phase of the system (seven phases

have been planned), and funding for the

construction of an underground metro was

recently announced by Bogota’s mayor.

In 1990, the view of Bogota’s future was

bleak. Nonetheless, the city changed course

and became a model for coping effectively

with growth, transportation and pollution. In

short, Bogota proves that difficult urban

challenges have solutions and that, with

political will and public support, large cities

can be transformed into livable places.

Next stop… BRT in America.

FOOTNOTES1 Growth, Pollution and Crime Stifling Bogota, New York

Times, Sept. 9, 1993.

2 Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente, Sistema de

Informacion Ambiental (SIA), Base de Datos 1991-

2010.

3 Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadistica

(DANE), 1985-2005.

4 Portal de la Ciudad de Bogota.

5 TransMilenio System, a presentation to the C40 Cities

conference, Angelica Castro Rodriguez, 2007.

Cities: can we solve their problems?In the early 1990s, Colombia’s capital city was known for the uncontrolled growth, crime and pollution that stifled its economy.

By KEITH C. HALL, former CEO of NZPI

MARCH 2011 URBAN 3

The act of giving life to memory in our public spaces

English and Maori story telling – from the

integration of Laurence Binyan’s famous lines

beginning “They shall grow not old” coupled

with a Maori translation, which is then further

coupled with a 239 word essay-length

exposition that ends with the words:

“Celebrate our Fallen, our Tupuna. Honour

them with Peace”.

Vincent: “To take all this in, you have get up

close, to be on the spot, in person, casting

your own impression. This isn’t some

ready-made postcard. The effect I was hoping

for is a sense of floating, like a sense of spirit.

“Along with intentional details such as

replicating the same font as you see on the

cenotaph and museum and other technical

aspects, the art of building this was the art.

“As well as being a mark of respect, the

other strong driver for me was that everyone

who visits this place should leave with a

clearer understanding that, as the words say,

we all are one – we are fronds on the same

fern.”

Vincent chooses to put the water feature on

a par with the symmetrical resolution achieved

within the overall site: the containment of lines

with the existing cenotaph’s consecrated

boundary, the alignment of sculptured

bespoke plinth-like seating and large granite

paving with the Museum’s neoclassical

columns, the understated new pathways and

We New Zealanders live in a country where the contained memory of memorials – particularly those commemorating a nation’s war dead – is plainly visible in significant public and urban spaces.

by Stephen Olsen, URBAN correspondent

To see a new memorial of the kind now in situ at

the Auckland War Memorial Museum (see

photos), is a special opportunity then to reflect on

the place that memorials occupy in those spaces

and the associations we make with them.

This new memorial is now ready in its final

form, to see the light of its first ANZAC Day in

April. Judging from observable visitor

interaction, it is evoking a positive and

poignant experience.

The elliptically engaging centrepiece of the

memorial is a raised feature of cascading

water, the full story of which only unfolds

(along with its iconic silver fern and koru

crest) when looking back towards the

Museum building from below.

Seen from the Museum steps above, this

appears as no more than an anonymous black

rectangle, while from the facing side it reveals

an embossed combination of symbols and

words, English and Maori together, gently

concealed on a 45-degree angle beneath a

continuous 5 millimetre flow of rippling water.

This concept was developed and refined by

design engineer and landscape architect Ian

Vincent, with assistance on graphic design

from Jeremy Snowsill of Long White Cloud.

The design process referenced points of

inspiration such as Quebec sculptor Pierre

Granche’s Canada Memorial in Green Park,

London (unveiled in 1994) and more recently

the New Zealand Memorial in London’s Hyde

Park Corner as designed by architect John

Hardwick-Smith and sculptor Paul Dibble and

dedicated on November 11,2006.

Originally from London himself, Vincent

valued the opportunity to work on a once-in-a-

lifetime project that mediates a blending of

4 URBAN MARCH 2011

contoured gradients, a shared space roadway

and the use of “tactile” stone ridging.

From this attention to detail one of the end

results has been improved accessibility for

those who might be sight-impaired or in a

wheelchair, or simply someone pushing a

child’s stroller. Making the memorial

accessible to everyday users was an important

aspect of the project says Alan Gray, a former

member of Auckland City Council’s urban

design team who had project oversight and is

now working at Waterfront Auckland.

For Gray, who had worked on a memorial

project in his native Georgia, USA, the

response to the new Auckland memorial

space is best described as reverent. “People

get it… it resonates with people. Different

groups bring a different lens to its uncluttered

nature. It has been considerate of the heritage

value, of the need for open space, of the

vistas.”

He credits the success of the project (which

had a few starts and stops since the 2007

master plan by Salmond Reed Architects) to

everyone involved in the stewardship of the

site walking in step – the museum people, the

operations people, Urban Solutions as project

manager, John Filmore Contracting, Design

Source, Hatch New Zealand, 360 Urban and

Vincent’s Urbanlogic.

Gray also notes that this memorial “canvas”,

at one of New Zealand’s most sacred spaces

and the beneficiary of its relatively isolated

location, is not such a completely finished

piece that it can’t evolve in the future as its

role of giving life to memory continues.

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CONTAINED MEMORY

This topic of memorials was given full

play last December at Te Papa, where

Massey University joined with New

York’s Syracuse University in holding

a conference of the world’s top

scholars in the study of a growing

area of both academic and public

interest: public memory.

A theme of the event was the idea

that remembering together is a

powerful activity. Across the

programme, which also featured artists

and poets, were presentations on

almost every conceivable aspect of

memorial landscapes, also referred to

as memoryscapes – across borders,

cultures, time and space. For more

information on this event, versions of

which are now being repeated annually,

see www.containedmemory.org.nz

MARCH 2011 URBAN 5

Lest we forget our darkest hoursA recent gathering in Auckland saw the launch of a project dedicated to seeing a memorial landmark with a difference established in the northern French township of Le Quesnoy, in permanent memory of the New Zealanders who fought and died in Europe in the wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.

by Stephen Olsen, URBAN correspondent

occupiers on November 4 1918 – just seven

days before the Armistice.

Le Quesnoy has famously never forgotten

the fact that their 5000 residents were not

subjected to bombing on that fateful day, and

that the assault on the ancient fortress

township was instead conducted by use of

smokescreens and by ladder.

Military historian Herb Farrant, a regular

visitor to Le Quesnoy since 1995, is heading a

project team that has commenced fundraising

for the $NZ500,000 needed to gain final

planning and consent approvals for a

Memorial Museum and New Zealand-themed

hotel to proceed on prime land being

effectively gifted for the project by Le Quesnoy

citizens.

The project team includes Auckland

architect Malcolm Brown, of Brown Day

Group, who has taken on the design of the

40-bedroom hotel to be known as ‘The

Riflemen’ in honour of the New Zealand

infantry brigade that stormed Le Quesnoy.

The planning to date integrates the hotel

within the urban fabric of a walled settlement

part of the world – backed by the sister city

relationship enjoyed between her hometown

of Cambridge and Le Quesnoy, and also

Waipa District.

Both Beaudignies and Le Quesnoy were

liberated by New Zealand infantry in the last

months of 1918, with 122 New Zealanders

subsequently dying in the battle to take the

town of Le Quesnoy from its German

The launch – which took place in the same

week as the tragic devastation and loss of life

wrought in Christchurch – was attended by

the Mayors of both Le Quesnoy, Paul Raoult,

and its smaller neighbour Beaudignies, Mrs

Raymonde Dramez. Olympic cycling

champion Sarah Ulmer was a guest speaker

and spoke of her first-hand experience of the

special bond between New Zealand and this

6 URBAN MARCH 2011

dating back several centuries – a unique

challenge – with proposed interior design

contributed by Unitec students.

As many will know, Le Quesnoy is one of

the battle sites engraved on the exterior walls

of the Auckland Memorial War Museum, the

frontispiece of which has the memorable lines

about men being “commemorated not only by

columns and inscriptions in their own country/

but in foreign lands also by memorials graven

not on stone/ but on the hearts of men”.

As described by Herb Farrant there is a

certain pathos that the people of Le Quesnoy

live with the “evidence, legacy and aftermath

of the Great War every day” while this remains

a too-distant place for New Zealanders

despite the fact more than 16,000 of our

forebears lost their lives in that war alone – a

lost generation that touched virtually every

family in our young nation.

Having a New Zealand presence and a

memorial museum amidst the network of

museums and memorials in the region

between northern France and Flanders is

expected to right the balance that has put this

place at too far a remove.

It will also provide a hub or base for what, in

the translated words of Paul Raoult, could be

regarded as a central point for a “tourism of

memory” – a way of respecting the past and

making the kinds of connections that help

make sense of what might otherwise be a

wasteland of loss.

MARCH 2011 URBAN 7

Citygate to boost Hamilton’s CBD

He says the building plan was helped by

McConnell Property’s close relationship with

both Hamilton City Council and Wintec. While

the three organisations are not partners in

any financial or legal sense, Mr Donnelly

believes working closely together was an

integral part of successfully delivering the

Citygate project.

“Citygate will complement the fantastic

work recently undertaken by Wintec in

refurbishing Block F and that area of the

A planned building described by Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker as having a “stunning”design will help to further develop the city’s central business district.

campus. The building footprint is triangular to

protect the views to Block F and into the

campus, and to enable better pedestrian

connections between the campus, Citygate

and the City.

”The project is a boost for the CBD and a

fantastic addition. We see this as a sign of

better things to come in terms of the CBD

office market. Our discussions with Hamilton

businesses indicate that they are eagerly

anticipating the delivery of the Citygate

building. We have had a very good level of

interest to date and will be formally launching

Citygate in the coming weeks.”

Around 300 people will be employed within

the building.

Hawkins Construction is part of the

McConnell Group and will be responsible for

constructing Citygate.

McConnell Property, an Auckland-based

property developer owned by the McConnell

Group employed Jasmax Architects to lead

the design work for the building, to be called

Citygate, and construction is planned to begin

late this year.

The development will go ahead on the vacant

“sand-pit” site next to Wintec’s Atrium building

on the corner of Ward and Anglesea Streets.

The five-level building has a distinctive

triangular glass and pre-cast concrete facade

and behind the exterior will be mostly offices,

with retail, cafes, and licensed premises at

street level.

The Mayor says Citygate will be a significant

addition to the Wintec tertiary precinct and

CBD generally and she is pleased to see

business opportunities opening up in the city

centre.

Aidan Donnelly, development manager for

the McConnell Group, says the building will

take full advantage of the corner site and will

include the creation of a public open-space

area, which is to be landscaped to a high

quality for use by staff and the public.

Citygate has been designed to reflect

sustainability principles and will feature

natural day-lighting, indoor environmental

quality, energy efficiency and water

management.

8 URBAN MARCH 2011

Resilience: the ability to recover quickly from setbacks (Encarta)

By PHIL McDERMOTT

Without debating whether an increase in the

frequency of extreme events reflects climate

warming, such events can be catastrophic

when they impact on densely populated areas.

Natural disturbances, whether geophysical

(tsunami, earthquakes, mudslides) or climatic

(flooding, hurricane strength winds, tidal

surges), become disasters if they strike heavily

populated centres.

So do human acts of aggression. The tactic

of terrorising civilian populations taken to new

heights in the bombing raids of the Second

World War and adopted by today’s extremists

is most effective – and destructive - when

directed at the heart of major cities.

So how do we respond, especially given the

expectation that we face an increase in such

events?

We can prepare ourselves individually by

sensible precautions. House design,

construction, maintenance can help in

high-risk areas. Having household plans and

resources for escape, survival, and recovery is

becoming more common. As communities we

can build our collective emergency response

and recovery capacity. We can also look to our

hinterlands to ensure that land use practices

– clearances, monocultures, river

straightening, irrigation, and dams – do not

precipitate major events such as dust storms

or floods that impact on cities downwind and

downstream.

The Civil Defence Emergency Management

Act 2002 increased the New Zealand

government’s focus on risk reduction, hazard

avoidance, and community readiness. In

particular, Part 1 (3) (d) requires: local

authorities to co-ordinate, through regional

groups, planning, programmes, and activities

related to civil defence emergency

management across the areas of reduction,

readiness, response, and recovery, and

encourage co-operation and joint action within

those regional groups.

The effects of climate change, presumably

including the potential for violent storms and

inundation, are matters to which people

exercising powers under the Resource

Management Act should have particular

regard (Part 2 7 (i)).

There is an imperative in legislation in New

Zealand, then, for local and regional councils

to consider hazard mitigation and risk

avoidance in our urban planning and design.

This is so internationally.

It is not coincidence that many – if not most

Cities in search of resilience – major cities in the world are built on rivers or

at the coast, given their origins as nodal

points; or on fertile flood plains in the lee of

mountains, between mountains and sea, even

on fault lines. They are consequently built

across unstable and vulnerable sites in many

instances. This should be a fundamental

consideration in our urban design,

architecture, and engineering.

So here are some reasons why we might

seriously question the compact city paradigm

which so influences planning and urban

design today:

1. It relies on sophisticated, centralised

interdependent systems of services. This

creates greater capacity for disruption when

any one part fails. Economies of scale in

utilities may come with increased risk of

failure under duress. This applies to sewage

treatment infrastructure, communications,

water, energy distribution, and power

supplies. It also applies to public transport

systems.

2. Poorly designed intensification reduces

permeable surfaces, intensifying flood

impacts.

3. Converting brown-field and even green-field

sites (such as undeveloped urban space) to

housing or mixed use reduces the safety

valve of open space and increases

vulnerability associated with the

concentration of buildings and populations.

4. Crowding more people into smaller spaces

around constrained road capacity reduces

prospects for rapid evacuation from the city

or into safe structures and areas.

5. Lifting the density of buildings increases the

consequential impacts of severe events by

such things as the collapse of structures,

the spread of fire, and the transmission of

disease.

6. Mixing uses increases the risk of injury and

destruction when people live close to

premises where hazardous and flammable

goods may be stored. Gas, chemical

cleaners, and fuel are obvious examples.

7. Reducing the space available reduces the

capacity of people – households and

communities – to fend for themselves,

particularly if the consequences of a

disruptive event are prolonged.

Looking over these issues, it is unsurprising

that our past history of increasing prosperity

was a history of reducing urban densities,

even as rural-urban migration pushed up city

populations. What is surprising is that we

seem to have given up the quest to make this

same movement – essentially a de facto

public health programme – work in a

resource-constrained environment.

One of the drivers of early town and country

planning was the desire to protect public

health, with zones separating industry from

where people lived. A healthy workforce was a

productive workforce, so it made sense to

reduce the exposure of people to industrial

pollution. There were also public health

benefits from getting families out of high

density slums into something approximating a

rural lifestyle with access to space, gardens,

and parks. The resulting residential areas

– the suburbs – came to be highly valued in

the 20th century. Many people still value

them, even in a post-industrial age.

But in today’s quest to preserve city edges,

to support public transit, and curtail car use,

planners have moved to reinstate higher

urban densities around existing city centres,

denigrating suburban life as ‘sprawl’ and

down-playing the new risks that revisiting the

old ways raise.

We may have to rethink these revisionary

ideals in the face of reality. A better

understanding of resource constraints and the

need for diversity may mean that we shouldn’t

look at expanding our cities in the uncritical

way we did in the past, providing large plots

for small households. But for many people,

and perhaps for nature, high density, mixed

use is not necessarily the best alternative.

I’m not sure what form a move to resilience

in urban design might favour. Most probably it

will – and should – vary from place to place.

Decentralisation will have a role to play.

Certainly smaller centres, within, on, or beyond

the edges of large cities, with a full range of

services and amenities and a high level of self

sufficiency are likely to offer more resilience to

communities than centralised, hierarchical and

interdependent services stretched over the

entire city. In some places, well-constructed

and spacious high-rise apartments set in

extensive green spaces might work. In others,

terraced housing, each dwelling with a small

garden, interconnected by pathways and roads

to nearby community and commercial centres

will be appropriate. Traditional suburbs,

perhaps scaled down, will have their place,

providing private and public spaces to nurture

families and nature. High-density suburbs with

extensive parks, green belts, and generous

transport corridors are another option.

Whatever the form, the risk of disasters in our

cities being compounded by crowding and

mean design, calls for putting resilience into

the urban design equation. The possibility of

marginal long-term savings in fuel consumption

and vehicle emissions used to justify

constricting our urban places (and lives) may

otherwise come at too high a cost.

Phil McDermott is a consultant in urban,

economic and community development who

has worked throughout New Zealand and in

Australia, Asia, and the Pacific.

http://cities-matter.blogspot.com

MARCH 2011 URBAN 9

Historically, many small towns

were bustling hubs of enterprise

that sprang up to service rural

hinterlands and to process

primary products. Foxton, for

instance, was the centre of a

thriving flax industry based on

the vast flax swamps that still

covered much of the Manawatu

plains during the nineteenth

century. Picton, at the head of

the Queen Charlotte Sound in the

Marlborough Sounds, became a

busy port linking the North and

South Islands and handling large

volumes of primary produce. In

their heyday, such towns were the

focus of community life, servicing

the social as well as economic

needs of the town dwellers and

those who would ‘come to town’

from surrounding areas.

Times change, however, and

during the twentieth century

many of New Zealand’s small

towns experienced decline. Local

primary-processing industries

closed down or relocated to

cities. Transport routes, intent on

linking the main cities, bypassed

or cut right through small town

centres. People became more

mobile, too, and increasingly

went to larger centres for their

employment and shopping. Small

towns seemed to be languishing

by the wayside. Their role as the

gathering place for local

communities was much

diminished; their townscapes

were haunted by areas of disuse

and often shaped by roading

infrastructure with its inevitable

parking lots and highway-oriented

services.

The 21st century is heralding a

renaissance, however. Small town

communities like Picton and

Foxton are looking for

opportunities to reinvent

themselves, while also wishing to

revive their sense of community

and redevelop their towns to

reflect that.

New Zealand’s small towns – take heartSmall town New Zealand is reasserting itself after languishing in the wake of the big cities for too long. This is not the superficial makeover stuff of new street furniture but a more fundamental and wide-reaching approach that seeks to put the heart of a community back into a town, as exemplified in Picton and Foxton.

By SHONA McCAHON for Boffa Miskell

Planning

Marc Baily, urban planner with

Boffa Miskell, who has been

assisting a number of small town

communities translate their

redevelopment dreams into

reality, says if proposals are to

succeed they have to be

well-considered and practical

while also being inspirational and

visionary.

“It takes time – typically four to

five years – to work through the

strategic and urban planning

stage and reach the point when

things start to happen on the

ground,” he says. “As a

consultant, you can’t expect to

really understand the place and

how it works without spending

considerable time observing the

current environment and finding

out from locals about the cultural

and social context, as well as

their issues and aspirations.

Spending time at this stage pays

off hugely when it comes to the

inevitable debates about the

physical changes that might be

proposed in the town.”

Such timeframes can, of

course, be frustrating for a

10 URBAN MARCH 2011

and welcoming to all. These are

the places where people can

meet up with those they know but

also encounter people from

outside their own social group

who are, nevertheless, part of the

community. In a small town, that

enables people to (at the very

least) recognise who else lives in

the community and perhaps get

to know a little more about them.

That in turn builds the sense of

belonging, shared ownership and

security.”

Enabling out-of-town visitors to

also use the public space and

intermingle comfortably with

locals is another important

consideration in many small

towns, where attracting visitors is

crucial to economic revival and

survival. Community spaces need

to be designed in such a way that

seasonal or weekend influxes of

visitors can be accommodated

while also providing for more

low-key local use in between

times.

“There’s more to it than simply

providing a public square or a

promenade,” Michael says. “The

public space needs to be part of

the fabric of the town and that

means integrating it with the way

the town works both socially and

economically. If we create places

where people want to spend time,

it will support local businesses

through increased foot traffic and

activity. Conversely, having

businesses and services adjacent

to and integrated with the public

space can improve the success

of the space by bringing people

through it and improving passive

surveillance. These factors are far

more critical than fancy signage

or town branding ”

understand their own history and

to think about what kind of

community they want to be part

of.”

Public space

When community revival is an

objective, the future of public

space in the town is a major

focus because of its role in

potentially bringing people

together and enabling interaction,

according to Boffa Miskell

landscape architect Michael

Hawes.

“The design of the public

realm in cities has attracted a lot

of attention but the principles

apply just as much in small

towns,” Michael says. “Ideally,

public space should

accommodate a lot of different

types of interaction if it is to be

truly public – that is, accessible

community that is pressing for

change, yet necessary to ensure

that the different views within that

community are properly

canvassed. While there may be a

general desire for change, there

will be a range of views about

what that might mean in practical

terms, and there will be some

who are simply suspicious of

change.

“One of the outcomes of a

town redevelopment project

should be a strengthened sense

of community and that won’t, of

course, be achieved purely by

reconfiguring the built form,”

Marc says. “If the process is well

managed and seen to be

democratic, the visioning and

debate during the planning phase

can assist people within the town

to get to know each other in new

ways, to perhaps better

MARCH 2011 URBAN 11

Picton’s London Quay

The integration of business and

community activities has been a

key component of Picton’s new

London Quay town square and

waterfront redevelopment,

completed in October 2010. The

redevelopment followed a

four-year strategic planning,

community consultation and

master planning exercise led by

Boffa Miskell on behalf of the

Marlborough District Council.

London Quay had traditionally

been Picton’s gathering place

when it was the town’s main point

of departure and arrival, but this

changed. The main port was

developed further away and the

site became a ‘back door’ to the

town centre, dominated by car

parking and service functions.

The redevelopment

incorporates tourist operations,

fishing boat and boat servicing

uses to ensure that both locals

and tourists are drawn to the

area. Moreover, new buildings

designed by Warren and

Mahoney to help define the new

square, have been designed with

ground floor public uses that will

encourage cross-over of inside

and outside activities.

Marc Baily says practical

considerations and benefits have

flowed through from involving the

local businesses in planning the

overall concept and developing

specific facilities.

“Not only does their presence

attract public use and contribute

to the site’s waterfront character

and vitality – the businesses have

also contributed financially and

enabled a level of funding for the

project,” Marc says.

The redevelopment has created

a series of interrelated spaces that

provide flexibility for both peak

season and off season activity. On

New Year’s Eve, it accommodated

a crowd of more than 9000.

During weekends fish is sold

directly off the fishing boats,

bringing a flow of locals to the

space and during quiet times

lunch time workers and off-season

travellers are able to find

smaller-scale sheltered spaces

that feel safe when there are fewer

people around. The evenings see

overnight visitors promenading

between the marina and foreshore

“The design has reinstated the

historic role of the London Quay

site as a meeting place, but in a

contemporary context,” Michael

says. “Meeting places are focal

points for communities and we’ve

built upon that by drawing

together the functional

requirements with the aspirations

of the local people, the

commercial interests and the

marine-related operators located

on the waterfront – not to

mention the needs of visitors.

The aim has been to better

integrate the wide range of

commercial and public waterfront

activities and link them strongly

to the town centre.“

Foxton

Plans for revitalising the Foxton

community came out of an urban

planning project in which Boffa

Miskell assisted the Horowhenua

District Council to look at

opportunities and best locations

for growth and development over

the whole of the Horowhenua

district. Foxton was identified as

having development potential,

which happily aligned with

various initiatives the council had

already earmarked in consultation

with the Foxton community.

Located on State Highway 1,

Foxton is one of those small

towns where the main road has

been diverted away from the

commercial area and main

shopping street. Through-traffic

problems in the town centre have

been avoided but highway

travellers have been diverted with

a consequent loss of potential

business.

Marc says the focus during the

consultative strategic planning

phase was very much upon

understanding the town’s history

– how it came about and how it

works now. Out of that came an

understanding of the issues and,

importantly, the opportunities for

the future.

Boffa Miskell led the

formulation of the Foxton Town

Plan, which was recently signed

off by the community board. It

provides the over-arching

framework for enhancements,

aimed at attracting people into the

town; consolidating activities to

better emphasise the sense of a

town centre; and celebrating

Foxton’s heritage. Two other

overlapping plans bring together

proposals for specific focus areas.

Under the Te Awahou

Development Plan a regional

multi-purpose culture and

heritage centre will be developed

in Foxton’s town centre. It will

incorporate the site of the now

long-gone Foxton port, which

operated on a former bend in the

Manawatu River before the river

was straightened, and will tell the

historic stories of the

Horowhenua. The centre will be a

focus for the local community

and out-of-town visitors. It will

incorporate a new library and

council service centre, a Dutch

museum, a Maori arts and craft

gallery, tourism information and

meeting spaces.

“The objective is not only to

preserve the cultural, social and

economic heritage of the district

but to enable that heritage to be

celebrated and extended in the

contemporary activities of the

local community,” Michael says.”

In doing so, the public space

created will build upon the Town

Plan’s key concepts of

consolidation and reconnecting

Main Street with Foxton’s

historically important riverfront.”.

Meanwhile the River Loop Plan

is underway, aimed at restoring the

physical and historic connections

with the Manawatu River via the

remnant ‘ox – bow’ that was once

part of the river. It will involve

restoring the degraded ox-bow

environment and developing

recreational opportunities for locals

and visitors.

“Communities often push to

get things done quickly, but our

advice is to not be too ambitious,”

Marc says. “Small things can turn

big wheels and affect the wider

picture in surprisingly effective

ways.

“It’s also important to realise

that urban places change over

time and you can’t always plan

for completion. Small towns are

better to think of these plans as

works in progress than to try to

implement a single master plan

all in one go. As the parts are

progressively implemented, the

community will notice changes

and perhaps adapt and evolve

their plan as they go along.”

(Marc Baily is a director and

Michael Hawes a principal of

Boffa Miskell Limited, a town

planning and design consultancy.

Shona McCahon is a freelance

writer and oral historian.)

12 URBAN MARCH 2011

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Gra

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Neill

Graduate perspectivesLast year I returned to university to study towards a Master of Urban Design at the University of Auckland. The decision to go back was due to a desire to gain more technical skills in urban design, to add to the urban policy and project work I had done previously. In brief, it was one of the most stimulating, yet intense years of my life.

Compiled by ANNA WOOD, Urbanismplus

Design studios provided the focus of the

programme and this is where techniques were

taught and mastered.

‘Live’ sites from the Auckland region were

used for master planning exercises. For our

class this included Swanson, Avondale,

Henderson and Wynyard Quarter – enabling a

focus on transport orientated development

(TOD) and sustainable intensification.

Three of my classmates from the 2010

MUrbDes programme are profiled here,

presenting their studio submissions.

Hayley Fisher and Grant Neill both

showcase Wynyard Quarter – developing

master plans and designs for the brown-field

site on Auckland CBD’s harbour edge.

Students tackled residential intensification,

establishing central city communities and

supporting the marine industry that exists on

the site.

Jere Wilks shares his work for Henderson

– presenting a design response to enable a

sustainable future for the mixed industrial/

suburban area. Work here explored

opportunities for intensification at growth

nodes along the western rail corridor.

The course, and in particular the studios,

encouraged us to research, test and apply

design principles and techniques. A focus on

building typologies was something I found

particularly interesting and was a useful

addition to my planning background. A

research project enabled me to focus

specifically on the perimeter block typology

and its application to the New Zealand

context.

At the conclusion of a busy yet invigorating

year, we left the programme with the

knowledge and techniques to work on urban

design projects at a range of scales. The

course enhanced our passion for the design

and function of the urban environment and

left me with no regrets for temporarily

reverting back to student life.

Anna Wood

MUrbDes (Hons), MPlan (Hons), BPlan (Hons)

Urban Planner/Designer, Urbanismplus

01

MARCH 2011 URBAN 13

WYNYARD QUARTER – GRANT NEILL

Life

Wynyard Quarter is a CBD “bookend”

positioned on an edge to the sea [01]. It

celebrates multiple urban roles while offering

the opportunity for life at its edges to be

permeated by the life of the harbour.

It anticipates public use, high-density

residential living, and commercial activity: the

life of the CBD is extended to the Wynyard

Quarter and the harbour edge.

The peninsula offers unique opportunities

for public life on a regional scale, by ensuring

the majority remains publicly owned and

used. An urban regional park is accessed past

a sculptured lake that signifies arrival, beyond

an intensely activated “blue square”. [03]

Space and connections

Common social and activity precincts are

created by contextually consolidating

compatible activities; public use on the

harbour edge, residential in the enclave of the

basin area, and commercial buffer strips to

Fanshawe Street and the marine industrial

area. A marina, maritime tourism base and a

beach face the recreational area of

Westhaven.

Wynyard Quarter connects directly with the

spatial experiences both intimate and formal.

It was also designed to allow the functioning of

everyday life and cultural exchange as

Auckland society moves from a bi-cultural

context to a more diverse multi-cultural

network. A civic space is incorporated into the

master plan, achieved through a pavilion and

a formal plaza. The constriction of the eastern

edge of the plaza physically concentrates the

experience of entry to the large open space.

This area can accommodate large outdoor

performances as well as create a powerful

presence when occupied by only a few.

Columns flank the pavilion, softening the

boundaries of interior and exterior. The

columns’ form references the Kuta reed that

once grew in the streams around the area.

The position of the pavilion is also important

as it is situated at the hub of the Quarter and

responds to the wider context orientated to

Rangitoto cone with the main entry facing the

rising sun. [02]

This civic space was designed as a pause

along a greater journey of experiences around

the Wynyard Quarter master plan. A series of

spaces with differing characteristics and

purposes, nomadic, conversational, powerful

and insignificant, all contributed to creating a

‘place’ adding to Auckland’s waterfront

experience.

Hayley Fisher

B.Arch (Hons), M.Urb Des (Hons)

H.Fisher Architecture Ltd.

WYNYARD QUARTER – HAYLEY FISHER

Our challenge at Wynyard Quarter on

Auckland’s waterfront, was to develop a

master plan illustrating how the site would

function in the future, successfully responding

to its currently industrial and under-developed

nature.

Wynyard Quarter is a much-debated corner

of Auckland and presented an opportunity to

challenge ourselves as budding urban

designers within a realistic context.

My project investigated the concept of ‘local

culture’ by creating spaces that responded to

our values in a contemporary society. The

Auckland waterfront is steeped in a rich history

both colonial and Maori. Consideration of this

historical context was also infused into the

scheme to create identity and a sense of place.

One example was the inter-relationship

between the natural landscape and built form,

which is privileged within the master plan.

Although the site was designed to be densely

urban, the implementation of a swale to

collect water from buildings presents an

opportunity to reduce ecologically damaging

stormwater runoff, as well as create an

attractive setting for new local communities. It

also allows an incorporation of native coastal

planting which imparts a sense of identity and

grounds the space to its context.

The role of open space within the Wynyard

Quarter was to facilitate a range of different

02

03 04

14 URBAN MARCH 2011

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2:

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Fis

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03 &

04

: G

ran

t N

eill

; 0

5:J

ere

Wilk

s

CBD and the region, Quay Street extends and

terminates with a large public space. A

transverse connection runs to the end of the

peninsula from Fanshawe Street serving the

public, park and residential areas. Another

serves the existing marine industrial areas,

separating potential conflicts.

Public transport systems are integral. Within

the residential and commercial precincts a

pedestrian scale “T.O.D.” environment is

created by breaking down the existing large

grid with lanes and paths; transport

interchanges are at the centre. Public

transport loops through the regional park.

Public space in the residential precinct is

purposeful and hierarchical; a central square

is a space of gathering and meeting, an

outdoor living room for the residents; a water

courtyard public space is an intimately scaled

bay with vistas out of the precinct. A

connecting street continues by pedestrian

bridge to the existing viaduct precinct, with

spaces for pedestrian engagement, movement

and encounter. Perimeter block courtyards

are opened up into publicly accessible shared

spaces – apartments orientate toward the

shared spaces for ‘ownership’ and security

[04].

Buildings

An urban contextual scale is achieved by the

existing city street grid continuing over the

site.

Facades facing each other in the street

house common activities and form legible

streetscapes with purpose, by activities

changing mid-block, instead of whole blocks

of activity changing at streets.

Perimeter blocks change to singular

buildings toward the openness of the

peninsula, as the direct connections force

block sizes to reduce; giving potential for

dramatic public architecture of a scale

commensurate with the harbour it sits in.

Grant Neill

Registered Architect, BArch, MUrbDes (Hons)

Grant Neill Architects Ltd

HENDERSON – JERE WILKS

Following a site visit to the Henderson valley, it

was considered that an opportunity for

redevelopment existed within the large

industrial area slightly south of the town

centre. This brown-field land displays several

‘deficiencies’ antithetical to a TOD proposal,

including single use zoning; relatively poor

connectivity through the road network;

inefficient use of land displaying outdated

industrial buildings and the adjoining

residential areas being poorly connected to

nearby rail stations.

In seeking to address these issues, the

design project sought to create a mid-valley

TOD predicated on altering the current built

form parameters. These amendments

included changing the current zoning to allow

for mixed use capabilities while still

recognising the economic opportunities

created by the industrial zone. Architecturally,

a distinct built form differentiation was

proposed to encourage a sense of place

particular to the neighbourhood. The

adaptability of building design for future uses,

specific materiality and small building design

was also considered, aimed at both economic

affordability and aesthetic variance within the

urban fabric.

The economic mechanism for delivering

this design proposal was via the identification

of an industry that could reward the region in

growth opportunities and by tailoring the TOD

around that industry’s requirements and

support services. The three film studios within

the immediate vicinity of the proposed TOD

were highlighted as just such an industry.

Their requirements would include cost-

effective and adaptable large buildings with

ease of access to transport systems.

Supporting businesses would be required in

transport, accommodation and

communication to name a few. Therefore the

inclusion of small business neighbourhoods

displaying adaptable spaces for a variety of

use were proposed, specifically aimed at

creating cost effective premises for the

creation of new business opportunities.

Improving the connectivity across the valley

was also explored. The primary design

concept to deliver this was the inclusion of two

new axial roads running approximately

east-west. While obviously facilitating

vehicular access their principal aim was to link

the current disparate cycle and pedestrian

systems at each side of the valley. This

proposal then created ease of access to the

new rail station via multiple forms of

transportation. [05]

The uniting theme for consideration in the

design was ecological, being underpinned by

much of the now amalgamated Waitakere City

Council’s environmental aims. The built

environment aspect proposed issues of water

sustainability, collection and re-use along with

alternative power generation as an integrated

form of the architecture. Public open space

was increased where possible, with multiple

sites for community garden inclusion and

planting strategies to reconcile the built

environment as an ‘island of heat’ while

creating identity through street tree

hierarchies.

Jere Wilks

MUrbDes, BLA (Hons)

Landscape Architect

05

MARCH 2011 URBAN 15

Scratching the surface of urban design-led

projects reveals continuing difficulties in the

way ‘social’ considerations are captured,

integrated, and reconciled across projects.

Seldom are case-sensitive, often qualitative

issues such as community equity, accessibility

and identity brought to the table as equal

partners to transport data, land-use

projections, and environmental models.

Should this be a reasonable outcome, or

should urban design, as a holistic, integrated

approach, be expected to do better?

Urban designers are comfortable

representing issues spatially and those in the

social sciences more often communicate

verbally, with words and policies. A number of

tools to bring these together have been

developed: producing a CPTED plan;

designing a public space for the mobility,

comfort and the amenity of its users;

determining where and why social

infrastructure should be provided in an urban

environment to support densities, ethnicities,

and other socio-economic indicators. Yet

intangible dimensions are less well-evaluated

and remain harder to represent compared to

other components of the urban system.

This article explores the value of spatial

analysis techniques and tailored project

methodologies to tackle the difficult contours

of things ‘social’. It discusses a series of steps

that practitioners can draw on to achieve this

objective. It argues that despite being

sometimes problematic, persevering with the

issues can demonstrably lead to more robust

outcomes. These not only provide a more

rounded and integrated outcome, but one

which better reinforces the arguments

supporting other ‘non-social’ components.

Step one: Get the right people around

the table

Target those involved in the day-to-day

planning, provision and delivery of services

such as central Government agencies, Local

government officers, private sector providers

of community infrastructure, and

non-governmental (third sector) providers and

groups. This is critical in order to input local

knowledge about specific characteristics and

constraints, ensure continuity and

understanding through implementation, and

to gain cross-agency support. These

participants must be able to be part of the

answer rather than confined solely to reporting

a role or position.

Step two: Analyse the existing social

context of the study area

Explore:

knowledge and policy gaps;

demographic trends;

the provision and performance of services

and facilities;

social service disposition;

factors that contribute to community

cohesion; and

community-led initiatives.

This has been effectively achieved elsewhere

through the following techniques:

represent community infrastructure: Plot

the distribution and provision of social

service providers, educational, health,

recreation, leisure, and cultural facilities

(both public and private). Understand

where the high order sub-regional, district

or city-wide institutions are located -

universities, hospitals, courts, emergency

services, and sports centres. Understand

where the lower-order local and

neighbourhood facilities are located –

community centres, churches, primary and

secondary schools, childcare, marae, and

RSAs for instance.

represent known social issues: Understand

the social challenges facing the area. Mark

up areas with high social-deprivation; areas

with severance and poor accessibility to

services and amenities; pockets of

geographical isolation; places with a

prevalence of crime and anti-social

behaviour; areas of vandalism and

degradation where community ownership

may be lower; and locations of tension

between different demographic groups.

Other socio-economic variables such as

ethnicity or education are often also

relevant.

support the mapped analysis with a

literature review of significant projects,

strategies and policies that contribute to

social capital building in the study area.

Case studies of previous initiatives,

including what worked and why are

extremely valuable.

Step 3: Collate and compare social

infrastructure and issues

Evaluate social and community well-being in

the study area and the wider context.

identify socially distinct communities of

interest peripheral to the project area.

These may overlap and fluctuate between

issues as people are now often members of

more than one community. These

community catchments may be defined by

topographic, demographic, ethnic or

socio-economic change; land use type and

housing mix; ward or suburb boundaries.

graphically represent the social networks

within the study area and the surrounding

community catchments. This should

include a relative assessment of:

1. the existing provision of ‘hard’ physical

infrastructure;

2. how well intangible, qualitative aspects of

community well-being are being met;

3. the scale (or quality) of provision from

neighbourhood to regional levels; and

4. the potential or desire to grow (or

improve) services, accessibility and

sense of community.

Step 4: Determine community network

opportunities in the study area.

Look at the comprehensive picture. Evaluate

all data and maps and identify possible

actions. Amongst others, opportunities may

exist to:

consolidate or co-ordinate multiple

Strengthening social dimensions in urban design

Despite the best efforts of urban designers, planners and community specialists, elements of social well-being, often less easily defined or quantified, are still inconsistently embedded into plans and decision-making processes.

By NICOLA ALBISTON, Urbanismplus Ltd

16 URBAN MARCH 2011

agencies and organisations e.g. sharing or

pooling of information, resources and

venues;

build local self-sufficiency, leadership and

capacity through utilising what was already

at work in the community;

leverage additional or improved community

facilities through expected population

growth; and

grow cultural and creative recognition and

expression in the community.

Horses and courses

There are many ‘typical’ tools that will be

relevant in almost all instances. However as

demonstrated in two urban design-led

projects from New Zealand and Australia, the

use of custom methodologies to truly unlock

rather than just map the issues, has benefits.

Case study 1: Social understanding can

influence decision-making priorities

As evidenced in Casey-Cardinia, one of five

urban growth areas in the Melbourne 2030

Growth Strategy, the articulation of community

infrastructure issues had a direct influence on

resultant transport funding priorities. Use of a

‘social pin-wheel’ tool to evaluate the provision

of physical infrastructure across suburbs,

revealed it was not possible to provide all

services in each location. Each instead had to

essentially specialise, with people moving

between suburbs to access the full range of

amenities. Specific transport investments

were then prioritised to make accessibility

easier.

Case study 2: A community network

proposition needs an equally enabling

process and meaningful engagement

Nowhere was this more evident than in the

Tamaki Transformation Programme, an urban

and community renewal project on a scale not

attempted before in New Zealand. The

workshop-based approach, led by

Urbanismplus, sought to develop a clear and

prioritised action plan (distinct from a spatial

master plan). It addressed three important

objectives:

1. build integrated partnerships between

community champions and the local

residents and communities they represent,

multi-sector agencies, and other

stakeholders;

2. explore both non-spatial and physical (built)

initiatives around all social issues; and

3. be firmly grounded in delivering real,

tangible action.

The workshop, building on significant previous

work by many of the stakeholders, explored

each aspect of the community through a

process of dialogue and co-design. The

resulting Development Plan builds on a

unifying vision for the area, finding

opportunities for the people of Tamaki to more

easily provide for their own well-being. A suite

of integrated community and social initiatives

are co-ordinated and organised under five

‘change strategies’:

Tatou tatou (all together): Engage with

people in their communities though

centralised multi-agency / community

service hubs and grassroots care networks

within local neighbourhoods.

Tangata whenua (people of the place):

Celebrate the environment, heritage and

cultures through story-telling in public

spaces, event programmes, trails,

community gardens, and medicinal/edible

landscapes.

Haora (well-being): Create healthy,

creative, learning environments through

cultural enterprise, trade-based and health

sector training schemes for residents, a

technology-based learning network for

children, more high quality early childhood

centres, and expanded marae-based

service delivery.

Whai rawa (abundant resource): Connect

people with their full economic potential

through building on amenities offered in

town centres and along Tamaki River,

affordable business incubation, and a

community transport scheme.

Kainga (home): Deliver quality, integrated

living environments through state housing

renewal demonstration projects in

community and town centre nodes,

non-shelter outcomes, a redeveloped

people’s park and sense of pride and

ownership initiatives.

The Plan places initiatives into a 20-year

strategic sequence for comprehensive renewal

with responsibilities for different agencies and

stakeholders identified. It builds on foundation

projects for 2009-2011 with full or seed

funding and is backed by clearly defined

targets. Economic analysis estimates the Plan

will grow New Zealand’s GDP by around $2

billion (1 per cent), directly support 20,700

jobs over 30 years and decrease crime and

avoidable hospitalisation rates to the Auckland

average¹.

Conclusion

While spatial mapping techniques follow a

relatively straight-forward formula, giving

social dimensions a voice within a broader

programme of engagement and

implementation remains the continuing

challenge. Analytical tools must be tailored

and new methods developed if urban design

is to truly commit to social sustainability

imperatives.

¹ Tamaki Development Plan: Economic Value Proposition, October 2010, SGS Economics and Planning Pty. Ltd, SGS

MARCH 2011 URBAN 17

Across river is Cambridge’s ‘southbank’,

Leamington, with its own distinct character.

Originally a separate borough, Leamington has

its shopping precinct currently in growth

mode. Nine retail shop units, a café, a

supermarket, and a new, more intimate

two-bar tavern replacing the old medallion-

carpeted, 70s vintage one, is the latest

development for Leamington’s heart.

“If you want to succeed, if you want to get

ahead of the competition, then you need to

stop tolerating mediocrity and start focusing

on the behaviours and attitudes that get

results,” advises LesleyAnn Thomas, the new

president of the Cambridge Chamber of

Commerce.1

Cream buns , entrepreneurs and modest urbanity

Re-imagining the small townIn downtown Cambridge there just isn’t an empty shop to be found. Presided over by a hundred-year-old town hall and flanked by the verdant Victoria Square and busily cultivating boutique shopping credentials, Cambridge town centre is clearly a part of ‘old Cambridge’. [01]

By DAVID PRONGER, Antanas Procuta Architects Ltd

18 URBAN MARCH 2011

low wages and often poor environmental

protection. The economic reforms of the

mid-80s had removed import tariffs and

privatised government departments. This hit

hard with business closures, unemployment

and general economic decline in many

communities throughout the country. Kaitaia,

a small town in far north New Zealand, nearly

400 kilometres from the Auckland CBD, was

not immune.

But with DIY resilience, Kaitaia (population

around only 5000) responded positively,

seeing the opportunity for establishing an

enterprise that would put community benefit

before return on profit. In 1989, Kaitaia’s

‘Community Business and Environment

Centre’ (CBEC) was born.3

CBEC’s raison d’etre was to create a

community owned organisation that could

generate new businesses and jobs. The

organisation was seen as being able to bid for

contracts that would otherwise be won by

companies from outside the district. Profits

could be ploughed back into the community

to create more employment and other

community benefit.

The founding managers and board

members were determined to establish

sustainable businesses and practices that, at

the same time, would provide training and

employment for local people.

CBEC is a community enterprise that now

operates a range of businesses and

environmental programmes as part of an

overall effort to build a sustainable local

economy. A shareholder-elected board of

directors controls CBEC. Anyone within the far

north community can become a shareholder.

Today CBEC employs more than 70

full-time staff in a number of enterprises and

joint ventures, including waste management,

recycling, labour hire, transport, home

insulation, nursery and environmental

education.

Cultivating entrepreneurship

“‘The green shoots of entrepreneurship give

an economy its vitality,” maintain William

Bygrave and Andrew Zacharakis of the

Babson College, Massachusetts in their

textbook on the subject, ‘Entrepreneurship’.

Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs come

in many shapes and sizes. Some create

businesses, some contribute to civic

organisations and still others endeavour to

enhance the provision of public goods and

services. What they all have in common is

what Bygrave characterises as ‘the presence

of imagination, flexibility, creativity, a

willingness to think conceptually and the

capacity to see change as an opportunity.’

Entrepreneurship, however defined, is

commonly recognised as a key ingredient of a

robust community and a sustainable

economy.

Over the Moon in Putaruru

Operated by longtime Waikato resident Sue

Arthur and situated in a small factory in

Putaruru, Over the Moon is a boutique

cheese-making company producing around

9000 kilograms of cheese a year.4 [02] Sue

Arthur is clearly an entrepreneur in its widest

sense.

Since 1985 she has served in various

elected and executive positions on the local

South Waikato District Council, helping to

drive many high-profile local tourist attractions

such as Tokoroa’s ‘Talking Poles’, Tirau’s ‘Big

Dog’ tourist information centre and upgrades

of three of the region’s central business

districts.

The perfect dairying environment that

begirded Sue Arthur over many years had

inspired a passion for dairy products that

eventually sent her globetrotting –

experiencing, making and sampling cheese.

Sue eventually brought her inspiration back to

the South Waikato and set up Over the Moon

and its affiliate the New Zealand Cheese

School in late 2007. By early 2008, Over the

Moon had made its first cheeses and won a

gold and two silver medals at the Cuisine New

Zealand Champion of Cheese Awards. In 2010

Over the Moon was recognised by the

international cheese community as the world’s

best producer of semi-soft mixed milk and

flavoured sheep cheese.

Located on State Highway 1200 kilometres

south of Auckland, Putaruru is a rural town

with a population of around 3800. Putaruru’s

‘Blue Spring’ on the local Te Waihou River

provides 60 per cent of New Zealand’s bottled

water (distributed nationwide and

internationally) and also supplies the town’s

water supply.

Across Tirau Street from Over the Moon is

Putaruru’s former post office. Constructed in

1968 and designed on a circular plan with a

crown-shaped roof of thin parabolic pre-cast

concrete shells, the former post office and its

900 square-metre footprint is architecturally

undoubtedly provincial New Zealand’s most

outstanding example. [03] No longer used by

NZ Post, the building is now in private hands

and destined to gain a new zest for life as a

food court.

Shepherding Putaruru’s development

potential is Pride in Putaruru, a close

descendant of the Chamber of Commerce,

but which now embraces not only the

business interests of the town but the social

and community interests as well. Capably

orchestrated by the dynamic Annie

Waterworth, Pride in Putaruru is currently

actioning a plan Vibrant Putaruru

commissioned by it to coordinate future social

and economic development.5

Social entrepreneurship

Just as there are entrepreneurs who change

the face of business, there are also social

entrepreneurs who act as the change agents

LesleyAnn, a freelance human resources

consultant and business owner, directs her

counsel at small enterprise, but equally it

could apply to the management of small

towns. LesleyAnn Thomas is the third woman

in a row to hold the presidency of this

230-strong membership business

organisation.

Cambridge has that timeless quality, built

on a simple street grid of vista-harvesting

tree-lined avenues, culminating in a town

centre of admirable architecture.

Its congenial relationship with both the

equine and dairy industries, its proximity to

Hamilton and its attractive arboreal

environment are commonly presented as the

principal contributors to its consistent

progress. But the continuing dedication over

time of an active and committed Cambridge

entrepreneurial core – as in many other

successful towns – is an enviable asset not to

be dismissed too lightly.

Baker’s man

Across the Tasman in rural northeast Victoria,

Tom O’Toole is busy containing his ebullient

bakery team. Tom O’Toole is no ordinary

baker. He owns the very felicitous Beechworth

bakery. If you have read Bryce Courtney’s

novel ‘Four Fires’, you’ll have some familiarity

with Beechworth. About 280 kilometres from

Melbourne, Beechworth is a well-preserved

historical town, establishing itself during the

gold rush days of mid 1850s. Its present

population is just 3200, about the size of

Putaruru in south Waikato.

On one recent Easter Saturday, the cash

registers of the Beechworth Bakery rang up

some 3500 transactions, altogether taking

$31,000 in one day’s trading. They had 30

staff in the shop working that day. 2

Tom O’Toole reminisces: ‘I remember when

I first came back to Beechworth 26 years ago

to set up the bakery, my accountant and the

bank manager said I was mad taking a risk

investing in a dying country town, but luckily I

didn’t listen to them.’

The exuberant Tom O’Toole is proud of his

employees and encourages initiative and

participation. “I sell lamingtons and pies, and

my business is far from perfect. Its 5 per cent

technology and 95 per cent psychology – it’s

all about people. You need to have vision,

persistence and discipline, but most of all you

need to believe in yourself, your business and

your community.’

Today the Beechworth Bakery boasts six

bakeries across Victoria and southern New

South Wales. Tom O’Toole is an entrepreneur

and a great ambassador for his hometown.

Give the town the business

In New Zealand, the late 1980s was a difficult

time for many small towns. Locally owned

businesses and manufacturers were

struggling to compete against pressure from

international corporations and countries with

MARCH 2011 URBAN 19

for society, seizing opportunities others miss

and improving systems, inventing new

approaches and creating solutions to change

society for the better. While a business

entrepreneur might create entirely new

industries, a social entrepreneur comes up

with new solutions to social problems and

then implements them on a large scale.

“Our job is not to give people fish, it’s not to

teach them how to fish, it’s to build new and

better fishing industries,” explains Bill

Drayton, the ‘godfather of social

entrepreneurship’ and founder of Ashoka, a

global non-profit organisation with

headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, dedicated

to finding and fostering social entrepreneurs

worldwide.6

The Industrial Revolution of the 1700s split

society into two unequal segments, maintains

Ashoka’s Bill Drayton. Commerce became

entrepreneurial and competitive, its

compounding productivity gains sparking

rapid income growth. But somehow

enlightenment bypassed society’s other half,

that part concerned with education, public

welfare and the environment, Drayton

laments. As the consumer sector grew more

productive, the social sector supported by

taxes and protected from competition, fell

even further behind.

While it is basic for human beings to trade

and exchange, it is just as fundamental to

cooperate. We are social beings who are at

our best as active participants of thriving

groups and networks.

‘Community is not something we have, it is

something we never stop doing.’7

Set around 1950, Nevil Shute’s novel, A

Town Like Alice, is firstly a love story – about a

Jean Paget and a Joe Harman, two people

thrown together by war finding each other

again after six years. But also it is a story

about love of place and what one person with

the motivation to contribute and build for the

benefit of community can achieve.

A Town Like Alice captures the vision of a

young Englishwoman: how to build

attractiveness into a place such that its young

people want to remain and where others want

to come to live. In her travels Jean had been

enchanted with the quality of life in the remote

Alice Springs (population then about 1200) in

central Australia. Armed with this experience,

she devises a plan for her adopted home, an

outback town in western Queensland starting

with the building of a workshop to employ a

small number of ladies making fashion goods

from locally produced leather – and

progressively superintends the plan’s

implementation.

“Community is about place, spirit,

belonging and connection. It is about joy, fear,

love and hope. Community is also about

friendship, caring and being cared for. These

are the things that motivate us every day,”

announces the Tamarack Institute website.

Tamarack is the real-time Jean Paget. It is a

Canadian organisation dedicated to

supporting “collaborative strategies that

engage citizens and institutions to solve major

community challenges”.8

Brit Nevil Shute was himself an

entrepreneur, starting up an aeronautical

engineering business prior to taking up writing

full time. All his books, one way or another,

are about this – except ‘On the Beach’, and

that is a warning of what will happen to

mankind if it ceases to be on the side of

creation and improvement.

Small towns, big opportunities

It takes less than four minutes to drive through

the built-up area of Putaruru and at just five

houses to the hectare, it is neither a big nor a

particularly compact place. This is not

necessarily a bad thing. With their walkable

characteristics, spare infrastructure, space for

local food production and home occupations,

small towns like Putaruru are in fact

well-placed to confront issues of climate

change and diminishing resources.

Retirees are already discovering the

affordable housing such places offer.

Businesses that are able to service their

clients remotely via telephone and the Internet

are discovering the benefits with cheaper

overheads.

The important challenges facing us today

– the need for frugality, living more sustainably

and fostering civic engagement – are all made

easier in small towns.

Small town initiatives are part of an

emerging movement that is bringing people

together to explore how we – as communities

– can respond to the environmental, economic

and social exigencies of today. Our

communities have within themselves the

innovation and ingenuity to create positive

rejoinders to these challenges of our time.

What is required is firstly igniting and

supporting local responses and then weaving

them together into a coordinated action plan

for change.

By building local resilience, we are able,

collectively, to respond to whatever the future

may bring in a positive and creative way. By

remembering how to live within our means, we

can rediscover the spirit of community and a

feeling of empowerment that flows from

belonging and sharing in a world that is

vibrant, just and truly sustainable.

Conclusion: stewardship and

imagination

“If Henry Ford had gone out and surveyed his

community, they probably would have told

him they needed a faster horse.” It’s trite but

pedagogical. We all need a vision.

Communities need vision. But equally

important, communities need people to help

articulate, nurture and drive their vision.

In the future, leaders will not be

remembered for their professional, technical

or cost-cutting skills but for their wisdom,

empathy, presence, intuition and artistry,

predicts leadership educator and pianist/

composer, Michael Jones.9

“It will be a way of leading that is more

relational focused and based upon creating an

empathic resonance with others as a

networker, connector and convener of webs

and communities,” suggests Jones.

As designers we practise those particular

disciplines that awaken the power of the

imagination. These help transform our

mechanistic or industrial view of our world to

one that is more subtle – and sustainable – a

transcendent vision that is more creative,

organic and whole. This is how an artistic

viewpoint can be especially helpful to

community leaders.

“Make and mend is a fundamental principle

in the history of cities as of civilisation,”

observed Professor Arthur Smailes in his slim

but pithy volume on the history and

morphology of town building, ‘The Geography

of Towns.’

The scale of required interventions to make

better, more-liveable places does not have to

be big. Small projects can add massive value

to rural towns and these small urban

programmes can be the catalyst for positive

change. Likewise, solutions do not need to be

spectacular or eye-catching. The important

thing is they need to be pragmatic, sensible

and place-based. If they are, they can work. 

REFERENCESBygrave, W.D and Andrew Zacharakis.

Entrepreneurship (Second edition), John Wiley,

Hoboken, NJ, 2010.

Courtney, B. Four Fires, Penguin, 2003

Shute, Nevil A Town Like Alice, Heinemann,

1950

Smailes, A.E. The Geography of Towns

Hutchinson, London, 1967.

20 URBAN MARCH 2011

BY PAULA NICOLAOU, senior associate DLA Phillips Fox

The Construction Contracts Act 2003 (Act)

came into force on 1 April 2003 with its

purpose being to regulate payments under

construction contracts and provide an

alternative avenue for dispute resolution

between parties to those contracts.

The Act currently covers commercial

construction contracts between principals and

contractors and contractors and

subcontractors and extends, in part, to

residential construction contracts.

Eight years on, the Act is now undergoing

its first review. In November 2010, the

Department of Building and Housing issued a

discussion document containing reference to

five specific issues under review.

The date for submissions closed on 16

December 2010 and the Department is

looking to issue a paper outlining responses to

the proposed changes early this year.

Focus of the review

The matters under review and the

Department’s proposals are as follows:

1. Whether the Act should apply in its

entirety to residential construction

contracts.

As it currently stands, the Act regulates

commercial construction contracts and

residential construction contracts differently.

The main differences being residential

construction contracts do not get the

benefit of:

the implied default provisions relating to

progress payments;

the wider options for enforcement of

adjudication orders, for example, where an

adjudication order is issued in favour of a

consumer and the other party does not

comply with the order, the only option for

the consumer is to re-litigate it either

through the courts or pursuant to the

dispute resolution clauses of the contract; if

the order concerns a dispute about rights

and obligations then it is not enforceable at

all;

the provisions allowing the issuing of

charging orders in respect of construction

sites and suspension of work.

The Act also requires payment claims under

residential construction contracts, where the

client is a ‘residential occupier’ to be made in

the form prescribed under the Act. This form

contains additional requirements to that

required under a residential construction

contract where the client is not a ‘residential

occupier’. The reference to a ‘residential

occupier’ has raised issues for contractors

and caused confusion as to which type of

payment claim is required.

The Department’s proposal

It intends to remove the limitation in how the

Act applies to residential construction

contracts, as well as requiring a generic notice

to accompany all payment claims, whether

under a commercial or a residential

construction contract, detailing how to respond

to a claim and the consequences of not paying

a claim either in full or in part.

2. Enforcement of adjudication orders

The Act currently distinguishes between how

adjudication orders can be enforced depending

on the type of contract they fall under and the

matter being determined. For example,

commercial construction contracts receive the

full benefit of the Act which extends to (for

orders for payment of money only) the right to

suspend work, register a charging order or

register the order as a judgement in the courts.

Orders under residential construction contracts

or orders in respect of rights and obligations

under either a commercial or residential

construction contract are more difficult to

enforce, with the latter having to be re-heard in

a court if the parties want a decision at that

level.

In looking at this issue the Department gave

comparisons between the ability to enforce an

adjudication order under the Act and other

Acts that have similar regimes. For example, an

adjudication order under the Arbitration Act

1996 and adjudication orders under the

Tenancy Tribunal, the Weathertight Homes

Tribunal and the Disputes Tribunal are all

enforceable as if they were an order of the

District Court.

The Department’s proposal

It intends to amend the Act so that all

adjudication orders under the Act can be

enforced as if they were orders of the District or

High Court, whether they relate to payment

disputes or parties’ rights and/or obligations

under the construction contract. The

Department has also proposed that the Act

allow adjudication orders in respect of

residential construction contracts to be

enforced in the same way as commercial

construction contracts (i.e. enabling

suspension of works and the issuing of

charging orders).

3. Appeal rights

The ability to challenge an adjudication order

under the Act is limited. Appeal rights are

generally limited to judicial review of the

adjudicator’s decision (i.e. an appeal that the

adjudicator has not followed the required

process) which must be heard in the High

Court. Judicial review of an adjudication order

does not address whether the decision was

right or wrong. The Act contains some appeal

rights in favour of specific parties, such as

where the owner of the building site is not the

party to the construction contract but either

has had an adjudication order against the

owner making the owner jointly and severally

liable, or allowing the registration of a charging

order on the site.

Currently, the Act does not allow for parties

to appeal decisions where the adjudicator has

‘got it wrong’ i.e. a right of appeal on the facts

of the case, points of law or unfairness. Most

other tribunals and courts allow for an appeal

on that basis.

The Department’s proposal

It proposes amendments to the Act to enable

appeals of adjudication orders where a party

feels the adjudicator has got it wrong. Appeals

will be limited to the facts of the case, points of

law and unfairness. The Department also

proposes that appeals be heard in the District

Court in the first instance.

4. Confidentiality of orders

Currently, adjudication orders under the Act are

confidential. The reason for this was to protect

private and commercially sensitive information.

The Department made reference to other

dispute tribunal forums where the decisions are

not confidential, but noted that decisions are

not public under The Arbitration Act 1996.

The Department’s proposal

It intends to remove the confidentiality

requirements applicable to adjudication orders.

5. Related goods and services

While the Act covers a wide range of

‘construction work’ relating to a number of

different structures, it does not extend to goods

and services related to construction work such

as design, engineering work, supply of

materials and equipment.

The Department’s comments focused on the

role these parties play in the construction

industry and whether it was appropriate to

suggest they come under the full ambit of the

Act. The Department focused on the payment

provisions of the Act stating that the purpose of

those provisions was to remove any blockage of

payment from the top down and they noted

that often supplies and consultants sat outside

of that arrangement.

The Department’s proposal

It proposed that while the implied payment

provisions of the Act should not apply to

supplies and consultants, the adjudication

provisions should, thereby giving those parties

an alternative dispute resolution process in

addition to their rights under their contracts

and through the courts.

We will confirm the outcome of the review

and proposed amendments to the Act once

that information is available from the

Department.

(Further information: paula.nicolaou@

dlaphillipsfox.com; tel 04 474 3274).

DBH puts CC Act under scrutiny

MARCH 2011 URBAN 21

International news

Greedy metropolis eats its way across VictoriaMelbourne [01] has sprawled 50 per cent

further than its official urban growth boundary

and is eating up small country towns.

The Age newspaper reports developers are

building large suburban-style estates as close

as three kilometres to the boundary, marketing

to metropolitan commuters while avoiding the

infrastructure levy.

Meanwhile, thousands of housing blocks in

regional towns are being sold as an alternative

to the city’s high land prices, from Drouin in

Gippsland to Wallan on the Northern Highway

and Bacchus Marsh in the west. It is a span of

more than 150 kilometres from east to west, a

distance further than that from the CBD to

Bendigo.

One new development is the 500-lot

Jackson’s View estate in Drouin that is 40

kilometres outside the boundary and is being

marketed as “a hassle-free commute to

Melbourne”.

In Wallan, which is now just three kilometres

outside the boundary that was extended in

July, there are four new housing estates with

plans for more than 5000 new homes in total.

The developments are set to more than

double the population of the town.

The developers of the 900-lot Spring Ridge

and up to 3000-lot Wallara Waters are being

marketed on the developers’ claims of “just a

45-minute train trip from the Melbourne

CBD”.

Macedon Ranges Residents Association

secretary Christine Pruneau told The Age that

such estates represented an uncontrolled

expansion of Melbourne that made a mockery

of the boundary.

“These are little towns getting development

that looks like it belongs in Essendon and it’s

changing the character of the places into

suburbs of Melbourne.”

A spokeswoman for Planning Minister Justin

Madden said the government’s $631 million

regional blueprint ‘Ready for Tomorrow’

included $37 million to help regional councils

plan for population and jobs growth.

RMIT associate professor of planning Michael

Buxton said the state government’s stated aim

of decentralising population growth into the

regions was a good idea. But it should be

concentrated away from the boundary in

bigger regional centres such as Wangaratta

and Ballarat, where there were jobs and

infrastructure to accommodate more people.

“Huge numbers of people travelling even

bigger distances to the city to work isn’t going

to solve anything,” he said.

Professor Buxton said housing was a threat to

some of Victoria’s most productive agricultural

land around Warragul and Drouin.

However, Baw Baw Shire mayor Adam Tyson

said a house-and-land package in the shire

was $30,000 cheaper than in Pakenham, a

nearby suburb that is inside the boundary.

First home owners who build in a regional

area receive $26,500 in government grants

compared with $20,000 for a new home

inside the boundary.

Source: The Age

Bikes play shapely role in creating urban formDesign Within Reach founder Rob Forbes,

who now runs Studio Forbes, based in San

Francisco, has a new passion: Public.

It’s a design-based business, reports

MediaBistro.com, with a mission “to help

reduce our dependency on cars and think

more intelligently and artfully about the way

we get around and connect with our cities and

communities”.

It designs and makes bikes, basically, and a

particular focus are the practical, traditional

designs inspired from Europe of the 1950s

and 1960s. (http://publicbikes.com).

Forbes told MediaBistro: “I’ve been watching

the growth of city bikes in Europe for almost

ten years and seeing the changes here, such

as the Bloomberg initiatives in New York. I’m

passionate about urban design and mobility,

and want to help us get over our car

addiction.” that are guaranteed for life and

“ride like butter.”

Source: www.mediabistro.com and www.

publicbikes.com

Denver airport’s great – pity about the busesAnd while we are talking of Rob Forbes, a

recent blog from Public which centred on

Denver International Airport [03] offered up an

interesting parallel with Auckland.

”A quick trip to Colorado last month put us in

the Denver International Airport on our way to

Boulder, Colorado. We don’t know of two

greater contrasts in transportation designs in

one region. The experience was a study in

the extremes we see in our modern world.

“The Denver International Airport has been

on the design radar since its inception in

1994. It rises out of nowhere in the high

plains, like modernist Bedouin tents. Inside it

feels like a study in efficient mobility with

everyone everywhere in motion. The

architecture firm Fentress Architects

designed the airport and it lives up to their

slogan “Inspired Design for People”. A

speedy tram zips you to terminals. There are

elevators, horizontal conveyor walkways, and

escalators in every space. They whisk you

around like magic inside the space. But once

you get your bags and look for public

transportation, it smacks you. You are stuck.

You are 15 miles from anywhere.

“Denver is one of the few major airports in

the entire world that is not connected to its

city by some form of rail. Taxis and rental

cars are your only way out. OK, there are

0201

22 URBAN MARCH 2011

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buses (sort of) but who wants to pack into a

bus, especially after a plane flight? It is as if

the car rental agencies and taxis conspired to

form a monopoly. Maybe they did. How

uncivilised.”

Here in Auckland, should we look forward to

similar comments from…oh….85 thousand

overseas visitors to the Rugby World Cup?

Source: Public.com

Urban designers getting younger by the day

‘Kids can be planners too’ is the philosophy of

a group of Los Angeles teachers who just

started their own pilot school organised

around the unlikely theme of urban planning.

The East Los Angeles Renaissance Academy

of Urban Planning and Design held its first

classes in September on the crisp new

campus of Esteban Torres High School, in the

heavily Latino East L.A. MetropolisMag.com

reports it’s a neighborhood where, the

teachers think,students can particularly

benefit from the skills and values of the

planning profession.

But the school is not only about zoning and

parking minimums. Teachers say they’re easing

into the broad and complex world of urban

planning from a more abstract starting point.

“For our students, at this stage, ‘urban

planning’ is not even a term that they use.

We’re mainly talking about community,” says

Martin Buchman, an English teacher who has

promoted the new school.

Buchman and his colleagues felt that urban

planners’ emphasis on community

development and public participation was

especially relevant to local students and their

families. None of the teachers, however, have

any formal training in urban planning. To help

with the more specific aspects of the

discipline, they have James Rojas, a 20-year

veteran of L.A. planning who has been

advising them on the curriculum and

lecturing. He’s also looking to host workshops

where students build and discuss models of

cities and urban environments.

Source: MetropolisMag.com

Australians told: look to Rio for ‘inspiration’An urban planning expert says town planners

can learn a lot from the slums of Rio de

Janeiro [04] when it comes to building our

future cities.

John Norquist, the president of the United

States Congress for New Urbanism, is in

Brisbane for the City of the Future

Conference.

The former mayor of Milwaukee says

population growth means high-density living

will be the way of the future in Australian cities

like Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

Mr Norquist points to Rio’s favalas as

examples of functional communities and says

the informal arrangements made in slums are

a good model for how councils can improve

zoning laws.

“To give you an example of where you have a

very strict plan like the capital of Brazil,

Brasilia, where most of the streets are grade

separated and everything is use separated

and it’s planned on the utopian model that

was predominant in the 1950s,” he said.

“The capital of Brazil is one of the most

lifeless places on earth. The restaurants and

the nightclubs and so forth that you find in Rio

you don’t find that in Brasilia – you find it in

the slums around Brasilia.

“So planners need to learn from the way

human beings arrange their lives informally

when there’s not a plan.”

Mr Norquist says planning cities with

transportation and sustainability in mind is the

“convenient remedy, the inconvenient truth”.

He says Australian cities had it right before

World War II, but since then, planning has led

to urban sprawl, which means people are

forced to rely on cars more.

“The pre-World War II development was built

compactly and around transit,” he said.

“In the post-war period there was a time in

Australia – not quite as long and as

devastating as what happened in the US –

where you experienced a lot of sprawl.”

Mr Norquist says urbanism does not mean the

end of owning a car and having a backyard

barbeque.

“There is an understanding in the real estate

market in the US more and more that

urbanism has a value, that urbanism creates a

lot of variety of choices,” he said.

“Even in our most suburban areas on the edge

of metropolitan areas there’s talk about

building village centres that are walkable,

where people can enjoy life, where they can

meet their friends and have a social function

and also market function, retail.

“The idea of just having a community built

around cars with the main feature being giant

roads and parking lots, that’s not enough to

people anymore. They want more than that.”

In the United States there are between 35 and

40 million new homes expected to be built in

the next 30 years and Australia is set to follow

a similar path.

Mr Norquist says Vancouver in Canada – a

city of boulevards and good transit – is a

perfect model for Australia’s major cities.

“It has no expressways at all and it’s quite

successful.

“It’s been the most successful city in Canada

in terms of property value growth, it’s gained

in population but the population seems very

satisfied with the growing density of the city.

“It’s a great tourist city, it’s a great economic

city, it has manufacturing, it has all kinds of

things that makes for a great city.”

Source: The Age

03 04

MARCH 2011 URBAN 23

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Welcome to the first issue of URBAN for 2011. We all

know it’s been a tough time recently for New Zealand’s

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The urban design and development community mourns

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Also in this issue URBAN, we look at the work of young

designers; David Pronger looks at ‘the small town’ and

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The Construction Contracts Act is under scrutiny by the

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ISSUE 1 | VOLUME 5 | MARCH 2011

A nation’s memoriesdeserve a significant urban space

Graduate perspectivesurban design from a new angle

Cycling by design:urban form arrives on two wheels

Graduate perspectivesurban design from a new angle

Cycling by design:urban form arrives on two wheels

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