Waitakere, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Project Team
Landscape Architect : Wraight + Associates
Architect : Athfield Architects
Architect : Architectus
Client : Waitakere City Council
Project Status: Completed
Project Summary
This project comprises the public domain associated with the development of a new Waitakere Central Library, Citizens Advice Bureau, new Unitec Facility and car parking building.
Project Objectives
- Catalyse investment in the nearby town centre area.
- Generate a new urban identity for the city of Waitakere that is aligned to their Eco City ethos.
- Integrate combined Library and Unitec uses.
- Improve the city’s stream health through the integration of Water Sensitive Urban Design principles.
- Improve circulation and connection to Henderson’s main street, provide integrated parking.
Key Features
- Three new public plazas of varying intimacy that respond to distinct site adjacencies and provide flexible public space useable for gatherings of various scales.
- External spaces are designed to extend and integrate internal building uses, layouts and themes.
- A new landscape palette for Henderson comprising a modular suite of urban furniture pieces and pavement treatments (to be used city wide) along with a planting selection that reflects aspects of Waitakere’s cultural and natural life.
- Implementation of planted stormwater treatment devices (rain gardens and swales) – providing ecological amenity as well as stormwater detention and treatment.
- Implementation of a distinct urban character that is visually attractive, practical and able to accommodate site specific interpretation.
- Integration of commissioned art projects.
- Employs the city wide urban furniture suite along with some site specific furniture elements.
- A new laneway slices between the library and unitec facilities referencing the deep cut gullies of Henderson’s two streams.
Awards
2008 – NZILA Silver Award – Institutional Landscape – Henderson Library