Client: Auckland Council, Eke Panuku
Location: Manukau, Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland
Contributors: WALA – Wraight Athfield Landscape and Architecture (Wraight + Associates and Athfield Architects ) Amiria Puia-Taylor (Artist), Bluewater (Project Management), Andrew Taylor Consulting (Project Management), CLC (Civil Engineering), Structure Design (Structural Engineering), eCubed Building Workshop (Hydraulic + Lighting Engineering), Arbeco (Arborist) Rich Landscapes, Velo Solutions (Skate Specialists) Park Central (Play Specialist) Stoks Limited, Peake Design Ltd (CPTED Consultants)
Year Completed: Stage 1: 2019, Stage 2: 2023
Awards:
2020 Resene Total Colour Landscape Award
2024 NZILA Award of Excellence – Play Spaces
2024 NZIA Auckland Architecture Award – Planning & Urban Design
Hayman Park’s destination playground originated from a 2010 design competition. Phase 1, completed in 2019, included a halfcourt, kiosk, public toilets, natural play areas, and a central path. Phase 2, completed in 2023 added another halfcourt, flow bowl, pump track, flying fox, nature play, and a truly bespoke 13m tall play tower. The design integrates numerous mature trees, providing shade and a setting that complements New Zealand’s tallest play tower. The existing skatepark was refurbished and connected to new wheeled play areas and halfcourts, forming a youth-focussed component to the park. The playground is easily accessible through its proximity to the Manukau Town Centre, MIT and the Transport Hub. The siting of the playground, its key features and circulation was conceived to maximise its positive contribution to and within this context.
The playground’s detailing and colours draw inspiration from Manukau’s diverse communities. It offers play for all ages and abilities, with a focus on youth, while accessible play equipment is centrally located to promote inclusiveness. The project is a significant step in the broader renewal of Hayman Park, as part of Manukau's ongoing transformation.
Images by: WALA, Eke Panuku and Playground People
Client: Hamilton City Council
Location: Rotokauri, Kirikiriroa | Hamilton
Collaborators: Edward White Architects (Architecture), BrodieHailwood (Project Manager), Designwell (Branding, Signage), Harrison Grierson (Civil) BCD Group (Structural), Feisst Electrical (Lighting)
Year Completed: 2023
Awards:
2023 - NZIA Public Architecture Waikato/Bay of Plenty Awards Winner
Te Kaaroro Nature Precinct connects two of Kirikiriroa’s popular attractions: Hamilton Zoo and the Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park, while also integrating the
Observatory of the Hamilton Astronomical Society. The landscape and architecture are structured around linking the entries of these key tourist and visitor destinations
with new open spaces, a café, ecology trail, and viewing tower, creating an animated and varied central spine and a distinctive new place for the city. The scope included
new arrival spaces and a playground within the zoo itself.
The project was initiated through a Hamilton City Council design competition and won by a multi-disciplinary team comprising Wā, Edwards White Architects, and
Designwell. The competition brief called for a new, distinctive entry precinct that included new zoo entrance building/s, as well as new carparking. A road upgrade
was later included to allow service, speed and other design upgrades for the entire corridor. The winning concept established the goal to create an integrated
and cohesive, unique and memorable precinct, which is reflected in the built outcome. Sustainability and ecology are meaningfully and authentically integrated to provide an entry experience suited to the narratives of the two places it serves, while providing actual environmental benefits.
Client: Auckland Waterfront Development Agency, Eke Panuku
Location: Wynyard Quarter, Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland
Contributors: MPM Projects, Alta (Project Management) BECA (Structural + Civil Engineering) Lisa Reihana, Tessa Harris (Artists) Downer, JFC (Contractors)
Year Completed: Stage 1 – 2018, Stage 2 - 2022
Tīramarama Way is a pedestrian and cycle laneway designed in collaboration with artist, Lisa Reihana. The flexible space supports a range of movement and occupation requirements, while introducing play and a rich narrative expression throughout. It runs east-west through Wynyard Central, an emerging precinct of residential and commercial developments.
The design reflects the historic intertidal edge, and features 'purposeful puddles' that fill in-sync with the high tide. The formerly coastal condition is abstracted and depicted in a dot-screened pattern across the entire street’s surface. The nikau grove, kowhai grove and raingardens form gateways, offering exploration and play opportunities, while the array of catenary lights mimic Pacific navigational stars and express specific constellations through a shift in light temperature at key locations. The open character of the street responds to technical and environmental needs of the precinct, while also adding a deliberate variety of character to the Wynyard neighbourhood spaces, which are typified by green streets with extensive tree and raingarden planting.
Client: Jasmax, University of Waikato
Location: Hillcrest, Kirikiriroa | Hamilton
Collaborators: Architectus, Design Tribe, Jasmax (Architecture), Jasmax (Landscape Architecture – documentation and site stages) Greenstone Group (Project Management), BECA (Engineering), CKL (Traffic Engineer), RLB (Quantity Surveyor), Simon Devitt (Photography)
Year Completed: 2023
Awards:
2024 NZIA National Awards - Ted McCoy Award for Education
2024 Central Property People Awards - Best Team Award
2024 Best Awards - Toitanga - Gold
2024 Best Awards - Spatial: Private, Public & Institutional Spaces - Gold
Built in the 1960’s, the University of Waikato is a typical modernist campus comprising detached buildings arranged according to function. This project sought to reimagine a connected campus by enmeshing landscape and building. Transitional spaces incorporate layering, deep edges, transparency, and overlapping programs blur the distinction between interior and exterior, while gathering once isolated building programmes into a cohesive state.
The landscape spaces cater for large and small-scale events, the intermittent major pedestrian flows between lectures, as well as typical day-to-day campus movements and informal recreation. It mediates ceremonial functions, including graduation ceremonies and pōwhiri, with casual interactions and occupation, such as shared a coffee in a sunny spot. In this way it mirrors and extends the internal multi-use functions of the landmark building.
A former brown-field site, Waitangi Park redefines the concept of urban park within the Wellington coastal context. Structured around five key initiatives: the activity zone; the promenades; the cultural and historical overlays; the field and a programme of highly integrated environmental infrastructure, the park offers a multitude of recreational possibilities.
Waitangi Park is a bench mark for sustainable landscape design within the Wellington Region. The park’s environmentally sustainable design and the water sensitive urban design strategy not only contributes to improved water quality but also contributes to the visual appeal of the park generating a unique character for the place.
Cultural narrative and site history are central to the design concept, the interpretation of which is woven throughout the park’s detailing and spatial composition. This approach, to fully integrate site interpretation into the built form, is possibly most evident in the realisation of Waitangi Stream and the Graving Dock which are both major components of the site’s Water Sensitive infrastructure and clear acknowledgements of the site’s historical past and it’s significance to local Iwi of The Tenths Trust.
DESIGN FEATURES
– A high level of mixed recreational uses for a diverse range of users;
– Sophisticated and effective environmentally sustainable design;
– Connectivity to the urban framework within which the waterfront site is positioned; and
– Amplification of the park’s physical components by woven narratives pertinent to the Wellington region, referencing both the natural and cultural heritage of the site.
Working closely with Wellington City Council’s Urban Design unit and Artist Joe Sheehan, WA led the team of consultants involved in the upgrade of this nationally significant site from design development through to implementation. Completed at the beginning of April 2015 the upgraded Cenotaph Square and new Parliament Stair are key components of Wellington’s nationally important Parliamentary Precinct. Dramatically altering both the appearance and functionality of this northern end of Wellington’s CBD, the provision of a cohesive urban square and generously wide stair/ seating, has largely been an exercise in careful editing, mindful of the site’s considerable heritage value.
The new Square, a gently sloping plane of basalt paving accommodating new seating and lighting, frames a new ‘island’ of lighter coloured paving surrounding the Cenotaph monument – a direct reference to the historical triangular traffic island site on which the monument was originally erected. High quality finishes articulate this new urban space, a space that can much more easily support larger crowds on event days whilst providing amenity and ambience for everyday urban occupation.
Wai-piro Stream Artwork by Joe Sheehan, subtly expresses the site’s natural history, a sinuous line of pounamu and jade paving inserts trace a notional stream course that is brought to life by a series of secreted speakers from which the sounds of Wellington streams emanate. WA worked closely with Joe from the project’s outset to ensure Joe’s vision could be seamlessly integrated into the Square’s design. Sensitive to the site’s history and significance, the artwork contributes a layer of engaging aural and visual intrigue that elevates the square from urbane plaza to experiential soundscape.
The new Stair is generously scaled in proportion with the precinct’s highly valued buildings and heritage landscape. Inviting direct access from Bowen St up to Parliament’s forecourt plaza, the stairs are physical expression of New Zealand’s democratic freedom and the openness of its Parliament. Designed to provide prospect over the reconfigured Cenotaph Square, the new stair provides informal seating opportunities for everyday use as well as commemoration days and special events such as Anzac Day.
PROJECT RELEVANCE
– Collaboration with an Artist from design phases through to project completion to reveal the site’s heritage.
– Rehabilitation of an historically significant site by employing a carefully considered palette of materials to articulate a new configuration of space and urban elements in which the site’s historically significant elements are centre-stage.
– Working in a heritage precinct that physically and notionally connects to the city’s other heritage sites – eg The National War Memorial on Buckle St in Wellington.
– Working with a Council client to develop a scheme that is sensitive to the site’s heritage, presents a contemporary user friendly space and simultaneously is an asset that can be maintained cost effectively.
This project is located at the edge of the city and harbour on contaminated land. The public space is designed as a catalyst for development. The objectives established were to:
- Create a unique destination and a truly civic waterfront promenade
- Bring fun, family and recreational focus to the site;
- Foster real engagement with authentic maritime experiences;
- Enable this place to communicate its history; and
- Achieve an environment that is well connected yet offers distinctly different experiences.
The project achieved this by creating three distinct places within the site, and in so doing it turned the master plan layout around to achieve an authentic public waterfront by
undertaking the following moves:
- Jellicoe Street was narrowed, shifting the proposed building alignment and planting a lush Auckland centric streetscape in a high quality urban ground plane. This character is amplified at Jellicoe Plaza.
- Silo park is an urban park with diverse activities that reflect maritime heritage. Water treatment of site stormwater is integrated and made visible in the project here.
- North Wharf is retained in its original condition, still usable by the fishing fleet, but adapted for public use as well.
Sustainability principles were embodied in the project by:
- Reduced energy demand through use of efficient lighting technologies.
- Water sensitive design implements sitewide capturing, treating and reusing of stormwater.
- Promotion of alternative transport opportunities that prioritise and encourage walking, cycling and public transport.
- Creation of habitat for flora and fauna including aquatic life.
- Reduced embodied energy impact through careful material selection and the use of efficient fabrication and assembly procedures.
- A design which promotes healthy activity, environmental education and encourages positive social interaction.
This project is an exemplar of innovative public space design. It demonstrates the importance of public space by implementing landscape before building. It demonstrates a coherent use of new and old materials and elements, and integrates sitewide stormwater treatment. The integration of public art into Wynyard Quarter is a key element in articulating this space as a dynamic part of Auckland’s urban infrastructure. The project was implemented with a dedicated arts strategy with the intention of increasing the profile and potential for public art, providing artworks as well as city environments that Aucklanders can now and in the future feel pride in. The design teams role was to liaise with Council’s art consultants, provide briefing and integrate site specific and non-site specific work into the design.
Client: Kiwi Property Ltd
Location: Sylvia Park, Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland
Contributors: The Buchan Group, Architectus (Architects) Pragmatix (Project management) AECOM (Civil Engineering) Holmes (Structural Engineering)
Year Completed: 2017
Awards:
2019 Excellence – Commercial category, NZILA Landscape Architecture Awards
The Sylvia Park Plaza is a versatile ‘town square’ with varied conditions that support easy movement, casual relaxation, play, or small events. It features bespoke paving, trees and planting, furniture, and lighting, creating a unified 'Pacific grove' character. The plaza is surrounded by a new office building, dining lane, dining pavilion, and the 'Pod'—a multi-purpose sculptural stage and shelter inspired by a mangrove seed. Sculptural timber seating, along with tables and chairs, layered planting and shade tree planting, encourage outdoor dining. A mature, retained Pōhutakawa tree counterbalances the Pod and was a key anchoring feature in the design. Flowering, deciduous trees bring seasonal colour, particularly during the busy Christmas retail period.
Client: Kiwi Property Ltd
Location: Sylvia Park, Tāmaki Makaurau | Auckland
Contributors: The Buchan Group, Architectus (Architects) Pragmatix (Project management) AECOM (Civil Engineering) Holmes (Structural Engineering)
Year Completed: 2017
Awards:
2019 Excellence – Commercial category, NZILA Landscape Architecture Awards
The upgraded Dining Lane at Sylvia Park extends the new plaza's design, creating a unified dining and public space precinct. The stone paving and distinctive furniture from the plaza continue along the lane, forming seating pockets around new canopy columns. A varied palette of pots and planting brings a more intimate quality and supports places to linger. A retractable canopy provides shelter and introduces a unique architectural feature with its tree-like columns set into repurposed, defunct tree pits. The planting continue the plaza’s 'Pacific' planting palette and introduces climbing plants that ascend the canopy columns. The design creates an intimate, flexible lane that supports easy movement between the plaza and cone, an open events space, more central to the Mall axis.
This project was an opportunity to provide a safe platform for activity off the centrally located Taranaki wharf, while creating a structure that added to the industrial, maritime aesthetic of the area. The result is a 7.5m high steel diving platform perched on the historic Taranaki wharf piles. The twisting, turning steel staircase spirals up from the wharf ending at two platforms. Wa Director Martin Bryant based the platform positions and height around a series of dive studies they conducted with divers on similar apparatuses. The resulting structure presents the thrill and spectacle of this popular Wellington waterfront activity and is a welcome addition to the existing vibrancy of the waterfront precinct. The project was opened by Prince Charles in 2013.
The design and construction of the Taranaki Jump platform has encouraged safe and enjoyable interaction between Wellington harbour and the urban landscape. The activity of jumping and diving through the wharf ‘gap’ is a unique characteristic of this site. For many years people jumped from the small building on the edge of the gap which provided the landlord, Wellington Waterfront, with a number of issues regarding public safety. Wā saw this as an opportunity to create an iconic structure based around the activity of jumping which is central so the sites identity.
AWARDS
- Distinction Award NZILA for recreational park design, Taranaki Jump Platform, 2013
Client: Department of Conservation
Location: Te Ara Kairaumati | Lake Matheson, Westland
Collaborators: Tennent + Brown Architects (Architect), Department of Conservation (Project Management), MWWH (Engineer)
Year Completed: 2013
Lake Matheson is a popular West Coast destination for many visitors seeking to access the impressive views of Aoraki (Mount Cook) and its reflections in the lake. The existing car park and toilet facilities could not adequately meet projected needs, which required their upgrade and redevelopment.
This collaborative concept endeavoured to address both capacity and environmental issues within the framework of a partnership between the Department of Conservation and adjacent landowners. The design delivers a reconfigured car park, arrival and café spaces, toilet facility and clarified track entry. The revised car park was designed to meet future visitor projections while providing storm water filtration through bio retention swales.
The landscape design for the visitor centre at Waitomo Caves embraces the inside-outside dichotomy of the iconic award winning building. Key objectives steering the landscape development are:
– The integration of the new visitors’ centre within its distinctive landscape context
– An amplified visitor experience that engages visitors from the moment they leave their car
The landscape draws upon the existing site’s assets, an impressive forest rich in vegetation and a unique geomorphology of which stone outcrops are a significant feature.
These qualities underpin the detailing and manifestation of the site’s key facilities which include: visitor parking areas and drop off; external spaces; pathways; associated site furniture; signage; and lighting. The proposed structures are functional, robust, legible and relate to the language of the visitors centre and overall caves aesthetic.
SUSTAINABILITY
The landscape design incorporates environmentally sustainable strategies with endemic species integrated into existing, and newly developed areas, of NZ native plant collections.
INNOVATION
The delineation between building and landscape is obscured, a living ponga wall drawn through the building’s belly, shifts perception of what is outside and what is inside The project highlights a distinctive and innovative response: the wall utilises ponga logs that soldier their way beneath the ceiling canopy - a vegetal element that is both structured and soft. A clear link to the exterior forested landscape, the wall supports a collection of NZ epiphytes which imbue the space with an almost prehistoric quality.
The success of this project is largely owed to a highly collaborative project team structure and client group partnership. The design team worked in partnership with the client group, Tourism Holdings Limited, Ruapuha Uekaha Hapu Trust and Department of Conservation, to collectively steer and develop a shared vision for Waitomo Caves.
This project is a small park sitting within the urban fabric of Wellington. It shows our capacity to integrate a number of recreation uses in a small site with competing demands and tight budget. Our objectives were to:
- create a high quality public space that contributes to the city’s network of open spaces;
- acknowledge and complement the existing character of the site;
- improve connections and edge conditions surrounding the park;
- provide universal access for all users;
- improve public safety, minimising hazards and contributing to a healthy urban
environment;
- allow for flexible use and a range of activities to cater for events, displays and other uses.
- achieve an environment that is well connected yet offers distinctly different experiences.
Wa designed the competition winning concept for the park. The concept demonstrates the potential of inner urban pocket parks and open spaces to satisfy a myriad of uses. The proposal re-composed the physical structure of the park to define access, provide flexible, usable and stimulating space that includes specifically programmed areas. It achieves this by creating a series of defined terraces, each offering a distinct experience catering to a range of community needs. The ensemble of urban terraces is bound together within a framework of re-defined pedestrian circulation. The continued high usage of the park demonstrates its success.
The design incorporates the reuse of materials along with transplanting and re-use of established trees. In addition the design achieves low environmental impact in terms of water, stormwater and energy use through materials, fittings and plant selection.
Located at the front door to Victoria University’s School of Architecture and Design, the project provides a unique combination of programmes and activities amounting to a high use and vibrant space that has become a benchmark for the urban regeneration of Te Aro.
The proposal includes street front display panels for the city and university to exhibit student work or travelling exhibitions.
Taranaki Wharf West is a further portion of Taranaki Wharf and was completed in 2010 in conjunction with the construction of Te Wharewaka o Poneke.
Project Objectives
˗ Provide open space annex to the new Wharewaka building.
˗ Provide a variety of open space opportunities.
˗ Improve water access to the lagoon.
˗ Provide comprehensive connections to the broader waterfront area and adjacent city fabric.
Key Features
˗ A high amenity assembly and recreational space;
˗ A contemporary setting for the new Wharewaka building with highly visible connections to the lagoon and harbour adjacent;
˗ A vibrant and highly connective promenade network;
˗ Flexible seating terraces for event and daily uses
˗ Cultural + historical connections – grove of Karaka trees expressing Iwi ancestral connections and revelation of the old sea wall and extension of its alignment through the adjacent plaza.
˗ Waterfront palette of robust urban materials that communicate the site’s working port history.
Client: 94 Feet
Location: Tāhuna | Queenstown
Collaborators: Monk McKenzie (Architects), Architectus (Architects), Dunning Thornton Consultants (Structural Engineering) Mt Hobson Group (Planning) Dawid Wisniewski (Imagery)
Year Completed: Ongoing.
Set between Te Taumata ō Hakitekura (Ben Lomond’s Peak) and Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown’s Lakeview Precinct explores the concept of mountain to lake ecologies and connects to the site’s intrinsic topography, hydrology, and geology to create a distinctive setting for the buildings which will sit within it. A re-imagined native forest permeates the development, threading multiple paths through the site and extending an influence beyond its physical boundaries by gathering together mountain and lake, wilderness and the urban environment. Featuring a predominance of native beech trees and ferns amongst an array of endemic planting, the landscape scheme for the Lakeview Precinct is ecologically regenerative, mirroring the region’s alpine character and presenting an invitation for native wildlife to inhabit the site.
Lakeview will be a mixed-use community incorporating housing, visitor accommodation, co-living, co-working, retail, hospitality, public and civic space. Blurring the edges between public and private, the development intends to attract social engagement - galleries and public art, a planned events calendar, restaurants, bars and new parks are designed to foster connections between people, the landscape, the seasons, and the elements, thus offering a holistic sense of belonging which ripples outward from the permanent resident to the wider community.
The transfer of ownership of 1 Ratanui St to Waitakere City Council provided an opportunity to re-instate and expand the frontage of the library and plaza ensuring better visibility and access. The collaborative redesign of Ratanui Street’s southern library plaza delivers a new Waitakere Central Library, a Citizens Advice Bureau, Unitec facilities, a car parking building, a new service lane, a new pedestrian lane (Waitakere Lane) and three new out door public plazas. The project aspires:
- to improve visibility into the library plaza by re-organising structural and furniture elements within the space;
- to provide an optimum number of car park spaces within the site;
- to improve accessibility within the library complex; and
- to consider and provide for the possibility of adjacent commercial neighbours opening out onto the service land and plaza spaces.
SUSTAINABILITY
This project aligns with Waitakere City Council’s values, particularly its emerging identity as Eco City. Specifically this project responds directly to WCC’s aim to protect stream health within the city’s green network. In response to this aim, a key factor contributing to the composition of this project’s landscape is Water Sensitive Urban Design, along with site circulation and architectural geometries, WSUD components express form and drive the conceptual thinking. Storm water run off is collected and filtered in the numerous rain-gardens that articulate the site’s vehicle and pedestrian routes. These gardens are specifically designed to detain and filter stormwater using native reed species that are adapted to both dry and wet conditions.
INNOVATION
New furniture elements are positioned in close proximity to the new buildings to promote the integration of external spaces with interior layouts and themes. Paving, seating and planting along with commissioned artworks are composed to provide high visual and ecological amenity throughout the site for both pedestrians and motorists. The furniture and paving palette employed on this project forms the basis of Waitakere’s citywide urban furniture strategy. This strategy has since been used city-wide on numerous new urban projects within the Waitakere region.
Client: Hamilton City Council
Location: Kirikiriroa | Hamilton
Collaborators: Hamilton City Council (Project management), Claude Hidber (Lighting Design), MWH (Engineer), SKM (Electrical Engineer)
Year Completed: 2008
Hamilton CBD’s southern quarter has evolved into a dynamic part of the city’s identity. Hood St helps defines this new precinct, accommodating a vibrant range of retail, commercial and entertainment activities, which operate day and night. The design delivers a rich and varied pedestrian experience along the street edge, incorporating planted raingardens, furniture and lighting to develop a sophisticated urban language, unique to place. This project involved collaboration with lighting artist Claude Hidber to transform the character of Hood Street after dark. Laser cut tree screens with rainfall/floral abstractions cut into them reflect past programme, while light projection and cube seats with a laser-cut ‘lace’ mesh subtly express aspects of the site’s cultural history.
Located at the confluence of Troy Street and Cobham Drive, the indoor sports facility commands views from across the harbour and along the length of Evans Bay. The building is sited to optimise solar access into the main playing areas whilst minimising the impact of the building on the neighbouring Kemp Street residential properties.
Capitalising on a northerly aspect does however present some drawbacks, specifically exposure to the predominant northerly wind flows. In addressing this issue, the landscape proposal simultaneously provides a response and reaction to the scale and character of the local context and urban structure.
The margins of the ASB Sports Centre site are enveloped in a sweeping landscape move comprising vegetated mounds and structural retaining walls. Reflective of the nearby mounded airport runway structure, the boundary treatment at once provides some wind amelioration and sets the character of site as it anchors the building to this windy harbour-side site.
A series of constructed terraces articulate the facility’s main entry. Transitioning between the suburban character of residential properties on the opposite side of Kemp Street and the new building’s scale, the terraces comprise a series of functions; half court area, bus drop off, short term parking, informal gathering space and building threshold.
The landscape comprises a controlled minimalist palette. Asphalt and concrete paving are augmented by a ground plane super graphic abstraction of a team “play book”. The softscape is heavily reliant upon hardy coastal species, that not only tolerate the exposed site conditions, but also recall the site’s natural heritage and that of the surrounding coastal context.
As first precinct of the Lambton Harbour Open Space Master Plan to be implemented, the Taranaki Wharf design keys into the principles and objectives set out in the 1997 waterfront Master Plan. Setting the bench mark for all future waterfront projects, the Taranaki Wharf project provides:
- high amenity assembly and recreational spaces;
- a contemporary setting for the historic buildings of the waterfront;
- a strong visual and functional link between the Civic Centre and Te Papa Museum;
- an important city ceremonial route as well as a vibrant promenade space along the water’s edge;
- smaller more intimate spaces in which to retreat and shelter; and
- a subtle revelation of the site’s history through landscape interpretation and imagination.
The design achieves the above by:
- protecting and reinstating the fabric of the industrial wharf;
- providing a generous network of walkways including a new bridge link onto Taranaki
Wharf which is both an experience and an event;
- accommodating the Writer’s Walk - a sculptural series of typographic tablets which intone the climatic wildness of Wellington’s coastal edge as described by NZ literature luminaries;
- widening and deepening of the lagoon entrance and raising the bridge structure to allow
rowers to traverse the space between the open sea and the lagoon.
- defining special places with their own character: eg Treasure Island - an interpretation of a natural coastal edge; the Wharf Timber Garden - recycled wharf piles provide both structure and flexible furniture; The Cut Out - an under wharf experience; and the new Wharewaka lagoon edge.
SUSTAINABILITY:
The project demonstrates sustainability principles through adaptive reuse, utilising existing materials, structures and elements in an efficient and creative way.
AWARDS
- 2011 NZIA Urban Design Award for Taranaki Wharf West
- 2006 60th Anniversary Award - The Wellington Architectural Centre Award for most significant contribution to built design: Landscape.
- 2004 NZILA George Malcolm Supreme Award, for urban design.
Client: CentrePort Wellington
Location: Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington
Contributors: Studio Pacific Architecture (Architect) BECA (Engineering)
Year Completed: 2010
The CentrePort Master Plan, also known as Harbour Quays, redevelops parts of the working port into urban spaces. Areas A, D, and F feature a network of streets and open spaces that integrate the port's infrastructure with the city grid, enhancing pedestrian connections and future development opportunities. The design employs robust urban elements suitable for the port's scale, using materials like large pre-cast concrete kerbs, concrete and stone paving, asphalt, avenue tree planting, and linear rain gardens. These elements define the urban character. Central to the development are pocket parks that offer seating, visual appeal, and shelter.
Client: Environment Canterbury
Location: Tai Tapu, Waitaha | Canterbury
Collaborators: Morphum Environmental (Environmental Consultant)
Year Completed: Ongoing
Te Ahuriri Lagoon is situated between Tai Tapu and Mutukaraka, adjacent to the Little River Rail Trail. Once an open body of water surrounded by rich wetland vegetation, the lagoon was drained over time to make way for farming, imposing on Ngāi Tahu’s significant relationship to this area. This restoration project sees to the creation of a large, constructed wetland to improve water quality, biodiversity and re-establish mahinga kai values and opportunities. The final design instates a controlled diversion for the Huritini/Hallswell River, putting to use a redundant river channel which discharges into the wetland, then ultimately to Lake Ellesmere beyond.
Client: Vogelmorn Precinct Steering Group
Location: Vogelmorn, Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington
Collaborators: Wellington City Council, Co-op co-operative Ltd., Vogelmorn Precinct Steering Group
Year Completed: Ongoing
The Vogelmorn Precinct is a community-led project that adopts a participatory design model. The precinct includes a community centre housed in the former bowling club, a large hall, and a spacious public lawn between them. The purpose of the precinct is to "nurture a community backyard and living room that is creative, connected, and flourishing."
The landscape design for the precinct is shaped by the outcomes of successive community workshops, requiring flexibility and collaboration with various stakeholders. The gathered feedback called for a design that creates a distinctive character, complements the site's environmental, cultural, and historical features, and ensures sustainability and fiscal responsibility.
The reimagined village green is framed by the existing hall to the north and the former bowling club to the south, with a new grove of native plants, including kōwhai, rātā, and nīkau, lining the western edge. These native species will support the flourishing local birdlife. Low terraces on the sides of the village green offer alternative hardscape spaces, including an informal stage for games and a proposed raised orchard terrace to the east, featuring meandering paths and reused broken site concrete.
In keeping with the strong community presence overseeing the project, the concept design presents a series of options that are intended to evolve over time.
Pukeahu National War Memorial Park met the challenge of providing a suitable space for commemoration and remembrance at the confluence of one of the cities’ major arterial routes and one of the country’s most reverred monuments. The project revives the public realm between Tory, Buckle and Taranaki Streets for everyday use whilst embellishing the National War Memorial in a space that will provide future congregation and commemorance of national and international importance. The project:
- Enhances the setting of the National War Memorial;
- Provides spaces for people to congregate on ceremonial occasions such as Anzac Day;
- Expands the role of the National War Memorial to include recognition of the New Zealand Wars of the 1800’s and New Zealand’s role in peacekeeping operations;
- Creates an area in the capital city for the development of new memorials for countries with which New Zealand has had a close relationship;
- Creates a flexible and open space for everyday use and transition, and;
- Retains and enhances the strong heritage values of the area.
SUSTAINABILITY
- The design connects important areas of open space within the city, the National Memorial grounds, the Basin Reserve and Kent and Cambridge Terraces.
- A series of terraced wetlands collects and filters storm water runoff before it is conveyed downstream.
INNOVATION
The innovation of this proposal lies in the balancing of diverse programmes, between improving the quality of experience to be had at the National War Memorial and at the same time dealing with an existing major arterial route. The project provides a unique combination of programmes and activities to enrich the spaces around the memorial whilst bringing occupation into the area for a day-to-day use.
ARTWORK
Opportunities for the incorporation of artwork within the park precinct are many. The park is purposefully designed with a high degree of flexibility and open programme to facilitate a range of memorial typologies. Terrace walls, lawn spaces and pathways all provide potential surfaces upon which memorial/ art interventions could unfold.
AWARDS
NZILA George Malcolm Award — 2017
NZILA Category Winner / Parks — 2017
Public and Institutional Spaces Gold Award, The Designers Institute of NZ Best Design Awards 2016
Planning and Urban Design award, NZIA Wellington Architecture Awards, 2016
Public Architecture award, NZIA Wellington Architecture Awards, 2016
NZ Indigenous and Specialty Timber Award at the NZ Timber Awards, 2015
Urban Design & Architectural Merit award, Wellington Property People Awards, 2015
Landscape, Infrastructure and the Supreme Awards, NZ Concrete Society Awards, 2015