The Critics

Sara Zwart

I have over 18 years of experience in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. Since graduating with an honours degree in architecture, I have worked on a wide range of projects across these disciplines in Wanaka, Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland.

My projects seek to engage and align multiple internal council and external stakeholders around a common purpose and vision for urban regeneration of green infrastructure. I specifically work on the Awataha Greenway in Northcote and the Puhinui Stream in Manukau.

Prior to joining Panuku, I was Studio manager and a Landscape Design Lead at Jasmax for ten years. During this time, I worked on a range of landscape architectural projects. In recent years focusing largely on the areas of transport, green infrastructure and campuses.

I have an ongoing passion for sustainable and regenerative urban and landscape design and am actively involved in promoting this both through my project work and involvement with a network of regenerative design practitioners.

I believe that effective integrated design practice, and early stakeholder engagement is instrumental to the success of place-based and regenerative design outcomes. This interest has been further enriched by my understand and respect of Te Ao and Te Reo Māori. I value close collaboration with mana whenua and believe we all share a role of kaitiakitanga for this precious land.

Benoit COPPENS

Benoit has a  Master degree in Landscape Architecture, he has collaborated with Coloco office & Gilles Clement for 5 years in landscape projects & studies, He is now working  working as a Landscape Architect consultant at 4Sight in Auckland.

Dr Fleur Palmer

Dr Fleur Palmer Te Rarawa/Te Aupouri is an Architect, Spatial Activist and Senior Lecturer of Spatial Design in the Faculty of Design & Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.

Dr Fleur Palmer's award winning  Ph.D focused on the displacement of Māori communities through colonisation and is the first doctorate to investigate to implications of discriminatory practices on housing outcomes in Aotearoa. Through her innovative collaborative practice she supported the creation of an affordable housing project in Kaitaia for He Korowai Trust that also featured in a documentary on social housing directed by Briar March called A Place called Home. In her collaborative practices, she worked with 7 marae from the North Hokianga, and the Hawke family from Ngati Whatua to generate visualisations of future development to reflect the core social and the cultural values of these communities in support of self-determination.

Dr. Falaniko Tominiko

Director of Pacific Success at Unitec Insitute of Technology.

Fiona Ting
Fiona Ting is a Malaysian-Chinese/Pākehā landscape architect. She is a member of the rōpū Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga, a group of people from various Asian backgrounds committed to supporting Māori sovereignty through treaty education with Asian communities and solidarity with Māori-led movements. As a tauiwi person practicing landscape design in Aotearoa, she is interested in furthering education within our tauiwi design communities about the history of the lands we work within and our responsibilities as tangata tiriti. Working towards a deep understanding of the history, land and tikanga of this place is seen as the fundamental basis from which all tauiwi designers can work. Fiona carries out this work through her involvement with the Landscape Foundation and through her current role as a landscape architect at Xanthe White Design. 

Jo Hurst 
Jo Hurst is a a director at Constable Hurst Architects . Jo has also taught for many years at the Unitec School of Architecture . 

Tommy Honey
Tommy Honey is a director, designer, educational manager, architectural critic, cultural commentator and occasional architect. He has worked in the theatre, taught architecture and design, directed a Film School and been CEO of an Art & Design college. Tommy was for a long time the resident urbanist on Radio New Zealand’s Nine-to-Noon and he is currently undertaking a Masters in emergent and disruptive technology at the Tech Futures Lab where he is investigating disruption in housing

August Workshop Timetable

Workshop Three abstracts

Faizan Javed

“Prescription for Nature: Making room for urban green spaces in highly dense city to combat stress “

The importance of land and personal space among individual signifies a lot to one’s overall being. It is one of the necessities of a single person to fully express its’ true nature. But in this modern Metro Manila, many resources that are indeed important for an individual has undergone in a quite shortage manner due to the rapid growth of urbanization and people migrations from different parts of the nation seeking for better opportunities. This is the reason for the enormous land scarcity and uneven distribution on properties. Creating a wide range crisis on lot entitlement on individuals who dreamt of having a valuable life in the city. Despite of being the nation’s major center for commerce, services, leisure and entertainment, the life’s value predominantly decreases. Causing a lot of problems on how the people respond to everyday life around, making them more stressed and deprived to the point that Metro manila is now one of the top 10 most stressful cities to live in the world. (Tom Connick, 2017)
The association between urban green space and well-being has been extensively studied and practiced in many parts of the world such as Australia, Europe and North America. However, in tropical countries, especially in developing countries such as Philippines there are few examples of such studies.

This research looks at the effects of urban densification on urban green space and its planning. The researcher will identify the problems, challenges and strategies of urban green space planning during densification processes. Furthermore, this research will also investigate the effect of urban green spaces in relation to public health.  


Junxiang Liang   

Due to urbanization, cities, in specific, are facing problems as the shortage of green space. This issue would cause a problem called Urban Heat Island (UHI), where the temperature is higher than suburb.  To deal with it, one of the possible solutions is to increase the ratio of green space. However, the lack of land could be another challenge to establish new green parks. In this case, what if the concept of Pocket Park could solve this problem in high density cities.

There are some questions about UHI and Pocket Park:

· How can we use Pocket park to deal with the UHI effect in high-density old town?

·  How to design this park by investigating type, size and density of distribution?

Aims
To investigate and design which type of Pocket pack could mitigate UHI effect in high-density old city, Lanzhou, China.

Outcomes 
To confirm the function of pocket park through research and investigation.
To prove that pocket parks reduce the UHI effect.

RAHELEH JAHANBANI

OPTIMIZING THE CYCLING NETWORKS IN MANUREWA, AUCKLAND

Ministry of Transport (2018) of New Zealand stated “We are driving further and more than ever before”. Nowadays, most of high-density cities around the world are trying to reduce the amount of usage of motorized transportation mode and use a sustainable alternative choice such as cycling. It is quite clear that how cycling affect significantly on enhancing environmental, financial and health. Apart from greenhouse gas emissions and economic advantages, “bring back the bike” could provide more physical, psychological and social pleasures. According to Wild and Woodward (2019), “cyclists are consistently shown to have the highest levels of satisfaction with the trip to work, yet the reasons for this contentment remain understudied”. They point four main factors in their research as the high commute satisfaction amongst cyclists: 1- Commuting control and time reliability; 2- Sensory stimulation; 3- Moderate intensity ex- excise; 4- More social interaction.
In general tree important components play the main roles in cycling for daily travel which are geography, climate and infrastructure. From infrastructure site, “the perception of cycling as an unsafe mode of travel is a significant obstacle in increasing the mode share of bicycles in a city” (Lawson, Pakrashi, Ghosh, & Szeto, 2013). According to the Winters, Davidson, Kao, & Teschke (2011), location and design of bicycle routes are very important in promoting the cycling. 
In this paper, I’ll try to investigate the causes and factors which are involved in the usage of cycling in Auckland and how can cycling became a more desirable & sustainable transport option in Auckland. At first, according to background reading and literature review, some criteria’s will be classified based on case studies. Then it will be evoked a suitable design plan based on findings and analyzing data’s. Improving safety not only prevent probable accidents, but also encourage more people to commute by bike. 


Wenjin Zhan

Looking out – a process of designing with children and communities as Auckland densifies


With the acceleration of urbanization and the aggravation of population problems, urban planning and development are faced with several problems, especially the planning and design of urban space for children. The reduction of public space reduces children's access to nature and has an impact on children's physical and psychological health. In addition, the decrease of children's independent mobility and the concept of the child-friendly city cannot serve children well. This series of problems affecting childhood have attracted more and more attention. As adults becoming increasingly aware of children's current and future role as rights-holding city dwellers

Coupled with an increasing boilerplate approach to creating child-friendly cities. The ‘Lookout’ project is one approach has tried to improve people’s awareness of the city by a shared dialogue between children and adults. It is an opportunity for children to reflect the city in a different way. 

This research project aims to improve children’s lives thru the design of outdoor public space. Firstly, do some background reading and literature review, then collect and analyze the data from the 'Lookout' project at Newton Central School in 2017 and search for themes that could inform my design. After that research public space in Auckland and do the design project. Finally, evaluation of the process, this research hope to invest design outcomes resulting from the performance-based method of participation ('Lookout') to provide increased nature experiences and more equitable urban environments for children.


Chentong Wang

Building a neighborhood containing dementia and age-friendly design features


Dementia, or another name, Alzheimer, can be defined as the mild cognitive impairment. People experiencing dementia not only lost survival abilities, such as poor memory, but also have emotional disease, such as depression, anxiety, even apathy.
In the past, dementia is a common brain disease for elderly. Whilst, the situation has changed that middle age group over 45 are possible have dementia. The latest statistics reveals that over 60,000 New Zealanders have a dementia diagnosis and the population is predicted to increase in terms of demographic population change. It is not a unique instance that Scotland and UK have the similarly increased tendency as New Zealand and these two countries have designed specific public parks for sufferers suffering dementia to encourage them to do outdoor activities for developing their physical and mental health. Actually, most of sufferers with early stage dementia are able to survive alone and they need open public spaces to do exercises and meet new friends, which have positive impact on slowing down the deterioration. Thus, it is necessary to create public parks for people with dementia at the early stage in order to satisfy their needs instead of locking them at home or sending them into care villages.
The aim is to improve the wellbeing of early stage sufferers through making them feel safe, comfortable and confident in outdoor public environment leading to their greater empowerment. This project will investigate the extent to how to design dementia –friendly parks for people experiencing early stage dementia in Auckland. After collecting related data and selecting a site, it will evoke a completed design plan. This kind of public park not only satisfy sufferers with dementia needs, but also healthy old people.




Te Kerekere Roycroft
Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu
Ngāti Korokoro – Ngāti Whārara – Te Poukā

PŪTAHI A WHENUA
voices flowing as one


As a descendant of Kupe, Nukutawhiti, Rāhiri and Kahi the time I can be with our whenua in Pākanae is precious. Though I often think of myself as a visitor in what should be my turangawaewae, I can only think others in my position have similar feelings, a feeling of having to rely on my own personal memory association for any legitimacy of interaction. It is through our own kōrero/waiata/pūrākau/tikanga that we can reconnect and increase our confident in who we are and feel more connected to the future of our whenua, moana and awa. Connecting the tikanga and ways-of-doing developed by our tūpuna to the actions and ways-of-doing of our whānaunga. 

Through kōrero with our hau kainga I identified a range of potential outputs. Each of these has its own relative benefits to improving the collective knowledge base of our whānaunga. I have engaged in kōrero with members of our hau kainga to select a preferred output that would be the most useful and applicable to our beliefs and aspirations for our rohe. Gaining advice and guidance and support from our hau kainga is of integral importance to be BY US, FOR US, WITH US!
Together we have collectively chosen a dual output that incorporates a mapping platform and a rohe cultural landscape assessment. It is important for the product of this project be the most useful and applicable to the outcomes and aspirations of our rohe/ngā hapū. 
The mapping platform will contain socio-cultural and geo-physical layers of whenua features/meanings/interactions. This will establish context for pūrākau, memories and waiata interactions with whenua. It is important to note that, while the mapping platform will focus on the ‘area of interest’ of our nga hapū in south Hokianga (Waimamaku – Opononi – Pākanae), future capability will extend to the maunga of Te Whare o Ngāpuhi.
The rohe cultural landscape assessment will allow for analysis, using the content of the platform as a base, on the current conditions of our rohe. It will be a tool to determine what the future of our rohe is, from our worldview, for future land use and our continued interaction and occupation as Ngāti Korokoro, Ngāti Whārara and Te Poukā.


Dexell Frankie Aita, BLA, IFLA, ICOMOS NZ, Master’s student

Apia Flood Management – Weaving Fa’asamoa and Landscape and Landscape Architecture


Apia is suffering from an on-going flooding issue, that seems to grow and intensify over the years due to climate change. As a result of reoccurring flooding; the local economy diminishes under rebuilding and recovery costs, natural and cultural heritage are damaged and life threating situations are formulated. Apia, the capital of a small island estate of Samoa in the south west pacific, stretches through three water catchments along the coast.

An on-going research, seeks traditional practices and knowledge from local people, narratives and experiences to weaving into a landscape hybrid solution, which would reduce the effects of flooding while acknowledging the nature and origins of the Vailima River (Loimata O Apaula). The project weaves strand of Samoan culture, knowledge and experience together with technical landscape and engineering solutions to form a hybrid design. Opening potential opportunities to improve the overall well-being of Apia, boosting the local economy through tourism that appreciates the culture, history, and nature of the Samoa. Involving local communities by show casing traditional tattooing (Tatau), cooking, and other traditional practices. While flood mitigation is driver of this Master of Landscape Architecture study, the potential of introducing a different approach of incorporating and recognizing opportunities of enhancing and conserving existing infrastructures, experiences and knowledge are also a basis of contributing to a resilient Apia. 

Rob Small

The Māori Garden

A New Botanic Garden for Aotearoa/New Zealand?

Aotearoa/New Zealand has four well established Botanic gardens in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin and several emerging gardens and some well-established arboreta. These gardens have included native plant collections but have not presented or interpreted the native plants of Aotearoa/New Zealand in a way that comprehensively reflects their Māori usage and their connection to Te Ao Māori (The Māori world view.) These collections are also not seen as a resource for Māori.
Māori practitioners of traditional Māori Healing have accessed native plants from the Bush in the main but some cultivation of plants used in specialist medicine and culture have been cultivated around marae. The planting of native flax cultivars that yield high fibre content for example for weaving and Kawakawa (used in medicine) are most common. Access to some plants in the wild for rongoā (Māori medicine) is proving more difficult. (report for MOH 2008)(Sujarwo & Caneva, 2015)
The Science of ethnobotany around the world has been a major contributor to medicines, foods, and materials for construction, clothing, and the arts and for maintaining the various cultural practices and customs of their indigenous communities. In Aotearoa New Zealand the Māori world of ethnobotany has been an intrinsic part of the people’s food sources, medicines and remedies as well as tikanga and mātauranga Māori for 750 years or more. (Pharmac)(Sujarwo & Caneva, 2015)
The gathering of plants for medicinal purposes has been through scavenging native forests and the cultivation of foods such as Kumara and yam (from Pacific Islands that they originated from) These gathering, planting and preparation processes are accompanied by rituals and cultural practices which are part of the tikanga (culture and rituals) of the Māori world. (ref)

The following proposed process of this study, would be the following:
1.To examine the definition and history of botanic gardens internationally and their evolution over time
2. To research models of ethnobotanic gardens around the world
2. To understand a Maori world view of the use of native plants in their traditional lives
3. To understand the limitations and barriers to creating a botanic garden that represents a Māori world view
4. To co-design a garden including plants for Rongoā, mara kai and Toi, that meet the needs of Ngati Whatua Orakei for their use in craft, traditional healing, education and research. 

Guanghui Jiang

The Urban Regeneration of Declining CBD Periphery Zones
-   The Study of the Strand Station Area in Auckland


Due to an increasing number of people’s agglomeration in large cities, the realm of urbanization of these cities is growing larger than before. The CBD periphery zone (CBDPZ) which is the immediate edge area along with city centres between the CBD and the suburbs is faced with several problems by this urban growth such as poor land use, low quality public spaces and functional isolation due to heavy traffic roads in the declining CBDPZ. However, the CBDPZ is of high value for urban regeneration with some potential opportunities, such as introducing new public spaces, creating new transit nodes and promoting new urban expansion. This research by design project identify several approaches to address the current urban problems 

This research investigates a potential approach to regenerate the CBDPZ in large cities. After background reading and literature review, such as drosscape, landscape urbanism and TOD, several methods are employed including using design precedents, undertaking data analysis and developing research by design process. The research investigation looks at the Strand Station area on the north-east edge of Auckland City Centre as a case study and it is run down with similar problems to the defined CBDPZ. The site has a great deal of potential for environmentally friendly and transit-oriented urban regeneration helping create a sustainable and resilient city for its location and urban context. 

The design project identifies an urban redevelopment strategy for the Strand Station a unique TOD project. The result will be optimizing land use, rehabilitating geographic contexts, creating high-quality public spaces and improving the connectivity and mobility. This Green-Blue TOD project without high density buildings is likely a big park dominated by social green and stormwater treatment blue besides a new train terminal. The renewal creates a backyard encouraging big images of large-scale urban development, like recreating Auckland waterfront and even linking other cities Hamilton and Wellington by High-speed Rails in New Zealand. Ultimately, the research seeks not only to improve Auckland urban form through redeveloping the Strand Station area, but also to help other big cities around the world to make strategic plans for the urban regeneration of run down CBDPZs. 




Zahra Baradaran Khalkhali

Applying a BIM-based Approach in Designing
Flexible Housing

In designing a house usually it is common to be focused on the current needs of clients and users, but soon these initial needs will change for several reasons like family growth, ageing, and changing lifestyle. Different solutions for this issue have been suggested by architects. Flexible Housing is a type of dwelling that has the ability to adjust to changing needs of its occupants. Although all the qualitative research indicates that this type of dwelling is an economic and sustainable solution, there is little quantitative data to support this argument. The reason is that the real financial benefit of Flexible Housing will only be recognizable when in spite of the routine procedures __ that everything is done based on immediate expenditure __ whole life costing is taken into account.
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an almost new approach in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Applying BIM potentials in design process could help the architect to make better architectural decisions in the first place as there are enough quantitative data to support the cost-benefit analysis of the design. This research aims to design a flexible house using a BIM supported design process which will be done in the form of a detached house in Auckland.
To achieve the purpose of this research, first, according to the literature review the main features of a flexible house have been determined. Among different techniques that have been applied by architects to achieve flexibility, in this project, ‘slack space’ has been chosen. This idea will allow us to add flexibility to design by preparing some unprogrammed spaces to be occupied by users to address their new needs in the future. These phases will be done through a BIM-based design process so we will use its potentials especially in cost estimation and documentation.

Key Words: Flexible Housing, Building Information Modelling (BIM), slack space, whole life cost