Growth Strategy

In the preparation of a growth strategy for the Rodney district, included looking at a variety of ways that cities have grown in the past and the theories of their spatial development. This included the early urban morphology and settlement patterns put forward by Burgess, Hoyt, Christaller, and then the later theories of Doxiadis.

In this project I found it overwhelming to be considering growth of the city at the regional scale. There were so many issues to consider: transport, employment, residential density, ecological and agricultural. These were confounded by further questions such as where does Rodney begin and end? and where does the Auckland region begin and end?

Then there are the issues at the local scale (while recognising that these decisions will affect all of the above issues). Peter Calthorpe's pedestrian pockets, New Urbanism from everyone's favourite architect–planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Le Corbusier's Radiant City, and Ebenezer Howard's garden cities were all looked at.

I find this area of planning interesting. There was also an interesting article 'Iwitiniopolis' by Rae and Anderson (Planning Quarterly, March 2000, p. 20–22), which related the theory of Ekistics to the upper North Island, and the continuing growth in the Auckland–Waikato–Bay of Plenty region.

Below is the final growth strategy. The executive summary of the report reads: 'The Growth Strategy for Rodney District creates connections at different scales of the urban region. New Garden City settlements in the northern part of Rodney create employment and form the wider connections. More physically directive Transit-Oriented Developments create local connections between the west and east coasts, and also divert growth from areas of coastal erosion. Their high dwelling densities and complementary functions prevent the large, unaffordable detached dwelling being perpetuated across the ecological and social landscape.'

Imagery of Utopia

At http://www.planetizen.com/node/141 Marisa Cravens provides an online review of films that depict ideas important to planning.

The imagery that this medium allows to be conveyed can be quite fantastic.

I know that I was somewhat shocked to be told that The Truman Show was filmed in the real-life town of Seaside, in Florida.

I have always liked utopian-type stories, and think that film is particularly effective in conveying how they relate to our current physical and social environments.

It's easy to critique suburbia, but films such as these can often provide a subtle analysis of the effect that these places have on individuals' lives.

If You Want to Lead, Blog

Interested to know how this blog could be useful in the professional world, I did some research.

There are so many blogs out there. Do people really have the time or inclination to be reading them? You can't read them all, but perhaps you can continue to follow a blog that really interests you.

Jonathan Schwartz shares the background to his blog in an article in the Harvard Business Review (November 2005, Vol. 83 Issue 11, p. 30). The material shared in the blog includes business strategy, product development and company values. He says that his company's blogs talk openly about letters from other organisations, to which they openly respond. They talk about their successes and their mistakes.

He is the CEO of Sun Microsystems.

He suggests that blogging is going to be compulsory for future executives: in the future, 'If you're not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf — and I'm not talking about your employees.'

He suggests that this public communication tool is vital for engagement with and insight into the market and employees.

It's an interesting proposition. Imagine how much more transparent and understandable local government and planning decisions would be if there was a constant sharing of all the information, everybody's opinions, good and bad, and a knowledge of how things were being improved. It could be an opportunity for more people to engage, when, at the moment, a lot of consultation material seems to be either in vague, obvious, universal descriptions of goals and desired community outcomes, or in the complexity and detail of resource consents, which require a lot of time and energy to understand.

Freeman's Bay Study

In this project we looked at the possible situation of increasing the density of the site bounded by Franklin Road, Wellington Street and Hepburn Street in Freeman's Bay, from the current 32 dwellings per hectare to between 70 and 120 dwellings per hectare.

The classic land-use map reveals some interesting features of the site.

Large areas of communal space were created for residents in the spaces surrounding the individual private garden spaces of the new terraced houses that were constructed round culs-de-sac in what was considered to be a slum area.

The spaces are quite beautiful, but are not used. That I was able to take this photograph shows that the communal space is in fact accessible to the public, through various narrow walkways.
This layout does not follow the principles of the perimeter block in keeping the rear open space private, and this is perhaps why nobody uses it.
The final design that our group came up with for the site followed what I think is a common pattern — low-rise (up to 6-storey) blocks of flats surrounding communal open space, in a number of smaller urban blocks than currently on site. This type of development can be seen in the various masterplans for the Viaduct Harbour and other new urbanism-type plans such as Wynyard Wharf (http://www.seacity.co.nz/design_concept_masterplan.htm). Has the perfect medium-density urban layout thus been found?

I hope not. One thing that is interesting about Freeman's Bay is the variety of typologies that were included in the 1970s redevelopment: terraced houses, 'star flats' and courtyard housing. In preparation for this project we looked at different residential typologies. The ones I liked the most were outside of the usual categories, such as maze-type projects in the United States: dwellings on various levels, of different sizes and types, stacked vertically and horizontally and with crazy elevated paths and staircases. Developments like these I think might make for exciting and interesting urban environments.