Urban design
Home |
About us |
Auckland Conversations and Events
About us
What is Urban design?
Urban design refers to the physical arrangement, appearance and functioning
of towns and cities - in other words, how a place works and how it looks and
feels. It's more than just style or taste, streets, footpaths or buildings, but
rather how all these elements work together.
'Placemaking' is a term that began to be used in the 1970s by architects and
planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets,
and waterfronts that will attract people because they are pleasurable or
interesting. Landscape often plays an important role in the design process.
Quality urban design:
- creates places which work and that people use, value, and feel good in
- respects the history and special character of a city, is environmentally
sustainable and is sensitive to the needs of the people
- considers matters such as safety, accessibility, quality of life, and
protecting heritage and the environment.
Urban design goals for the city
We want to make Auckland:
- a more distinctive city
- a more compact city
- a more connected city
- a more sustainable city
- a more beautiful city
- a more human city
Read about our six urban design goals
We aim to achieve our goals through five key areas:
Leadership
Mayoral taskforce on urban design
The taskforce is made up of key members of the development industry, set up
to review how the city manages urban design.
Read about the
taskforce
Urban design panel
The panel reviews resource and building consent applications to ensure
quality urban design projects. Read about the panel
Regional leadership
Auckland City Council was one of the first to sign up and support the Ministry for
the Environment's
Urban Design Protocol. Since then, more than 150
organisations have signed, and the Ministry has produced and supported a
number of initiatives and publications that aim to raise the awareness of urban
design and encourage best practice in our towns and cities.
Professional bodies
Achieving high quality urban design requires input from a multitude of
industry sectors and disciplines. Professionals including urban planners, social
and cultural planners, architects, landscape architects, and developers all feed
into the urban design discipline.
Some of the professional bodies who support urban design in Auckland:
Published March 2010
