Urban design
Get involved | Urban design goals for the city |
Leadership |
Best practice
| Policies
What is urban design?
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Read about urban design principles
considered for the
Central
Connector
project. |
 |
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.
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.
Get involved
Mayoral conversations
- are a series of talks by local and international urban design experts for people in the development, design and
planning industries.
Published articles and media releases
Design competitions
- promote good urban design by engaging the public, design professionals,
and students for significant public developments
- read about our latest design competition for
Te Wero Bridge on
Auckland's waterfront.
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:
Quicker resource consent processes
The new 'Fairwinds' process currently being developed builds on the success of the
streamlined resource consent
process. The process will provide an incentive for applicants to produce
high-quality urban design outcomes by scoring applications against a set of
urban design principles. Proposals that 'pass' will be fast-tracked through the
streamlined Fairwinds process. Proposals that fail to reflect urban design
excellence will need to be redesigned, or follow the current statutory
processing timeframes.
Urban design goals for the city
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Beaumont Quarter is a great
example of creating a more compact
city that is high-quality and liveable. |
|
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
Leadership
Mayoral taskforce on urban design
- 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
- 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.
Best practice
Urban Design in the news
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Sketch of Monte Cecilia Park.
Read more about
this
award-
winning project. |
|
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Beaumont Quarter was highly
commended in the 2006
Urban
Design Awards. |
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Congratulations to Auckland City Council's Helen Kerr whose Masterplan design
for Monte Cecilia Park
won Gold at the recently held
NZILA Resene Pride of Place
2008 Landscape Awards.
Helen was congratulated particularly on her thorough and meaningful approach
to public consultation, her interpretation of the historical and contemporary
values of the site, and the quality of her presentation materials.
Also presented with awards was architecture firm Architectus for their
Queen Street Upgrade
Stages 1-3 designs, and their urban design framework for
Wynyard Quarter.
Property Council Awards
The Property Council of New Zealand holds the annual
Rider Levett
Bucknall Property Awards ceremony. Members of the Property Council and the
public are invited to vote on a series of building and design categories. This
year, the urban design group is sponsoring the Urban Design Award category.
Winners will be announced on June 27 at the awards ceremony.
People's Choice Urban Design Awards
Part of the urban design programme is recognising best practice in the city. In the past, we have done this by holding the
People's
Choice Urban Design Awards.
Policies
Updated June 2008
