Spatial Planning and Urban Design Seminar and Discussion Forum brought to you by the
Urban Design Forum, New Zealand Planning Institute and the School of Architecture
and Planning held in Auckland 2 September 2010 was attended by over 150 people with a good cross section of public and private sector professionals.
[6/9/10]
On the day, we just started to scratch the surface of the topic of large scale planning and urban design. But we are not alone in this. The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CBAE) has only recently brought out a guide to urban design and spatial planning – see www.cabe.org.uk/strud
For me, the messages from the day were the importance of central government being part of the process from day one (not an unwilling responder to a plan prepared by Auckland) and how the plan respects and acknowledges the diversity of Auckland; it's landscapes, economy, cultures and many neighbourhoods.
Critical is what “givens” the plan accepts as a starting point. If central government is not going to fund some infrastructure and is not going to provide more tools to manage urban development, then should these be taken on board at the start, as constraints? So too with the private sector; if they will not fund and build development in some places, do we take that as another starting point? The more the region wishes to head in a different direction from these two parameters, the more it is going to have to fund and do things itself.
To my mind, spatial planning through urban design can help to define this path.
Urban design approaches suggest the following:
• Time, commitment and a high degree of cross disciplinary collaboration in developing the plan (this will not be a one day exercise)
• Understanding the many layers that make up the city (environmental, economic, social, cultural); cities are complex systems, not simple constructs of low or high density for example
• Spatial / 3d analysis tools and representations of futures, and quantifying the costs and benefits of these as best as possible
• Many iterations in developing the plan; testing out proposals at smaller scales, then re incorporating this into the bigger picture; constantly referring to the layers of the city and how proposals integrate across these layers
• Implementation / delivery as part of the shaper of the strategy, not a response to it.
David Mead
UDF National Committee Member
Hill Young Cooper Ltd