Client
Services
Year
Location
: Auckland Council
: Landscape Design + Urban Design + Strategy
: 2022-2025
: Auckland, New Zealand
Street Typologies for People and Nature
The Urbanist is working with Auckland Council/Te Kaunihera o Tāmaki Makaurau to design and facilitate overarching principles for street design between several local government agencies and developers.
The project aims to consider the opportunities and constraints in street design and, utilising design thinking, offer outcomes that benefit all stakeholders enabling high-quality street design for healthy and resilient neighbourhoods.
Streets are public places that serve our communities, and their design has a fundamental effect on the quality of people’s lives. Streets provide safe passage connecting our homes and the places we go, they support essential public utilities, such as stormwater, water supply, sewerage, electricity, fibre, and communication network infrastructure.
Trees and onsite stormwater attenuation should be considered as critical infrastructure to help mitigate the wicked problems we face today in our urban environments.
Designing streets that include canopy trees supports our communities with an improved environment for walking and cycling, with UV protection and mitigating urban heat island effects. They improve connection with nature for mental health and well-being, and deliver safer, happier communities. Trees and tree pits with structural soils can supply climate change mitigation features, with stormwater attenuation, and evapotranspiration through the trees to reduce flood risk and reduce pollution.
