“Nature should be woven into the very fabric of our cities.
BACK TO NATURE
That’s right up urban designer Zoë Avery’s alley. The associate director of design in the University’s School of Architecture and Planning believes in nature as an integral part of the city.
“Nature should be woven into the very fabric of our cities. Green spaces foster social interaction, promote active lifestyles and enhance the appeal of urban centres.”
And it needn’t strain the city coffers, says Zoë.
“It can be achieved with relatively low‑cost interventions, like pocket parks and green roofs.”
Green, or ‘living’, roofs should be mandated to help absorb the heavy rains increasingly hitting the city. CBD runoff contributed to the inability to swim at Auckland beaches for a quarter of last summer, says Zoë.
She also advocates improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure to make the central city easier to get to, and more appealing for residents, workers and visitors. “Giving people choices and accessible spaces has been proven to work well. The addition of pedestrian-only zones and adding bike lanes is key.”
More ambitiously, Zoë says daylighting (the term for getting waterways flowing again) the Waihorotiu stream that flowed down Queen Street until around the mid-1800s, and transforming Queen Street into a bush walk could restore a sense of how Auckland was in pre-colonial times.
“It would take significant investment and careful planning, but the unique blend of historic cultural values and urban revitalisation would help create a vibrant and sustainable city centre.”
It’s an idea that resonates powerfully with Graham, whose inspiration for Waimahara was the Waihorotiu.
“For me, absolutely – to bring back those historic waterways that meant so much in the old days is just on a wish-list level,” he says.
OUT OF OFFICE
For Zoë’s colleague Bill McKay, a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning, the conversion of commercial buildings into residential is the best bet for reviving the CBD.
When workplaces emptied out during Covid lockdowns, city centre offices were deserted. With the virus panic now over, it’s still not quite business as usual for many employers.
In many instances, says Bill, former office dwellers have decided they’d rather work from home, leaving their cubicles unoccupied.
“There’s a trend away from big offices, plus a move by those that still need them to leave Queen Street for flasher buildings in more fashionable areas. That’s an opportunity to take empty office buildings and turn them into apartments.”
Conversions done well – he knows of several, including the World War I-era Guardian Trust building on Queen Street – can create quality living spaces. “I think there’s demand, particularly from students and young people looking to get on the property ladder.”
Empty-nesters are also a prime market for lock-and-leave CBD dwellings.
When Bill was a student in the city in the early 1980s, fewer than 1,000 people lived in the CBD, and he can see apartment conversions bringing about a similar population explosion from today’s 38,500 to double that in a decade.