Humanising Te Papa: Transforming what Te Papa does to the public life of the city
When a large public building is constructed within any landscape it is often found to create adverse affects on the public life surrounding it. This investigation focuses on Te Papa in Wellington, New Zealand. It employs design strategies that emerge from site observation, analysis and exploration of design and behaviour literature. Site observations are undertaken at various scales to determine the behaviours that occur in and around the site, and analysis of this provides an understanding of why such actions can happen and why others cannot. Exploration of the literature is employed to understand past approaches to this design problem and to inform the analysis process. Design testing allows ideas to be played out in hypothetical scenarios and the outcomes of which will be compared to past approaches. There is a strong focus on pedestrian movement as a catalyst of public life, in relation to the movement itself and the interactions people have with the surrounding environment when influenced by the movement flow. The overall goal of this thesis is to observe and analyse a large building in the public realm that, although is surrounded by movement, limits engagement in ways that results in a decrease of public life. The research leads to the exploration of how flows can be coordinated to generate eddies of interaction and pause and ways to activate and open up particular edges of this building in order to create new opportunities for the public to engage with the landscape. It finally attempts to find ways to not only create new public life, but also intensify the public life in this challenging situation.