Edge of the Grid: Defining Wellington’s Edge through Intensification

The concept of growth limits is reoccurring within city theory. If city growth is constrained, then denser development patterns must be used. Contemporary theory on city form is centred on arguments for more sustainable cities, so methods of densification must be sustainable. Very little work in the field of architecture or urban design has been done to investigate the potential of defining the edge to the city through built form. None has been found that translates the edge of a green-belted city into a built form.

Therefore, this thesis suggests that in some cases, defining the edge of a green-belted city through built form is a logical step to take in the evolution of these cities. The greenbelt is a widely used tool in cities around the world and has been implemented in various ways. In order to produce a site-specific response to the edge condition created by greenbelt and city, the design is located in Wellington. Wellington is highlighted as an unusual case for the relationship between city and greenbelt for two reasons.

The first is that the Wellington Outer Green Belt, formally established in 2004, has grown from a public desire to have a continuous network of recreational tracks running the length of the western edge of the city and protecting the highly valued visual amenity of ridgelines and hilltops. This is opposed to cities which have implemented greenbelts primarily to constrict growth. The second, closely connected to the first, is that the greenbelt boundary has largely been influenced by topographical constraints on settlement patterns and is not an arbitrary planning gesture.

Wellington is also unusual because of the inclusion of a town belt in the original colonial layout of the city in 1841. The belt has survived largely intact, and can provide insight into the nature of city growth up against a green edge. This thesis aims to draw together two aspects of city form; the relationship between greenbelt and city and the understanding that denser, intensified settlement patterns provide a more ecological form and therefore poses the hypothesis that defining the edge of the city through intensification can contribute to an ecological city form.