Mastering Maungawhau

Abstract

The Aotearoa (New Zealand) housing crisis and environmental shifts have inspired this thesis, which will address contemporary issues regarding Landscape Architecture, housing and urban design in Maungawhau (Mount Eden), Tāmaki-Makaurau (Auckland). Certain design decisions and some areas of local and national policy have restricted property development (or allowed poor development to occur). These developments have also limited infrastructural progress particularly in regard to sustainable urban planning strategies throughout Tāmaki-Makaurau in the past two decades in particular. The population of Tāmaki-Makaurau is rapidly growing, the 2018 census revealed a population increase of 11% in the past five years. Tāmaki-Makaurau is home to roughly 1.6million people, which is 1/3rd of Aotearoa‘s population. House prices reached an all-time high in 2016, causing major concern at a national level. To tackle these issues of improving sustainable infrastructure and high-density housing this thesis will create a design strategy which will form a new urban fabric for Eden Park. The Master Planning strategy will take a cross-disciplinary approach. Involving Landscape Architecture, elements or urbanism, architecture and hydrology. The landscape, and water sensitive design will be the key drivers in how the housing mosaic is formed. Eden Park will be used as a blank canvas site of 105,300m2. The applied design will evolve as the site challenges the aims of the thesis, methods will be tested and the project will adapt as the site develops, the implementation of precedent and methods will be displayed in the design development and final design. This will result in a robust Master Planning strategy. A detailed urban design strategy will be a solution to the challenges set out in the thesis statement. The design development for Eden Park will intertwine with the wider Maungawhau network, this will be displayed in the final design drawings. The wetland will aim to treat a larger catchment of the area of 1,026,130.33m2, this means that the wetland will need to be roughly 20,000m2 so that the total catchment can be treated by this artificial wetland at 2%. The design goal is to create a multi-layered high-density housing assemblage and mixed use space that will stand as an example of a contemporary water sensitive and high-density design in action. The final design will be strong, versatile, and have the potential to be developed and expanded into wider networks over time in regard to using similar design strategy. I envisage a successful landscape design framework as a tool that aims to design more cohesive, innovative, adaptive and local high-density urban plans, which will respond to the demands of a growing population, ever-changing environmental conditions, and overall enhance a better quality of life.