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QUESTION: How do we develop integrated systems thinking and industry-wide collaboration to deliver resilient and liveable built environments in Aotearoa?
This question is core to the Integration theme at this week’s long-awaited UrbanismNZ conference in Auckland this Thursday/Friday 27-28 April, and will be explored at two dedicated sessions sponsored by the Urban Design Forum.
Co-chairs Ekin Sakin and Lisa Mein will be front and centre seeking answers that will then be factored into a 2023 Aotearoa NZ Statement of Urbanism.
As stated in the UDF’s overview for the Integration theme, Aotearoa NZ is currently in a period of generational change in the urban development sector, reflected in the process of major regulatory reforms which seek to respond to systemic challenges and new drivers facing the built and natural environment.
Discussion will be opened up on the policy and development enablers and barriers to the creation of successful neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods that is, that facilitate access to housing, shops, social infrastructure and employment in places that people want to, and can securely and affordably, live in through different life stages. Neighbourhoods that enable choice through development type and providing security of tenure to create and support communities that afford dignity to all individuals.
Lisa: “The first session on day one will explore what it takes to change the urban development paradigm to nurture resilient communities. The theme and the panel will, I’m sure, generate a rich mix of points of view and provoke some much-needed debate”.
The panel that Lisa will engage with will feature Meredith Dale (The Urban Advisory), Jade Kake (Matakohe Architecture and Urbanism Ltd), Matt Heal (New Ground Capital), Greg Tolley (Kiwi Property) and Eva Zomboli (Auckland Council).
On Friday Ekin Sakin will oversee a range of shared wisdom from:
- Stuart Houghton (Boffa Miskell) on the subject of ‘Plan of plans – an integration tool’;
- Stephanie Griffiths and Tim Church (both Boffa Miskell) on the question ‘Do we need an Aotearoa Spatial Plan?’;
- Sophie Burtt (Eliot Sinclair) on the topic ‘Urban Designers as Placemakers – learning from international, to deliver for local’; and
- Tim O’Loan (Aurecon) will speak to ‘The four ingredients to revitalising urban spaces’.
Ekin: “Chairing this session is exciting. I really value these opportunities to pool our best urban design thinking, to capture the state of that thinking, and to use it to inform the future directions that we can help to take a lead on”.
Read about all six conference themes here: urbanismnz.co.nz/conference-themes
UrbanismNZ – bring it on!
