Urban design

Get involved | Urban design goals for the city | Leadership | Best practice | Policies

What is urban design?

Read about urban design principles
considered for the Central
Connector project.

Urban design refers to the physical arrangement, appearance and functioning of towns and cities - in other words, how a place works and how it looks and feels. It's more than just style or taste, streets, footpaths or buildings, but rather how all these elements work together.

Quality urban design:

creates places which work and that people use, value, and feel good in
respects the history and special character of a city, is environmentally sustainable and is sensitive to the needs of the people
considers matters such as safety, accessibility, quality of life, and protecting heritage and the environment.

Get involved

Mayoral conversations

are a series of talks by local and international urban design experts for people in the development, design and planning industries.

Published articles and media releases

Managing changes (Trends magazine, July 2008)
Urban design champion rejects 'alien' hotel plan (NZ Herald, 21 July 2008)
Aotea Square plan released (Auckland City Harbour News, 11 July 2008
Public hold key to $25m city facelift (NZ Herald, 10 July 2008)
Talbot Park housing renewal transforms lives (Auckland City Council media release, 11 July 2008)
Auckland a city in need of ambition (NZ Herald, 6 July 2008)
Design of the times (Trends magazine, May 2007)
Englishman with designs on Auckland city (NZ Herald, June 2006)

Design competitions

promote good urban design by engaging the public, design professionals, and students for significant public developments
read about our latest design competition for Te Wero Bridge on Auckland's waterfront.

Professional bodies

Achieving high quality urban design requires input from a multitude of industry sectors and disciplines. Professionals including urban planners, social and cultural planners, architects, landscape architects, and developers all feed into the urban design discipline.

Some of the professional bodies who support urban design in Auckland:

Quicker resource consent processes

The new 'Fairwinds' process currently being developed builds on the success of the streamlined resource consent process. The process will provide an incentive for applicants to produce high-quality urban design outcomes by scoring applications against a set of urban design principles. Proposals that 'pass' will be fast-tracked through the streamlined Fairwinds process. Proposals that fail to reflect urban design excellence will need to be redesigned, or follow the current statutory processing timeframes.

Urban design goals for the city

Beaumont Quarter is a great
example of creating a more compact
city that is high-quality and liveable.

We want to make Auckland:

a more distinctive city
a more compact city
a more connected city
a more sustainable city
a more beautiful city
a more human city

Read about our six urban design goals

Leadership

Mayoral taskforce on urban design

is made up of key members of the development industry, set up to review how the city manages urban design
read about the taskforce

Urban design panel

reviews resource and building consent applications to ensure quality urban design projects
read about the panel

Regional leadership

Auckland City Council was one of the first to sign up and support the Ministry for the Environment's Urban Design Protocol. Since then, more than 150 organisations have signed, and the Ministry has produced and supported a number of initiatives and publications that aim to raise the awareness of urban design and encourage best practice in our towns and cities.

Best practice

Urban Design in the news

Sketch of Monte Cecilia Park.
Read more about this award-
winning project.

Beaumont Quarter was highly
commended in the 2006
Urban Design Awards.

Congratulations to Auckland City Council's Helen Kerr whose Masterplan design for Monte Cecilia Park won Gold at the recently held NZILA Resene Pride of Place 2008 Landscape Awards.

Helen was congratulated particularly on her thorough and meaningful approach to public consultation, her interpretation of the historical and contemporary values of the site, and the quality of her presentation materials.

Also presented with awards was architecture firm Architectus for their Queen Street Upgrade Stages 1-3 designs, and their urban design framework for Wynyard Quarter.

Property Council Awards

The Property Council of New Zealand holds the annual Rider Levett Bucknall Property Awards ceremony. Members of the Property Council and the public are invited to vote on a series of building and design categories. This year, the urban design group is sponsoring the Urban Design Award category. Winners will be announced on June 27 at the awards ceremony.

People's Choice Urban Design Awards

Part of the urban design programme is recognising best practice in the city. In the past, we have done this by holding the People's Choice Urban Design Awards.

Policies

Updated June 2008