Consultancy Project: Urban

What happens when the essential elements of a Japanese stroll garden [stone, water, evergreens] are re-imagined as a minimalist plaza development?

Multi-programming of flexible-use public space requires an event platform that can support any thing that is thrown at it. Three grass terraces step down to a primary event space that links Auckland's main street with the premier auditorium in the city: formal and informal, large and small performance requirements are accommodated simultaneously. Two axes intersect in a layered geometry of pedestrian circuits, seating spaces, trees, steps and walls to create an urban plaza on top of a three-level car park.

A subdivision design in which the movement of water across the site is used to organize the roadway and house lots. A planted swale alongside the central access road cleanses the run-off and discharges it into a lower stream which marks the rear boundary. The lots are located within this stream and another higher one that creates a ridge which drains into each stream. Most lots have views acroos the Hauraki Plains and the Firth of Thames.