: : Waitangi Park

Location: Wellington Waterfront, New Zealand
A joint venture created for the project, WALA (Wraight Athfield Landscape + Architecture) Landscape Architecture and Architecture. Lead designers John Hardwick-Smith and Megan Wraight
Additional Consultants: Landscape, Environment and Urban Design Group, NSW GAO, Sydney - Penny Allan, Martin Bryant and Nicole Thompson, Ecological Engineering - Melbourne/Brisbane, Australia - Environmental Engineers, Spencer Holmes, Wellington - Civil and Structural Engineers, Tonkin + Taylor - Marine Geotechnical Engineers, Stantiall Studio Ltd, Wellington – Illustration
Awards: Gold Award + Sustainability Award of Excellence NZILA, 2008, Supreme Award NZIA 2007, National Urban Design Award NZIA, 2007, Award Mention, Torsanlorenzo Italy 2007.

DESIGN BRIEF & PROCESS
- A former no-mans land of car park lots, the park concept was designed to challenge and re-invent the Urban
Park within the hilly-windy-Wellington context and provide, the following keys aims:
- A high level of mixed recreational uses for a diverse range of users
- Sophisticated and effective environmentally sustainable design
- Connectivity to the urban framework within which the waterfront site is positioned
- Amplification of the park’s physical components by woven narratives pertinent to the Wellington region, referencing both the natural and cultural heritage of the site
- Following the design competition process the team steered a complex and rigorous process to develop the design and gain Resource Consent for the Park.

CONCEPT DESIGN – FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
Primarily the park is structured by five operative zones or layers including: the promenades; activity zone; cultural and ecological overlays; the field and environmental infrastructure. These have provided inventive recreational usage and created a regional destination.
- The promenades augment a clarity and multiplicity of routes through the park at a range of scale, levels of intimacy and engagement with the park.
- The activity zone wraps the city edge of the park working as a transition into and sheltering the field. A series of spaces accommodating: streetball courts; integrated skate park; petanque courts and a playground, are set within a structure that allows flexibility for adaptive reuse.
- Cultural and ecological layers interwoven throughout the park engender a strong sense of place.
- The field is central to the overall scheme. Designed to facilitate urban scale cultural events and casual picnics/city reprieve, the field is fringed with tree planted mounds and an avenue of plain trees along its northern edge.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFRASTRUCTURE – COLLABORATIVELY DESIGNED ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATIONS
Environmentally Sustainable Design and the water sensitive urban design strategy not only combats the improvement of water quality but also contributes to the visual appeal of the park generating a unique character. Features incorporated into Waitangi Park include:
- Water conservation
- Quality improvement of urban storm water runoff (no net increase of pollution in natural water systems)
- Bio-diversity and use of native species
- Use of renewable energy (wind/solar power) and thereby the reduction of green house gases
- Reduction of waste.
The park’s environmental infrastructure includes:
- Storm-water collection and filtration off the adjacent and site roads (formerly piped under the park)
- Daylighting and filtration through bio-retention of Waitangi Stream
- Graving Dock wetland terraces for natural water cleaning
- Recycling of harvested water for irrigation
- Ecologically sourced plants from the Wellington region.

: : Waitangi Park

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