As anyone living in or that has visited Auckland in the last few years can attest, Auckland’s urban, suburban and rural landscapes are being transformed at an unprecedented speed and scale. Whilst this change is occuring across the entire region, it is in the City Centre that this change is most dramatic. Around $15 billion in private and public investment in the City Centre is expected over the next 10 years.

A key piece of City Centre public realm development occuring right now as part of the Downtown Programme is the reset of the larger part of the Quay Street corridor and adjacent Ferry Basin space. Aligned for delivery with other major events, this work will be completed in 2021. The programme area marks a physical meeting point of Te Waitematā and the contemporary city, where land meets harbour meets sky. As the traditional front door to the city, holding great significance for Mana Whenua and importance for Aucklanders, this is one of our highest profile and most loved public areas.

A unique process has been implemented by the Auckland Council whānau in the design and delivery of this programme of works, bringing together five of our most experienced public realm design practices to work pokohiwi ki pokohiwi (shoulder to shoulder) with Mana Whenua as a collective. In adopting a programme approach drawing together a number of individual projects, this requires highly collaborative design between the teams and Mana Whenua to maximise the opportunity.

Amongst the programme design brief, one of the key challenges put to the design collective by the Auckland Council whānau is to significantly lift Mana Whenua design expression and outcomes in this work. Central to this challenge is a deceptively simple and open-ended requirement of the design collective, that design outcomes must contribute to a cognitive transition in our designing for this place:

Moving Auckland to Tāmaki; a 21st century city within Aotearoa looking confidently out to the world from our place here in Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.

That’s right – what does that mean, what does that look like and how do we do that?

We look forward to providing updates as this work starts to draw shape!

Words: Phil Wihongi, Tumuaki (Chair) of Te Tau-a-Nuku, Urban Design Leader, Auckland Council