Skip to main content.

Urban leader - A newsletter for urban design champions

Issue no. INFO 231 | 3 October 2007

 

Welcome

Welcome. This regular newsletter will help you champion good urban design in New Zealand. It contains relevant and useful information about urban design.
In this issue we have:

Urban Design Protocol now has 144 signatories

A big welcome to the latest signatories to the Protocol: D.J. Scott Associates Limited, Klein Ltd and Waipa District Council.

For a list of all 144 signatories go to: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/urban/design-protocol/signatories.html

International Urban Design Conference

The International Urban Design Conference was held on the Gold Coast, Australia from 6–8 September 2007. Over 400 delegates attended, including representatives from some Protocol signatory organisations. In this increasing age of urbanism, keynote speakers focused on the challenge to design our cities in a much more sustainable way. Speakers included urban design luminaries such as Ian Bentley from Oxford Brookes University, Jan Gehl, professor of urban design in Copenhagen, and Jeremy Harris, former Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu. It was pleasing to see that a number of the international speakers referred to the Protocol resources as an often consulted and well respected source of urban design information.

To read the speakers’ abstracts go to http://www.astmanagement.com.au/urbandesign7/Presenter_Abstracts.htm

Transport conference

The New Zealand Transport Conference was held in Christchurch from 25–27 July 2007. Prime Minister Helen Clark addressed the conference. Notable speakers included Jack Short, Secretary General of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, and the Associate Minister of Transport, Judith Tizard. The conference covered the themes of future transport, funding and energy. A big emphasis was on integrating land use and transport including urban design, growth management, economic development and city-regional strategy development. SmartGrowth policies and approaches were also covered with a panel discussion.  One panellist was Don Chen, founder and Executive Director of SmartGrowth America. To see the presentations given at the conference please go to: http://www.transport07.co.nz/index.php/keynote_presentations

Sustainable Building Guidelines

Wellington City Council has just released their Sustainable Building Guidelines. The guidelines explain the benefits of sustainable building and provide options for achieving sustainability. These voluntary web-based guidelines are based on a range of New Zealand-wide resources for developing sustainable buildings, such as the Smarter Homes website and work by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) and the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ).

Urban Design Conferences and Events

As discussed in the last newsletter, IntensCITY 2007, was launched by Wellington City Council on 27 September and will run until this Friday (5 October). IntensCITY is a week-long programme of events aimed at raising public awareness of the importance of urban design. Events include a design competition to raise the level of debate about transport movements, a billboard campaign, and a series of lunch time seminars. If you are in Wellington this week we encourage you to check out some of the events.

The 6th New Zealand Cycling Conference will be held in Napier from 1–2 November 2007. This conference will offer a useful mix of practical and technical sessions, updates on progress at a central government level, examples of projects at the local government level and glimpses of what is happening overseas. Promotion of cycling and how to work through some of the barriers to getting cycling projects implemented will be addressed at the conference. The keynote speaker will be Bob Chauncey from America’s National Center for Bicycling & Walking (NCBW).

The 5th Australian Housing Conference will be held in Sydney from 20–22 February 2008. The conference will be hosted by the NSW Department of Housing, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institutes and the Australian Government Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. It will offer an opportunity for professionals, working in the housing sector to discuss “face-to-face”, and debate the broad range of issues facing Australia’s housing systems.

For other upcoming urban conferences and events go to the Champions webspace and enter your password.

Useful Links to Current Information

  • Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has launched the GreenSave calculator on its Web Site. This life-cycle cost-benefit tool enables industry professionals and building owners to better understand the benefits of green roofs over the long term. For more information on Green Roofs and some New Zealand examples, go to Landcare Research’s website.
  • The American Institute of Architect’s Center for Communities by Design has released the first draft of a selection of prominent sustainability practices. The information outlined in this document offers a general overview of how-to guidelines, community indicators/benchmarks, and other similar sources as a reference starting point to understand the very broad and wide-ranging field of community sustainability.
  • The United Kingdom’s English Partnerships has just released the second edition of their Urban Design Compendium. Urban Design Compendium 2 builds on the principles of urban design to focus on the delivery of quality places. The Compendium is now also available as an interactive web version.
  • Tackling obesity by creating healthy residential environments, a World Health Organisation report, identifies some ways to address the health effects of the residential environment by reviewing the relationship between the design and the quality of the residential neighbourhood and the opportunities for physical activity.
  • For a New Zealand perspective on obesity, take a look at the report recently presented to the House of the Representations as a result of the Inquiry into Obesity and Type II Diabetes. Page 24 emphasises the role the built environment plays in this pandemic.
  • Every Child Matters, a report by the Sustainable Development Commission in the UK, aims to improve the daily experiences of all young people in England. The report explores the influence of the environment on children's wellbeing and is written for everyone designing and delivering services that impact on children's lives.
  • The Safe Routes to School National Partnership, based in the United States, have just launched their new website. This website aims to help parents, schools, local and central government, and advocacy groups, implement programmes that will encourage more kids to walk and bike to and from school.

Do you want your news in here?

If you have something you want to share with the champions in the next newsletter email Janna Murray janna.murray@mfe.govt.nz 

Note: articles submitted may be edited by the Ministry for the Environment.

Last updated: 14 January 2009