Town Belt Traverse 2017

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

What local body elections ?

Ecologist appointed to Dunedin City Council
News via Art Festival aside at ODT

### ODT Online Tue, 11 Oct 2016
Won a painting, now for a wall
A new Dunedin resident has won a painting auction; now he just needs a wall to hang the artwork on. Aalbert Rebergen recently moved to Dunedin and his admiration for the work of local artist Frank Gordon prompted a visit to his exhibition at Gallery De Novo on Saturday. The gallery was about to close when he saw the Frank Gordon painting The City of Magic & Song but could not find a price tag. […] Mr Rebergen has moved to the city to take on a new role at the Dunedin City Council as an ecologist.
Read more

We’re probably long overdue to have an ecologist on council staff.
We hear good things about Mr Rebergen, who has been with ORC.

Ecologists are specialist scientists who survey ecosystems and assess the diversity, profusion and behaviour of the different organisms within them. Ecologists tend to work for government agencies, environmental trusts, conservation charities and research institutes.
Or indeed as private consultants.

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Another sort of ecology IS Dunedin City Council.
When the DCC doesn’t check leaks and drains in the hill suburbs – completely misses them despite ratepayer queries and concerns! But City Care to THE RESCUE (the company from Christchurch, best practice in hand) finds was it five burst water mains in less than a day within the same street area, where for YEARS DCC had not noticed a Cuckoo.

Infrastructure Services needs to gaze at its navel CLOSELY (another ecology!) —and Councillors, you need to check within your constituent areas for problems and complaints as well as DCC works not fully investigated and not done. (Councillors, stop desk hugging on those too generous stipends!)

Message to Residents and Ratepayers: DO NOT leave DCC alone

Void the leaks. Void the drainage problems of your surrounding subdivisions. Void the DCC desert that ‘serves’ us. Backfill DCC with people who know how to run infrastructure efficiently and who KNOW civil engineering for ratepayer benefit.

That is All.

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BUT THEN

Job Vacancy at Dunedin City Council

CHANGE DELIVERY MANAGER
[nope, not the sort of comprehensive change we lust for at DCC but integral]

The Change Delivery Manager is responsible for leading the development, maintenance and delivery of the council’s long term application development plan as well as overseeing the implementation …
Location: Dunedin Central | Job ID: 3086108 | Closing Date: 28 Oct 2016
http://dcc.recruitmenthub.co.nz/Vacancies/3086108/title/Change-Delivery-Manager

More:
[key words below: “supports the IT Strategy”]

Change Delivery Manager
Dunedin Central

Reference: 3086108

The Change Delivery Manager is responsible for leading the development, maintenance and delivery of the council’s long term application development plan as well as overseeing the implementation of new solutions and systems and application upgrades and enhancements.

Extensive experience in programme and project management and the ability to establish and maintain a professional, customer focused service delivery culture is a must. Leading a highly motivated team of 12, you will have proven experience providing leadership, guidance and mentoring to members of the team.

Success in this role means:
Delivering the agreed requirements of the programme/project to the appropriate level of quality, on time and within budget, in accordance with the programme plan.
Ensuring our business applications are current, and implemented in manner that supports the IT Strategy.
Setting and meeting the customer’s expectations
Ensuring compliance with Governance requirements.

We are ideally seeking the following skills and experience:
Proven programme and project management delivery background.
At least 4 years’ experience leading a team.
An appropriate tertiary qualification in ICT/Business and/or well-developed ICT skills to be able to understand the technical aspects of Change and Application governance and architecture.
A demonstrable broad and deep understanding of principals of change and a range of change techniques.
Ability to capture requirements from multiple sources and translate those into effective and high performing solutions.
Excellent customer and stakeholder engagement/communication skills.
Excellent understanding and application of project/programme management, Business Analysis and ITIL practices, tools and techniques.
If you have the skills and experience we are looking for and the drive to succeed, we welcome your application.

Applications Close: 28 Oct 2016

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

*Image: pixabay.com – nature

Dunedin: Erosion issues at St Clair and Ocean Beach

Received from Paul Pope
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 at 3:01 p.m.

█ Message: I filmed this short video the other day and spliced in some information on how the erosion at St Clair actually happens. I don’t often use video, but it looks very compelling. I put it into the Beginners Guide to Coastal Conservation on Facebook yesterday and it’s had more than 7000 views, so people are interested in what’s going on.

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[view full screen]
Paul Pope Published on Mar 24, 2016
The Physics of Erosion
The erosion issues at St Clair Beach and the whole of Ocean Beach in Dunedin have become more and more serious in recent years. Understanding the reasons behind what people see at St Clair is very important. The community need to be able to make informed decisions about these damaging processes.

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Related Posts and Comments:
● 11.9.15 RAPID dune erosion continues —Council doesn’t give a toss
● 19.8.15 Paul Pope’s strategic overview of coastal conservation #Dunedin
● 11.8.15 DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
28.3.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2015/16 to 2024/25 —Consultation Open
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access

█ For more, enter the term *coastal* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

RAPID dune erosion continues —Council doesn’t give a toss

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Alex Gilks replies to article St Clair dunes ‘in no danger’ (ODT 3.9.15)

Published at ODT Online
Wed, 9 Sep 2015

Your say: Urgent action is needed
By Alex Gilks
Wayne Stephenson’s comments here, assuming they were reported accurately, seem quite a way off the mark. I’m no expert, but grew up near the dunes, and walk on the beach often.
I visited this morning, and the big sea earlier this week has carved off more of the top of the dune. The two big pines are about 5m and 10m from the edge of the erosion. Bill Brown is right: urgent action is needed. Big-scale protection at the bottom.
Putting aside the throwaway comment about the asteroid, here are the troubling things about this article:

• ‘no risk to property this year’ – this super short-term thinking should be criticized

• ‘if the dune’s foot was staying in place’ – the dune’s foot is absolutely not staying in place! The immediate reason for the dramatic erosion is that the toe of the dune has been completely hammered since the sand sausages were ruined. How can he not see that? Is he not actually visiting the site?

• the idea that the enemy is ‘winter’s storms’, and the implication that it will be ok again until next winter. Where does this come from? The south coast can get powerful southerlies at any time of year. Is there some data that you can use to show the frequency and time of year of southerly/easterly storms and high tides?

• sand sausages and sand replenishment as interim solutions, before ‘more permanent features in coming years’. Shouldn’t this receive more criticism? The previous sands sausages and sand replenishment worked for only what, a handful of years? Wouldn’t you just urgently undertake some more long-term solution?

For this to get real I think decision-makers need to walk along the ridge track from the Kettle Park area, see the shifting edge and the remaining area at the apex of the dune.
I’d take a botanist along too, to get a good gauge on the age of the trees that have been uprooted. The bigger ones must be 50-80 years old, yet you hear some people saying things like ‘this happened in the 70s/90s/a few years back’.
No. We need to get past this complacent idea that this is a seasonal thing, that it’ll replenish itself soon and will start working normally again in the near future.
ODT Link

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Received from Hype O’Thermia
Tue, 8 Sep 2015 at 10:36 a.m.

The sea does not adapt to humans

Increased storms and extreme weather – get off yer bike! Just for fun I googled “British houses that fell into the sea”, not a helluva rigorous search……..

One dark night in 1664, while local people were attending a wake, the whole village of Runswick slipped into the sea…
Thankfully, all the villagers escaped but by morning there was only one house left standing… the house of the dead man!
http://www.visitengland.com/experience/discover-village-fell-sea

As late as 1817 when George Young, the Whitby historian, wrote of the incident, articles including a silver spoon and coins which had been carried from the rubble by the tide were still being washed back.
http://www.chrisscottwilson.co.uk/runswick-bay/4551457861

It wasn’t always so peaceful – one night in 1664 the entire village slid into the sea! Returning from a wake, one of the villagers noticed the steps of his house slipping away beneath his feet. He gave the alarm and most of the village fled to safety. By morning only one house remained standing- the house of the deceased man. The village was rebuilt further around the shore but land slippage continued to be a problem. In 1970 a new sea wall was finally built, thankfully securing the village’s future.
http://www.simonseeks.com/travel-guides/hands-all-those-whove-heard-runswick-bay__167571

In medieval times, when Dunwich was first accorded representation in Parliament, it was a flourishing port and market town about thirty miles from Ipswich. However, by 1670 the sea had encroached upon the town, destroying the port and swallowing up all but a few houses so that nothing was left but a tiny village. The borough had once consisted of eight parishes, but all that was left was part of the parish of All Saints, Dunwich – which by 1831 had a population of 232, and only 44 houses (“and half a church”, as Oldfield recorded in 1816).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunwich_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire
The raging storms have taken their toll, claiming many buildings as the limestone cliffs erode. In 1780, 22 cottages fell into the sea. Today a rock seawall helps protect the picturesque village.
http://www.britainexpress.com/villages/robinhood.htm

[ends]

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Related Posts and Comments:
● 19.8.15 Paul Pope’s strategic overview of coastal conservation #Dunedin
● 11.8.15 DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
28.3.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2015/16 to 2024/25 —Consultation Open
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access

█ For more, enter the term *coastal* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: dunedinisforlovers.blogspot.co.nz – Majestic Mansions (April 2010); world50th.files.wordpress.com – dunes (February 2015)

Paul Pope’s strategic overview of coastal conservation #Dunedin

Received from Paul Pope
Wed, 19 Aug 2015 at 10:52 a.m.

█ Message: I see sand dunes and erosion are a hot topic on the What if? website. I thought I would send you a submission I made to the City Council on Ocean Beach Domain in 2008/2009 which gives a detailed strategic overview of coastal issues and provides a basis for a variety of solutions to a number of problems including land occupation. Also I have created a Facebook page under my personal account called: The beginners guide to coastal conservation.
I created it to provide people with information on coastal issues.

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[screenshot]

█ Download: Paul Pope: Ocean Beach Domain Submission (PDF, 1 MB)

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Related Post and Comments:
● 11.8.15 DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
18.7.15 DCC Cycleways: SEEING RED, apology NOT accepted
14.7.15 DCC strategies needed like a hole in the head
12.6.15 Fairfax: DCC has no insurance cover for flood-damaged roads
5.6.15 WEATHER is not climate change; this is not the 100-year flood
4.6.15 Exchange makeover —or pumps and pipe renewals, um
3.6.15 Civil Defence response to Dunedin FLOODING
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
28.3.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2015/16 to 2024/25 —Consultation Open
14.10.14 ORC: New strategic plan fosters Otago prosperity
12.9.14 ORC: City bus services, submissions
10.12.13 ORC restructures directorates
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
26.2.13 DCC binge spending alert: Proposed South Dunedin cycle network
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
7.6.12 Dunedin stormwater: more differences between ORC and DCC
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access
25.11.11 South Dunedin and other flood zones
7.12.09 Coastal protection zones
14.11.09 From the log books of a twenty-year distress #DCC
24.8.09 1. STS response – appeal 2. Coastal protection – comments

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Town Belt Traverse 2015 —SUNDAY

● More walk/traverse details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
18.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
13.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
11.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Posters supplied by Dunedin Amenities Society

Town Belt Traverse 2015

● More details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
13.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
11.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Posters supplied by Dunedin Amenities Society

Town Belt Traverse 2015

● More details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
11.3.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Town Belt Traverse 2015

█ More details at the DAS website

Related Posts:
4.3.15 Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Town Belt Traverse | Sunday 29 March

█ More details at the DAS website

Related Post:
24.2.15 Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

███ What if? Dunedin supports SENSIBLE WALKING SHOES

Town Belt Traverse 2015 —Sunday, 29 March

Link received from Paul Pope, Dunedin Amenities Society
Tue, 24 Feb 2015 at 2:53 p.m.

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Town Belt Traverse 2015

Walkers in the sun

It’s time to get your walking shoes on again and explore one of Dunedin’s great natural and historical landscapes.

The Town Belt Traverse is an 8.2 kilometre walk from the Southern Cemetery to Woodhaugh Gardens taking in the heart of the Dunedin Town Belt on Sunday, 29 March. The great thing about it is it’s absolutely free!

The route is a pram friendly event for people of all ages, stopping off at five points along the way. The Participants will receive a map and ticket at the car-park inside the Southern Cemetery.

The traverse starts between 10:00am – 10.30am and all participants must complete the traverse by 1:30pm. Collect a stamp at all five marshal points and you can be eligible for some great local prizes. The route is marked and there will be marshals at road crossing points along the way.

█ More information at the DAS website.

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Today the Town Belt is an important recreational and ecological asset for the city and provides invaluable habitat for kereru, bellbird, tomtit, tui, rifleman, morepork, and shining cuckoo. The vegetation is an eclectic mix of exotics that dominates the southern area of the ‘belt to the more kanuka and fuchsia dominated ridges and gullies of the northern areas. At Woodhaugh an old stand of kahikatea remains as a reminder of a significant wetland forest that once stood there.

For the Dunedin Amenities Society the protection and enhancement of the Town Belt was the beginning of its foundation in 1888. The Society was founded through the energy of Thomas Brown and Alexander Bathgate to protect, enhance and promote Dunedin’s landscape and biodiversity. The Town Belt Traverse is your opportunity to explore through a self-guided walk one of New Zealand’s great reserve sites.

The Dunedin Amenities Society established in 1888 is New Zealand’s oldest environmental society.

Visit their website http://www.dunedin-amenities-society.org.nz
Follow the Society on Twitter
Visit the Society on Facebook

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Dunedin Amenities Society – Town Belt Traverse

Tom McLean on works by Peter Nicholls #sculpture

Late last year Dr Thomas (Tom) McLean (pictured) published an article on some recent works of New Zealand sculptor Peter Nicholls. Dr McLean, a senior lecturer, teaches English at the University of Otago, but also writes on art for the US blogsite The Migrationist. Peter Nicholls suggested I would be interested in the article, and yesterday Dr McLean forwarded the link. The writing is briefly sampled in the hope you’ll pleasure in reading and sharing the full article.

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The Migrationist: A collaborative international migration blog
Culture & Integration, Personal Stories
Immigrant Woods
December 13, 2013 · by Tom McLean · in Culture & Integration, Personal Stories

My mate Pete and I had just left our Saturday morning coffee gathering when we noticed a tremble of dark feathers in the street. A female blackbird (which in fact is brown) was not doing well. Unable to fly, she had struggled through the grass and stumbled down the curb into the road. I picked her up and placed her under a tree; but this only saved her from cars or bikes. So what to do? Abandoning her to nature seemed logical but heartless. I found a cardboard box, and Pete got his car. Continues/. . .
Art helps us think beyond life’s cardboard box, and as I reflected on my blackbird encounter, the work of Peter Nicholls came to mind. Nicholls’s large sculptures are found in every major New Zealand collection. Bringing together disparate materials, his works are all about movement and encounters: set firmly in place, they encourage the participant (not simply a viewer) to make a journey. One must walk beside or pass through his large works to fully engage with them. His 2008 retrospective at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery was appropriately titled Journeywork, and it included long, stream-like sculptures in wood and metal that seem to flow along the floor. While his works show fine craftsmanship, they are not illusionary; they do not hide the effort that went into them. Nor do they suggest a simple return to nature: those elongated works might suggest a highway as much as a bloodstream or river. Even his most photographed work, Tomo (2005, Connells Bay Sculpture Park), is complex: is it the visualisation of a forest’s lifeblood, or a human imposition on nature? A sinewy marriage of art and nature, or a Formula 1 racetrack through an idyllic landscape?
Read the full article

Tomo 2005 (detail), Connells Bay Sculpture Park. Image: Peter Nicholls

█ The Migrationist is an international, collaborative academic/professional blog designed to promote public discourse informed by academics and professionals who focus on issues surrounding migration, refugees, and human trafficking. The blog is intended as a medium for intelligent discourse on migration issues. The intent is to bring this discussion out of academia and into an accessible forum for anyone who is interested in migration. The Migrationist posts weekly.
The blog was founded in September 2012 by co-editors Amy Grenier and Lali Foster, former M.A. Migration Studies students at University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom. They currently have regular contributors from all over the world and are always looking for regular and guest contributors.

█ Tom McLean’s latest post at The Immigrationist:
The Artist as Global Citizen: Cai Guo-Qiang in Brisbane January 10, 2014
In the mid 1990s I taught English in Xiamen, a coastal city in southern China. Xiamen (also known as Amoy) has a lovely subtropical climate, and today it’s a favourite holiday spot among the Chinese. But from 1842 to the Second World War, it was a treaty port. After the First Opium War, the British took over Hong Kong and forced China to allow foreign consulates to be built… Cont/

More about Tom McLean

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Peter Nicholls was born in Wanganui, educated at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts, Auckland Teachers’ College, Elam School of Fine Arts, and gained a Masters in Sculpture at the University of Wisconsin at Superior, USA. His sculptures from the 1970s and 1980s are noted for their amalgam of figural, landscape and architectural abstraction, and energized dynamics in large timber works. It was tectonic and universal rather than site specific. From 1990 it became laterally configured, river hugging and site/place specific, often interrogating historic impositions of order on primal land. Nicholls has numerous large-scale works in private and public collections internationally. http://www.peternicholls.co.nz/

Otago Sculpture Trust

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: odt.co.nz – Peter Nicholls (portrait detail)

Portobello Road Consultation —Public Meeting | Monday 13 May

Here is the latest web update for the Portobello Community.

This week we look at the road widening project and the proposed changes that the City Council has made to the initial plan. The City Council will be giving the community another opportunity to have your say on the proposal and the changes they have made to the plan since the consultation period in March 2013. This is an important issue for our township and community and the meeting is to be held at 7:00 pm on Monday, 13 May 2013 at the Coronation Hall. Pass this message onto your friends, neighbours, colleagues and whanau.

Regards
Paul Pope – Chairman, Portobello Incorporated

● The meeting will be attended by council staff, Cr Jinty MacTavish, and Otago Peninsula Community Board members.

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Related Post and Comments:
28.3.13 | Updated 29.3.13
DCC Draft Annual Plan 2013/14: Portobello Harington Point Road Improvements Project

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC Draft Annual Plan 2013/14: Portobello Harington Point Road Improvements Project

Updated Post 29.3.13

Received yesterday by email.

Something that seems to have slipped the radar in Dunedin news of late is the WIDENING of Portobello Harington Point Road on the Otago Peninsula.

Looking at the Draft Annual Plan, the City Council intends to spend the following on what amounts to an environmental and heritage damaging folly. That’s only 33-34 % of the budget, given NZTA will subsidise the remaining 66-67% of the project.

[click on image to enlarge]

See page 24, Section 1 Group of Activities (PDF, 1.5 MB)
and page 142, Section 2 Financial Statements (PDF, 1.2 MB)

The road widening (including the Vauxhall and Macandrew Bay areas already completed) will reclaim nearly 11 hectares of the Otago Harbour — a conservative measurement given plans show significantly more reclamation if the topography requires it.

Consultation on the current design closed yesterday, Thursday 28 March, indicating approval of the plan is a given despite the consultation process for the Annual Plan this year and in years to come.

[29.3.13 – The plans are not available for viewing online, why not?]

There will be irrevocable damage to the Peninsula and Harbour landscape, heritage features and the ecology if this misguided piece of engineering continues.

It is feared the Council has the bit between its teeth on this project — described as being about “liveability”, according to Mayor Cull at the Portobello Annual Plan ‘roadshow’.

It might be worth pointing out to your readers that they look closely at the Draft Annual Plan in regards to this area of Council expenditure.

Searching Council for cost benefit and recreational analyses fails to show much other than what is in the June 2008 Cycle Strategy (PDF, 787 KB).

[See also: Dunedin’s Proposed Cycle Network, adopted August 2011]

Few will have problems with the desirability of access, but the lack of design sensitivity and impact on the values of the area seem inconsistent with the value of the Peninsula and Harbour to the community and our economy.

This is certainly an issue worth looking at more deeply.

[ends]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin: Artificial islands for upper harbour?

“Basically, Port Otago has no objections to the concept provided that there is widespread community support for it.”

### ODT Online Mon, 9 Jan 2012
Growing support for Harbour Islands plan
By John Lewis
A necklace of islands mooted for the upper harbour, using 7.2 million cubic metres of spoil dredged from lower Otago Harbour, is gaining traction. The Harbour Islands project was first floated last year during consent hearings of Port Otago’s application to deepen the harbour. Harbour Restoration Group member Peter Hayden said there was common consensus development was vital to the port’s future economic prosperity.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Amenities Society: Craigieburn Reserve at Tanner Road

[event information from 2013]

The Dunedin Amenities Society will be holding an open day at the Craigieburn Reserve on Saturday 10 December, starting at 10:00 am.

The open day will be the official opening of the reserve by the Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull and the launch of the heritage interpretation trail developed on site for the Dunedin public.

Gain your first glimpse of the Society’s year-long restoration that has developed an area of regional significance for Dunedin. There will be time to explore the reserve and gain insight into part of Dunedin’s unique settler heritage.

Come and enjoy this important event with the Society and embrace your pioneer spirit at Craigieburn. Billy tea and damper provided.

More Craigieburn information here.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Landscape urbanism + ‘larger infrastructure of the territory of our cities and towns’

“Landscape is doing some serious environmental heavy lifting.”
–Adriaan Geuze, West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture

### architectmagazine.com October 6, 2010
Source: ARCHITECT October 2010
Urban Design
Systems, Not Icons: The unstoppable rise of landscape urbanism
By John Gendall
Not long ago, landscape architects were often dismissed as the consultants who put finishing touches on a building site—the broccoli around a steak. But with landscape architects increasingly taking lead positions on large-scale projects, winning urban design competitions around the world, and expanding the design market share, broccoli, clearly, is a thing of the past.
In many ways, the bellwether for these changes was James Corner’s career arc. As a young designer in Richard Rogers’ office, he grew frustrated by a lack of collaboration between disciplines on the postindustrial London Docklands project. Setting out on his own, he founded Field Operations, which has transformed itself from a boutique landscape practice turning out small projects and academic essays into a significant urban design firm with high-profile projects around the world. The critical step in that transition was when Corner won the competition to turn Freshkills, a huge former landfill in New York City, into a public park.
Underscoring this trend, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is in the midst of expanding its landscape faculty by six professorships over two years, and its landscape student body by 50 percent. And landscape architecture’s academic expansion holds up with the most tried-and-true indicator: It’s following the money. Large corporate architecture firms are ramping up their urban design and landscape divisions, as AECOM notably did in 2005 when it acquired EDAW, then among the world’s largest landscape firms.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Geospatial analysis, relieving burdens on existing infrastructure

How do we design and build to accommodate changing economics, family sizes, and employee and student populations? How can we merge online technologies with physical architecture to more directly serve our real-time needs?

“The city is a dense network of relationships. The best way to provide infrastructure is to not go in with a meat ax but to practice urban acupuncture, finding thousands of different spots to go into.”
–Nicholas de Monchaux

### nytimes.com February 3, 2010, 6:45 pm
Opinionator
Space: It’s Still a Frontier
By Allison Arieff

Our beds are empty two-thirds of the time.
Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time.
Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time.
It’s time we gave this some thought.
–R Buckminster Fuller

That quote is 40 years old, but I continue to be amazed by the extent to which we haven’t begun to address the problem Fuller highlighted. There’s a staggering glut of empty space around the country right now, unused space that’s not doing anyone much good. That in itself isn’t new; what is unprecedented is our ability to visualise that data in an entirely new ways.

The ability to use GIS (geographic information systems) to locate data spatially, for example, is one reason Barack Obama is president today. His campaign turned a database of voters and volunteers into a map and was able to strategise house by house about how to get those votes. More broadly, GIS allows us to literally view our place both globally and in a hyperlocal context.

That level of specificity, both at the micro and macro level, is helping revolutionise the way we think about, plan for and design the space we inhabit (or abandon). A visual map can show us patterns of overbuilding, abandonment, mis- (or lack of) use; it can teach us something about our current tendency to overbuild.

How can this now-instantaneous access to data add clarity to ingrained patterns, and perhaps allow us to change those patterns according to evolving needs and requirements?
Read more

● Allison Arieff lectures and consults on media, design and sustainability, most recently for Urban Revision and IDEO. She lives in San Francisco.

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Local Code’s quantifiable effects on energy usage and stormwater remediation eradicate the need for more expensive, yet invisible, sewer and electrical upgrades. In addition, the project uses citizen participation to conceive a new, more public infrastructure as well —a robust network of urban greenways with tangible benefits to the health and safety of every citizen.

nicholas.demonchaux.com
Nicholas de Monchaux is an architect, urbanist, writer, and Assistant Professor of Architecture & Urban Design at UC Berkeley.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Urban migration… don’t say decay

@restorm Urban restoration is the best solution to urban decay. http://bit.ly/chIzyc

Urban Restoration
The direct solution of urban decay is urban restoration. Others call it urban renewal. This does not only cover the restoration of structures of trade and commerce but also the ecological interconnectedness of an urban place to its people.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

International architectural form and design

Since Dunedin has problems articulating an appropriate new entry structure for the Town Hall (the proposed glass cube is middling to ok in the face of previous styling efforts, but still lacks some grace and essential detailing and scaling devices), here are some images of built and conceptual architecture to prod the public imagination. Some is OTT.

### designerscouch.org 21 Jan, 2010
Designers Couch: Creative Humans
Amazing Constructs & Beautiful Interiors
By §Damian M.
Several amazing architecture designs and interior spaces collected from Yatzer.com, a great blog for design inspiration.
Read more + Photos

Yatzer.com

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Landscape architecture

Not saying these are all great examples even if the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) thought so enough to make the video. We’re not privy to the design briefs so treat as something to think around.

AILAnationaloffice 13 February 2009
Showcasing Melbourne landscape architecture and the diversity of practice. Melbourne was the hosting city for the AILA’s 2009 national conference.

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

The Chronicles of Yarnia

With apologies to CS Lewis, the thread formerly known as “What else! Future options for Dunedin include…”.

Or, How We Ascend/Descend (Your Choice) Into Mud And Cloud Data, Again.

In the (slight but positive) delay to launch duned.in, the multi-author blog Paul is working to develop, I’m starting this new thread – it’s a BRAINSTORMER looking-forward place for your ideas and comments.

What if? threads will flow into the new duned.in so nothing’s lost. Time to ‘generate’. I’ve copied over comments received at High Street Cable Car to start things off. Away we go.

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Peter November 25, 2009 at 11:22 am

Is the High St cable car option the only other one available if the upper Stuart St option is not viable? Isn’t it possible to run a rail car of some description – somewhere flat – like up to the North End, past the uni and Botanical Gardens to, say, the bottom of Baldwin St or out to South Dunedin / St Clair? It strikes me that the cost of going uphill makes the project more prohibitive because of health and safety issues and engineering difficulties. I’m no expert or authority on this. Just a curious citizen.
Whatever happens we need a railcar system that is practical and cheap for both city commuters and tourists. The Christchurch tram system is expensive to run, and to buy tickets for, and just seems to do a little meander around a relatively small area for the tourists. You may as well walk. There’s something kind of fake about it too.
For those real visionaries who are promoting this project – as opposed to the ’stadium visionaries’ – I don’t fancy the chances of anything happening soon or at least for many many years. (We know why, don’t we). I wouldn’t feel encouraged, but nevertheless good on them for persisting. Call me cynical, but the council’s response seems a nice way for gently letting people down and not completely dashing their hopes. If I was a cunning politician I would give such a sop to a sincere and dedicated group who are seen to be promoting something that is beneficial for ALL the people of Dunedin. The city kitty, unfortunately, has already been plundered – and the council knows it.

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Phil [Cole] November 25, 2009 at 8:57 pm

I have to agree with you there, Peter. I think the idea of a cable car or tram system is great. And I congratulate Richard and the team for their work to date. Bill Campbell must be as pleased as. I’m not convinced about the route, however. Ok, it’s historical. So maybe it will mean something to the people who live in the area. But is that the target audience? No, I don’t think it is. The market, if not for commuters, is the tourist market. And the history of a tram route means absolutely nothing to them. I just wonder, when they get to the top of High Street, what are they going to do? What are they going to spend their tourist dollars on during the 24 hours they have in Dunedin, when they are spending 2 or 3 of those hours in Mornington? And, to be fair, the view on the way up is not going to make it onto a lot of video cameras to show back home.

Brilliant idea, and I don’t want this to appear as a brickbat. I do question that we have the best location for the market we’re hoping to attract. Stuart Street would have been ideal, down to the Railway Station, through the CBD, or a route to the beach. But no one will get past Don I suspect.

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Elizabeth November 25, 2009 at 10:11 pm

I diverged off the Dunedin Cable Car organising group before it formed the charitable trust to do further investigation. A very nice group all up.

I hesitated at the time to take on another trusteeship due to workload and priorities – but also, as discussed with the group members, I’m interested in contemporary forms of transit, design and engineering, mobility access (the accessible journey) – and yes, BEST future market(s)… they being on the “flat”, and via route(s) looped, as I see it.

I can’t live in museums. San Francisco is a great experience. Christchurch trams are not. What can Dunedin do differently with new forms of public transport into the future, utilising the city’s great engineering base!!?? Remains one of my deepest interests.

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Richard November 26, 2009 at 8:22 am

Now that’s the line of thinking, I applaud. One in which I am trysting with ‘Pukeko’ at ODT Online. His interest is an aviation musuem on lines (planes?) that have little connection with Dunedin.

I’ll come back and develop my thoughts on cable cars, trams et al when I get some time. The sort of things that form part of what Dr. Rodney Wilson sees as making Dunedin “a heritage city”.

“Big thinking does not happen in small spaces.”

We need a new thread, EK?

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Calvin Oaten November 26, 2009 at 9:47 am

I can’t believe that anyone genuinely thinks that a cable car would fit into the modern transport modes of this city. On the basis of economics, the hopeless task of integration and so called novelty factor, it wouldn’t get past first base. Move on, get over it. Look to the future, not the past. Think outside the square, and outside current traffic ways. For a similar amount of expenditure a gondola from Bethunes Gully up to Mount Cargill would give an experience to die for. The trip would be memorable, the views from the top are 180 degrees, and the overview of Dunedin total. Take a trip up by road and see if I am not right. But hey! don’t forget, the stadium has put paid to any of these dreams.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr