Abstract:
This thesis addresses the rapid growth of Auckland, focusing on the edge of the metropolitan area at Albany where the effects of such growth is highly unpredictable. The current trends and characteristics of Albany highlights an ignorance for its natural and ecological landscape, as well as its history in favour of rapid commercial and economic expansion. The characteristics of its identity is shifting away from the local as the generic built environment brings with it a prescribed experience; Albany is currently under the influence of a mass identity of commercial and economic power as decided by government and media as a result of its urban development. In this thesis, a shift back towards a local identity is investigated within this seemingly blank canvas landscape. Auckland’s traditional attitudes towards the treatment of the natural landscape has been to employ minimal interventions and to maintain and restore as much as possible a pre-urban state. This thesis however, aims to provide an alternate perspective; to mediate a balance between the conservation, regeneration and expansion of Albany’s natural and urban landscape. The design explores a scenario where appropriate architectural interventions can create mutual benefits for the urban and natural environment beyond a traditional approach that considers both as separate entities. A local identity of place as well as a mutually benefiting design intervention is explored through the rehabilitation of Lucas Creek, a historically significant river where ecological and historical meaning and significance within the community of its adjacent Albany Village and urban centre of Albany has deteriorated as a result of rapid urbanisation. Through minimal architectural intervention, the rehabilitated river aims to improve both ecological function and awareness, as well as to provide spaces for the development of a local identity in the landscape of the surrounding emergent metropolitan centre. At a larger scale, the design of Lucas Creek also aims to provoke a shift in the urban situation of Auckland; that is to rethink current conservation principles of protection by segregation.