Abstract:
Auckland is rapidly developing as it reacts to urban changes such as
unprecedented population growth, climate change and the lack of
affordable housing and housing stock. This in turn has resulted in our rural
urban boundary expanding to accommodate large scale master planned
developments and urban regeneration projects. However, are we building
neighbourhoods, towns and ultimately cities in a way that allows them to
proliferate for a long period of time? This thesis explores this issue through
the case study of Hobsonville Point - an urban regeneration project that
had initially aimed to tackle lack of job opportunities to now the issue of
densification.
The development of Hobsonville Point was different from others not only
because it was Crown land but due to its Sustainability Development
Framework. The framework was developed to fulfill and implement
the strong vision around sustainability that characterised the new
neighbourhood, focusing on how people would experience it and on the
physical quality of the built environment as well as its multiple sustainability
angles. However, despite Hobsonville Point holding resilience and
sustainability as its backbone, there is a dichotomy between the outcomes of
the present development and the literature in terms of resilient urban forms.
This research investigates the definition of sustainability from the perspective
of ecological resilience and thus applies this concept and metaphor to the
urban form. The literature has shown that similarly to ecosystems, urban
form is divisible into layers depicting a spatial hierarchy which can be used
to help understand the adaptive nature of such complex systems. Findings
have shown, spatial structure or the amount of space required for each layer,
and hence component, is critical in the ability of the system to accommodate
present and future change and to adapt. Moreover, layers influence one
another in a top-down approach that ultimately dictates greater adaptability
through the ability to prolong an adaptive cycle. Therefore, there is an
importance to accommodate adaptable parameters within not only the
architectural scale, but also the block scale.
Through a design-based exercise, the findings were tested on existing blocks
of Hobsonville Point with results of this exercise illuminating the importance
of block sizes through the ability to accommodate adaptable architectural
parameters, and produce good urban design outcomes that are further
supported by adaptable design principles. The implications of the results are
analysed against Hobsonville Point’s Sustainable Development Framework
and how effective the current block structure is to achieving targets.