The Fort: Transforming the Urban High-Rise into an Accessible and Responsive Public Space

Abstract

Public spaces play an instrumental role within urban settings. They are places where people can engage with the concentration and diversity of people within cities in a distilled form. Simultaneously, public spaces offer refuge from the chaos and sensory overload of urban experiences, thus allowing people to mentally take a break from the city and their daily lives and connect with their surroundings or even possibly people around them. However, several urban conditions threaten the adequacy of free public spaces within the city. Commercialisation and public-private developments often result in the creation of spaces that undermine the spirit of public space through the imposition of physical, psychological, and financial barriers. As cities develop, density achieved through highrise buildings become the most efficient use of space. However, the high-rise typology which dominates the metropolis is often disconnected from the public realm through physical distance and privatisation. As urban development forces the spaces for dwelling and working upwards, similar practices must be applied to public space to ensure they remain sufficient for a growing population. Thesis involved data collection through mapping and field observations to identify things missing from Auckland’s public spaces resulting in the development of a design that reimagines how more structures in the city can be made public, fit to host activities of leisure, and more responsive to the human scale. This thesis seeks to extend the public realm by dissolving the barriers high-rise buildings to re-imagine them another form of public space. Extend public dimension into vertical dimension to offer new public spatial experiences. This aim is interrogated through the design proposal of a ten-storey structure which accommodates dwellings, a range of community spaces, and a vertical park. This design outcome was reached through iterative diagramming, digital modelling, physical modelling, and collage. The research and design conducted throughout this thesis offers an alternative lens through which public space in urban environments can be viewed. It challenges the building typologies, the spaces people occupy, and the activities they engage with in the public realm to reclaim the city for people. It also presents opportunities for further research into how high-rise buildings can be retrofitted and adapted to accommodate public life.