Redeveloping Auckland's Waterfront through Practice-Led Research

We start the next session with John Hunt, speaking on urban design as a form of practice-led research. He defines urban design as the design of the public realm, and focusses on the example of a site located on the Auckland waterfront. The project follows from an earlier redesign project in the site, which caused some degree of public controversy. Different approaches to the urban redesign project emerged from the initial call for project idea submissions (from the general public, not only from architects).

John describes this process in itself as a form of practice-led research within the criteria set by the city council. Judging on the submissions were representatives from a number of stakeholders (from political, economic, and cultural bodies as well as design professionals). Several themes emerged from the process - a distinctive character, a people-friendly environment, a pleasant and efficient transport interchange, and the arts and heritage aspects involved. In the stakeholder consultation and comment process large shifts in the submissions' character occurred; comments fed back into redeveloped submissions.

In this process of submission development, it was important to make sure that the original overriding aims would not get lost - a steering committee made up of some of the judging panel members (though not the political stakeholders) and external consultants was set up to oversee this process. John convened this panel, and it was interesting for him to see the inner workings of the forum through which competing stakeholder interests were resolved.

Ultimately, then, the project has shown that the competing interests here were able to be resolved successfully. The process is a form of practice-led research, John suggests - indeed, he claims that urban design at least in the complex context in which it usually takes place is necessarily a form of practice-led research, and necessarily engages in a process in which speculation and innovation are important elements. Further, stakeholders, while they may not be design collaborators, can make significant contributions to these processes of research, speculation and innovation.