Date: 2009-10

Location: Auckland

Client: Manukau City Council

Status: Approved by the Council Policy and Activities Committee 21 September 2010

We co-authored the Manukau City Centre Public Domain Manual with Boffa Miskell Ltd.

The purpose of the Manual is to manage the transformation of the city centre into a high quality urban environment and ensure the public domain forms an integrated and cohesive spatial system. The Manual builds upon the work of Randles Straatveit Architects who proposed a new built form and spatial vision for the city centre.

The Public Domain Manual consolidates and refines this vision. It re-aligns built form in relation to streets and open spaces; provides a hierarchy of street types (shared streets to arterial roads); defines precincts and their public domain features; strengthens the existing open space network and creates key new public spaces; and integrates all these with the new Manukau Train Station, Hollyford to Ronwood Bus Corridor Route and a pedestrian focused urban environment.

The Public Domain Manual is supported by a Technical Appendix which provides urban design guidelines and technical information to assist council and developers implement the public domain works in a consistent manner.

The Council is uniquely positioned to deliver the Public Domain Manual because it owns the majority of the land available for redevelopment. Much of this is significantly under-utilized as at-grade car parking and low-density commercial development.