Introducing Simon Bardsley

It is with great pleasure that we welcome Simon Bardsley to our Align team as a Senior Geospatial Consultant.

Simon has 26 years of experience in Geospatial analysis, environmental science, and GIS technologies across the public and private sectors. Simon is proficient in leveraging GIS, Remote Sensing, and Data Analytics for various applications and is committed to evidence-based decision-making. Simon is passionate about addressing environmental and climate challenges. Simon’s lifelong learning and growth mindset drive him to stay relevant and constantly expand his expertise in GIS, Remote Sensing, and Data Analytics. Simon loves blending GIS with data science and thrives on the creative process in cartography and data visualisation.

Simon has a Master of Science in Geography, GIS, and Remote Sensing from the University of Canterbury and has previously worked for Auckland Council, Xerra-Earth Observation Institute, and NIWA

Introducing Steven Boswell

We are pleased to announce that Steven Boswell has joined our Align team as a Senior Geospatial Consultant.

Steven has 20 years’ of experience providing GIS consulting services to local government and private companies both within NZ and UK. Steven has expert knowledge of GIS mapping technologies, asset management, and data integration systems across a wide range of business sectors, including local government, 3 waters, transportation, planning, roading, ecology and agriculture. Steven’s

Steven has a Bachelor of Science in geography, a Bachelor of Science in Geology/ Geophysics and a Post Graduate Diploma in Science (Geography), including Post Graduate papers in Geology / Remote Sensing from the University of Auckland, and his technical skill set includes strong computer competencies and an expert knowledge of spatial and non-spatial database scoping, design, implementation and management.

Steven has run his own successful GIS Consulting business since 2006 where he has undertaken work for NZTA, Auckland Council., Christchurch Council, Hawkes Bay Regional Council and Auckland Transport to name a few. Prior to this Steven has worked in GIS roles for Opus, both in NZ and overseas, as well as Beca.

Introducing Annette Stocker

We are pleased to announce that Annette Stocker has joined our Christchurch office as a Principal Property Consultant.

Annette is highly motivated and aims to exceed clients’ expectations and achieve optimal outcomes. She is familiar with the complications and complexities of property consultancy work and appreciates the need for a pragmatic approach. Annette is an expert negotiator with well-developed problem-solving, risk management, decision-making, and communication/presentation skills. Her experience has equipped her to provide effective and pragmatic advice to achieve the desired outcomes.

Annette has over 35 years of experience in legal and Crown-owned land environments. She is well respected and is recognised by LINZ and Waka Kotahi as a leading expert in Crown disposals under the Public Works Act 1981.

Previously, Annette was the Group Manager at WPS (ex. Opus), leading a team of consultants in the Christchurch disposal and acquisition team. Most recently, she was a technical principal and was appointed the contract manager for a national disposal contract for properties nationwide. This contract required experience with the Public Works Act 1981, The Land Act 1948, the New Zealand Railways Corporation Restructuring Act 1990, and various Treaty Settlement legislation.

Come and see us at the UrbanismNZ Conference 2023

Align will be exhibiting at the NZ Urbanism Conference in Auckland from the 27th to the 28th of April.  Align will be represented by Principal Landscape Architect and Urban Designer Angela Brown, and our Planning and Design Manager, Michael Hall. Come and visit us at booth 3 in the Great Room 1 at the Cordis Hotel.

Much is happening in the urban design space, and changes are afoot with the looming resource management reform. Here is some of our thinking — food for thought.

 

Removal of amenity? We need to promote quality design outcomes.

 Promoting the importance of quality design and educating our clients and decision-makers about it has become even more relevant with the removal of “amenity” from the purpose and principles of the Natural and Built Environment Act. As a result, practitioners will not have the same legislative backing to promote and push for good design outcomes.

Previously we’ve seen great success in the industry, promoting good design outcomes through the launch and implementation of the Urban Design Protocol. Appointing design champions within client organisations helped change the design culture and encourage the implementation of expectations around good design quality. The wider industry then took this on board by hiring urban designers and landscape architects to coordinate and improve design outcomes across New Zealand.

There is now a good awareness of what good design is within the government and private sectors. However, suppose we don’t continue to push for those good design outcomes with our clients and decision-makers. In that case, we could move backwards as a new wave of housing and built environment outcomes are implemented in New Zealand over the next 20 years.

At Align, this is an issue we are constantly managing as planners and designers. Promoting the benefit of those good design outcomes needs further energy and focus. How we collaborate with others in the industry to achieve this is critical through our sketches, our workshops with clients and the use of planning triggers and standards to achieve good design outcomes. Over 2023 and beyond, we want to continue to use visual communication through sketching and renders of outcomes early in our projects, to sell a concept and achieve buy-in to promote good design quality outcomes. While new resource management legislation lessens the focus on this, we need to continue to promote and enhance our communication of the benefits of providing quality design outcomes on our residential and infrastructure projects.

How are you selling and promoting good design outcomes to your clients? Let’s have a conversation about that.

Meet our new General Managers

As we welcome 2023, we would like to update you on some exciting changes at Align and introduce you to some of our team.

Firstly, we have made some changes at the top. Steve Lamontagne has been promoted to the position of General Manager – Operations. Steve has been with Align since 2020 and recently led Align’s national property team.  Many of you will know, Steve has been on the property scene in management and technical roles for over 20 years. Steve will work closely with our Group Managers overseeing day-to-day operations across our growing nationwide business.

Mike Robinson, who has been with Align for 15 years in many different roles, has moved into the newly created position of General Manager – Commercial. Mike has an excellent knowledge of the strategy, property and planning needs required for infrastructure projects and excellent relationships with many of our existing clients. He will be working closely with our clients across the country and ensuring we keep up with the changing needs of our clients and industries.

Please do not hesitate to contact Steve or Mike with any questions. We look forward to a big 2023!

The story behind Rotherham’s bloomin’ lovely River of Colour

Rotherham Council has planted eight miles of wildflowers verges… Saving £25,000 a year in mowing costs.

It’s River of Colour scheme include both native and selected non-native flower wildflowers which provide an extended period of nectar, flowers and seeds that are food sources for many pollinating insects, birds and even some mammals.

See the article. 

Government’s $3 billion Covid-19 infrastructure spend-up

The Government set aside a $3 billion fund for infrastructure designed to boost the economy and create jobs as the country recovers from the Covid-19 induced recession. Cabinet has approved 150 projects after 1924 submissions for funding were received. The Government hopes the infrastructure boom will create 20,000 jobs. The first 12 projects were announced on Wednesday.

To read more to the article.

Resource Management Amendment Bill

Resource Management Amendment Bill

The objectives of this bill are to reduce complexity, increase certainty, restore public participation opportunities, and improve Resource Management Act 1991 processes. This bill also supports the urgent need to improve freshwater management and outcomes in New Zealand.

To read more visit this page.

The 11 initial fast-tracked projects with some detail…

The 11 initial fast-tracked projects  Stuff Thomas Coughlan Jun 15 2020

Environment Minister David Parker will put the 11 specific projects into a new law that will be introduced to Parliament this week.

Read more here

Software that designs whole neighborhoods

By Lilly Smith, Fastcompany

When it comes to designing a neighborhood, you might say it takes a village. Urban planners, architects, developers, and city officials all have to work together to create a space that will serve its community best. And all of these stakeholders generally mean increased time, cost, and a fragmented process that leaves constituents to wonder, “what actually is the best option available?”

Read the article…

Fast-tracking large urban development projects…

Interest.co.nz 10th Dec 19, 3:59pm by Jenée Tibshraeny

Detail on Phil Twyford’s much-anticipated Bill that will give central government the power to fast-track large urban development projects.

Read more here…

Pinehaven Stream Flood Improvement Works

The Pinehaven Stream Improvements resource consents and notice of requirement were publicly notified on Tuesday (19 Nov 2020). The project involves a range of measures designed to reduce the flood risk to the community and the catchment. Align is pleased to be part of this project.

See here… 

Event: Cohousing – lessons learned from Urban Habitat’s design journey

Join Urban Habitat Collective co-founders Bronwen Newton and Jesse Matthews, who will be presenting on community building, structure and decisionmaking and the design process of the Co-housing project thus far. 

Event date: 28/11/2019 5:15 PM – 7:00 PM

Location: Boffa Miskell, Kaiwharawhara Room Level 4, Huddart Parker Building 1 Post Office Square,Wellington

Cost: UDF Members – Free; Non-Members $10.00

Website: http://urbandesignforum.org.nz/events

New Zealand as a village of 100 people

Stats NZ, 23 September 2019

New Zealand as a village of 100 people presents an overview of New Zealand’s population based on 2018 Census data. It describes our population as if the country were a village of 100 people. 

Find out about:

  • census usually resident population
  • proportion of males and females
  • proportion of Māori
  • median age
  • population growth since 2013
  • cultural diversity (birthplace, ethnic groups, and languages spoken).
  • The information comes from the 2018 Census.

A downloadable infographic PDF is available here…

‘Transformer’ rooms and robo-furniture are set to remake our homes – and lives – before our eyes

The Conversation, Christian Tietz, UNSW, 28 Sept 2019

In high-density cities, the static apartment layouts with one function per room will become a luxury that cannot be maintained. The traditional notion of a dedicated living room, bedroom, bathroom or kitchen will no longer be economically or environmentally sustainable. Building stock will need to work harder.

The need to use building space more efficiently means adaptive and responsive domestic micro-environments will replace the old concept of static rooms within a private apartment.

See here and here for Yves Béhar and MIT Media Lab’s new design for a robotic furniture system for small apartments, which reconfigures itself to accommodate different functions.

The Career Advice You Probably Didn’t Get

You’re doing everything right at work, taking all the right advice, but you’re just not moving up. Why? Susan Colantuono shares a simple, surprising piece of advice you might not have heard before quite so plainly. This talk, while aimed at an audience of women, has universal takeaways — for men and women, new grads and midcareer workers.

Listen here…

Flip – Great Backyard Living

https://fliphouse.nz/  5 Sept 19

The Flip range by First Light re-imagines the future of backyard living. Whether downsizing or upgrading, keeping the grand-kids close to home or dipping your toes into the rental market, an Architect-designed Flip house transforms your back lawn into a toasty-warm, accessible, sustainable, backyard investment.

KiwiBuild reset: Government axes its 100,000 homes over 10 years target

Jason Walls | New Zealand Herald | 4 Sep, 2019

The Government has dropped its target to construct 100,000 KiwiBuild homes in 10 years, admitting the goal was overly ambitious” and meant houses were being built in places with little demand.Instead, the Government plans to build as many homes as it can, as fast as it’s able to – measuring its success on a housing dashboard.

Strong leadership for new Infrastructure Commission

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/  & and https://treasury.govt.nz/ – 23 August 2019

Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones announced the inaugural board for the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga. Speaking at the annual Building Nations symposium in Rotorua on the 23 August, Minister Jones has named Dr Alan Bollard as chairman of the new independent Infrastructure Commission. The Commission is tasked with developing a long-term infrastructure plan and pipeline and helping Governments make decisions to improve the wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

Read more here and here…

Hamilton to Auckland rail service full steam ahead

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/  23 August 2019

The NZ Transport Agency has approved funding for construction of the Hamilton to Auckland start up rail service, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. This funding enables the implementation of the service. It includes construction and operation with funding of $92.37 million, made up of $79.80 million from the Transport Agency and $12.57 million from local authorities.

Phil Twyford said the service is an important first step to strengthening the connection between two of New Zealand’s largest and fastest growing urban areas. “We know more and more people are commuting between Hamilton and Auckland, and this service will give them a real choice between being stuck in traffic or relaxing on the train.

Read more here…

5 National Transport Policies to Build Thriving Cities

Over the past 50 years, transport planners have tended to focus on reducing congestion to improve people’s mobility within cities. But increasing road capacity, vehicle speeds and parking spaces have not solved urban traffic. Building more roads and parking just attracts more cars and locks cities into expensive, unsustainable sprawl.

City governments cannot improve urban accessibility on their own. They need supportive policies at all levels of government to encourage mixed-use development, discourage private car use, boost public transport use, and make it easy to walk or cycle. National governments have a particularly crucial role to play when it comes to reforming policies and governance systems to nurture compact, connected cities.

New research from the Coalition for Urban Transitions presents the results of a survey of 77 transport experts from 26 countries. These transport experts were asked to identify the key policies that national governments could deploy to foster more compact, connected cities.

Read here to see their top five recommendations.

Trends in Community Park Landscape Design and Planning

The job of landscape architects and urban planners is to help cities and developers design parks that balance the best use of space with the diverse needs of the local community. 

The recently opened Mary Elizabeth Branch Park (Branch Park) in the Mueller community, a mixed-income, mixed-use urban village located in Austin, Texas, is a testament to that delicate balancing act. The 3.5-acre park was designed to accommodate the various recreation needs of a multi-generational community. Opened in May 2019, Branch Park features a creative children’s playground, a dog run, a sand volleyball court, an interactive waterscape, and lawn space and shady areas for picnics.

There are five trends landscape architects and designers are seeing across the United States that contributed to the final design of Branch Park.

Read more here…

Tips to successfully transition to new leadership roles

At some point in your career, you may be called upon to lead a team of other professionals. The size of the team doesn’t matter. Whether the role is permanent or not, formal or informal, is also insignificant. What matters is your ability to lead your team, to inspire confidence, and to be a good role model. 

You may have come into the new role from a different company, or by rising through the ranks at your current workplace. Either way, the transition will often require you to fit into new, often bigger shoes.

Being newly appointed in a position of leadership can be intimidating, especially if it is your first experience managing people.

Read more here…

Toyota unveils electric shuttles for 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo

Toyota’s first dedicated vehicle for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo isn’t a flying car, but it shows promise. The automaker today unveiled the APM (Accessible People Mover), an all-electric vehicle it designed especially for next summer’s event. The open-air, three-row vehicle can reach speeds of up to 12 mph and accommodate up to five passengers. Each car is powered by lithium-ion batteries and can run 100 kilometers on a single charge. A fleet of 200 APMs will be used to transport people to different competitions and the Olympic Village.

See more here…

Government 3 Waters Review

One of the key aspects of this announcement is that the Government intends to establish a new “watchdog” to oversee the standards for drinking water supply, and to ensure compliance. Clearly the intention is to require multi barrier protection, including mandatory disinfection. Exceptions are to be approved only in “appropriate circumstances”. This is intended to provide greater levels of assurance to water consumers that water is treated to the standard required to protect human health.

Read more here…

Is light rail finally making progress?

It has been a long time since we heard anything about the City Centre to Mangere light rail project. Delays to what was meant to be the government’s flagship transport initiative seem to stem from a revelation back in February that a frankly bizarre proposal from the NZ Super Fund was being entertained, which proposed a very different design including tunnelling under Queen Street. This from the Herald article at the time:

Read more here…

Auckland Light Rail announcement soon”

Work on Auckland’s long-discussed light rail network could begin next year, with Mayor Phil Goff expecting decisions to come from the Government reasonably soon”.

Opinion: What would it take to introduce localism in this country?

Maybe the time has come for the idea of localism in New Zealand? I am not sure what appetite the current government has for it, but LGNZ launched its Localism Project at its 2018 conference and has a localism discussion paper due in July this year. The NZ Initiative, an independent public policy think-tank, has also recently released #LocalismNZ, a paper aimed to encourage the concept.

But if the concept is accepted into mainstream thinking the implementation would require significant changes to the current law applicable to local government.

See more here…

Parties remain in limbo over response to our country’s most high-risk flood areas

When it comes to flood management there are no easy answers. The authority to manage flood risk is currently delegated to regional councils. But they are not obliged to publish flood risk data for property owners or insurers. Landcare senior economist and capability leader Patrick Walsh says some, but not all, regional councils provide data online detailing flood plains or other hazards. He tips Auckland as one of the better councils for sharing such data.

See more here…

RMA plans will be easier to make and understand

Plans will be easier to prepare, use and understand under the Resource Management Act (RMA) with the release of new National Planning Standards.

Environment Minister David Parker said the move would reduce compliance costs and address criticisms that RMA plans are unduly complex.

See more here…

Well-being budget needs to address NZ’s housing and transport crisis

“The PwC Competitive Cities report released today underlines the urgent need for the Government to deliver affordable housing and efficient transport systems in our growing cities,” says Infrastructure New Zealand Chief Executive Stephen Selwood.

“PwC compared the performance of 11 Australasian growth cities over the last decade and found that households in successfully growing Australian cities have enjoyed significant improvements in discretionary income, relative to New Zealand.

See more here…

Evidence-based decision making needed to bring down road toll

“While discussion around how best New Zealand can improve its comparatively poor road safety performance is needed, it is essential that policy changes address the principal drivers of declining performance if we are to have any hope of turning the road toll around,“ says Stephen Selwood CEO of Infrastructure NZ.

“New Zealand’s road safety performance, as measured by road deaths, steadily improved from the 1980s right through until 2013. The improvement was significant, with some 12,300 lives between 1990 to 2012 ‘saved’ due to the reduction in annual road deaths over these 22 years.

See more here…

Major changes to building laws proposed

The Government’s proposals on the biggest changes to New Zealand’s building laws since the Building Act was introduced in 2004, which aim to address long-standing challenges in the building sector, have been released for public consultation today by Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa.

See more here…

Environment Aotearoa 2019 Report

Environment Aotearoa 2019 provides an overview of the state of our environment. Using five broad themes the report presents nine priority environmental issues. Each issue includes information about why it matters, what has changed, and the consequences.

See more here…

Wellington is growing

We live in one of the most liveable cities in the world!  We cherish our edgy culture and beautiful heritage buildings.  We love the blue harbour and green belt that frame our city.  We are proud to have the lowest carbon emissions per capita in Australasia.

In the next 30 years Wellington will be home to 50,000 to 80,000 more people.  That’s going to have a big impact on our city.  Not just where we live, but how we live.

See more here…

Why is Britain so bad at planning cities?

From cul-de-sacs to retail parks, Britain’s planning rules cause environments that are bewildering, illogical and ugly. We have forgotten that urban areas are grown

See more here…

Methodolatry and the Art of Measure

In downtown Brooklyn, not far from where I live, New York University recently launched a public-private research center dedicated to advancing “the science of cities.” That word, science, has a way of creeping into public discourse these days. When the inaugural class in Applied Urban Science and Informatics arrived at the Center for Urban Science + Progress this fall, the students were personally welcomed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose Applied Sciences NYC initiative funded the center’s creation in 2012.

See more here…

First rule-book for the country – the National Planning Standards

Minister for the Environment, David Parker today announced the Government’s approved first rule-book for the country – the National Planning Standards.

The planning standards contain mandatory and discretionary directions from the Minister determining whether provisions have immediate effect or must follow the standard process involving the public. Many of the provisions will be automatically adopted across the country with little or no public process. Some discretionary directions require local authorities to choose provisions from a range of options appropriate to their area and the public will be involved in choosing provisions relating to a zone framework component.

See more here…

The case for a data-driven approach to tackle homelessness

Cities across the globe are finding innovative ways to apply smart technologies to help improve the lives of their citizens and communities.

At the Smart Cities New York conference this week, public sector and business leaders will gather to share pain points and best practices. One of those shared struggles is homelessness. While our national economy has flourished since the economic downturn of the late 2000s, many of our country’s most vulnerable citizens have been left behind.

To the everyday urban citizen, the problem of homelessness may seem never-ending and never-changing. However, it is changing, and in most places it is for the worse.

See more here…

The changes coming in driverless vehicles are just the tip of the iceberg

The constant chatter about driverless, autonomous, and electric vehicles is nearly deafening. Yet, in all of that noise what’s most often missed is that the implications these trends will have go well beyond the obvious changes in the way we power and drive automobiles.

Not only is the 150-year reign of the Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle fast approaching its end, but with it the near sacred model of automobile ownership, along with the very role of the automobile as a staple of modern society.

See more here…

Be. Employed Skills for Industry Programme

Be.Accessible are really excited about their new employment offering developed in partnership with the Industry Partnerships team at the Ministry for Social Development and Microsoft New Zealand.

This programme is designed specifically for talented New Zealanders who have a long-term health condition, injury or disability. We will match skilled 21st Century savvy New Zealanders with access needs and a diverse range of employers in areas such as Design, Innovation and Technology, Tourism and Professional Services.

See more here…

New infrastructure funding in Auckland

Growth cities in New Zealand need innovative new financial solutions so that housing can be built faster and more efficiently.

If councils and government can collaborate to identify and agree on new structures to support the funding of infrastructure projects, that don’t require council to take a central role in financing or underwriting, then opportunities arise to respond to infrastructure needs with more certainty and pace.

See more here…

Infrastructure Transactions Unit

The Government has recognised the need to develop expert transactional capability to support the delivery of major infrastructure projects across central and local government.

To achieve this before the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission – Te Waihanga is up and running, an Infrastructure Transactions Unit (ITU) has been established within the Treasury with effect from 1 November 2018.

See more here…

Building a successful graduate program: Lessons from City of Swan

When Jim Coten became Executive Manager Operations at the City of Swan in 2007, he came to a disturbing realisation.

“I was doing some workforce planning, and one thing that stood out was the lack of engineers, but also the lack of young engineers,” he tells intouch. 

The average age of the City’s five engineers was 55, and the average age of retirement for engineers is 62.

“When we actually projected the age profile forward 10 years, and if you assume the average retirement age of an engineer is 62, I would have been the only engineer left. This was very frightening and we knew we had to do something,” Coten says.

See more here…

Residential Development Summit

New Zealand has a housing shortage. We need to build more affordable houses quicker, without compromising on quality. How can we meet the supply challenge within the current legislative framework? And how can we work with the Government to support future transformation of the industry to make the supply challenge more realistic and achievable?

The full day programme delves into the challenges faced by our industry, addresses current issues and provides inspiration with fresh ideas and innovation.

See more here…

New Zealand Infrastructure Commission – Te Waihanga

A new independent infrastructure body, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission – Te Waihanga, is being established to ensure that New Zealand gets the quality infrastructure investment needed to improve our long-term economic performance and social wellbeing.

The Commission will help improve how New Zealand coordinates and plans our infrastructure, make the most of the infrastructure we already have, and plan long-term to ensure our investment delivers what we need, where and when we need it.

See more here…

Utilities are starting to invest in big batteries instead of building new power plants

You might only think about energy storage when your laptop or cellphone are running out of juice, but utilities can plug bigger versions into the electric grid. And thanks to rapidly declining lithium-ion battery prices, using energy storage to stretch electricity generation capacity.

Based on our research on energy storage costs and performance in North Carolina, and our analysis of the potential role energy storage could play within the coming years, we believe that utilities should prepare for the advent of cheap grid-scale batteries and develop flexible, long-term plans that will save consumers money.

See more here…

Economics of Urban Development Course NZPI

To assist planners to implement the Urban Development Capacity NPS, NZPI is pleased to announce a new course intended for experienced planners. This has been developed with Peter Nunns who will present the course.

See more here…

Council approves a pedestrian-friendly Auckland CBD

The Auckland Planning Committee voted unanimously for an innovative project that will pedestrianise the Auckland City Centre on 27 November 2018. The Access for Everyone is a bold project that will reshuffle the priority of CBD road space to different transport users.

See more here…

Women in Urbanism talks ten ways we can design more inclusive cities

The statistics don’t lie: the bulk of the those that are designing living and urban spaces in New Zealand cities are men – but the times are changing. Globally, there is a conversation taking place on what cities would look like if equal weighting was given to all of its citizens in the design process. Co-founder of Women in Urbanism, a New Zealand organisation formed to push for more feminist cities, Emma McInnes makes a case for how New Zealand’s cities can be made to be more inclusive through urban design.

See more here…

Massive water infrastructure reform 2019: who will pay?

With fundamental reform of our waste, drinking, and storm water on the cards – who will pay the billions and is it time for an aggregation of suppliers?

Kathryn Ryan discusses with Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta, Steven Selwood of Infrastructure New Zealand and Karyn Sinclair Chair of the New Zealand Planning Institute.

See more here…

As cities grow upward and outward, sprawl and land use become key global issues

The world, we’ve been told, is urbanizing rapidly. But the picture painted by researchers—dense, blocks of high-rises, new towers rising like staircases as cities evolve—obscures the true growth patterns reshaping the globe. Metropolises aren’t simply building up, they’re expanding out, and doing both at unprecedented rates that have serious consequences for the economy and the environment.

See more here

Brilliant first Urban Design Forum NZ event for 2019

Urban Design: the panacea we had hoped for? Brilliant first Urban Design Forum NZ event for 2019. at Boffa Miskell Limited. Some of the industry’s best and brightest pitted against one another. Despite the heckling all debaters still smiling at the end of the night

Ethics for Planners Course NZPI

Presented by Dean Chrystal this course is designed to introduce members to key concepts in relation to professional ethics as planners, familiarise members with the NZPI Code of Ethics, learn how to identify ethical issues and ways of resolving them, identify appropriate sources for information and support in resolving ethical issues, and to practice applying the NZPI Code of Ethics to everyday issues.

See more here…

Upcoming Co-Housing Hui in Wellington on Tuesday 12 February 2019

This CoHousing Hui conference will cover the topic of collective urban housing in Aotearoa and will run from 9.00 am – 4.30 pm on Tuesday the 12th of February. It will be followed by an informal event at the Havana Bar in Wigan Street from 4.30-6.30pm.

The conference includes a presentation by Dr Michael LaFond, Founder and Director of id22: Institute for Creative Sustainability, Berlin. The other presentations range across the subjects of NZ cohousing communities, including CoHaus, Ohu, Earthsong, Delhi Village, High Street Cohousing, as well as a range of emerging cohousing communities from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. The afternoon will cover topics emerging from the day in an ‘Open Space’ format allowing participants to drive the conversations they want to have, likely covering some of the following topics:

  • Community, Governance, Inclusion, Communication & Conflict resolution
  • Access to land
  • Legal & Financial structures
  • The role of lenders 
  • The role of government 
  • Design, Ecology & Sustainability 
  • Long term affordability of housing

The Ministry for Housing and Urban Development, Wellington City Council, Hutt Valley City Council and Porirua City Council are also sending representatives.

The conference will also coincide with the NZ opening of the international exhibition Cohousing Inclusive from the 11th-20th February in the School of Architecture.

What’s the Electricity Pricing Review, and will it mean cheaper power?

The government is digging deep into the price of electricity in New Zealand, with a review of the entire energy sector. What will the review look at, why should there even be one, and does it mean you might pay less for power? Vector’s Bridget McDonald has the answers.

See more here…

Unpleasant Design & Hostile Urban Architecture

Benches in parks, train stations, bus shelters and other public places are meant to offer seating, but only for a limited duration. Many elements of such seats are subtly or overtly restrictive. Arm rests, for instance, indeed provide spaces to rest arms, but they also prevent people from lying down or sitting in anything but a prescribed position. This type of design strategy is sometimes classified as “hostile architecture,” or simply: “unpleasant design.”

See more here…

Electricity is the new oil

Gregory MacDonald discusses the Oil Fall” – how Electric Vehicles have just reached the tipping point where fossil fuels have passed their peak, and that electricity is the new oil.

Staff from Auckland company Beca told to carry out ‘risk assessment’ before using Lime scooters

As the number of electric scooter-related public insurance claims climbs, some employees are being told to undertake risk assessment” before scooting around during work hours.

The growth of cohousing in Europe

While community living is not a new phenomenon, one must acknowledge that with the success of cohousing, the idea is being spread for the first time on a global scale. If globalization tends to destroy cultural variation, the flexibility of cohousing has allowed it to resist that trend and to adapt to people’s needs in different cultural contexts. A look at how cohousing is being implemented in Europe demonstrates that idea.

See more here…

Wellington regional trails of the future

Wellington regional trails of the future

Sarah Murray fronted up at the New Zealand Recreation Association conference to tell a story about bikes, bush, boots and backpacks. It’s also a story about working across administrative boundaries and doing the seemingly impossible – getting 11 agencies and over 100 stakeholder and interest groups pedaling in the same direction.

Read more here…

New urban development agency unveiled to build more homes

New urban development agency unveiled to build more homes

The Housing and Urban Development Authority will have cut-through powers to build quality state and affordable homes and create thriving master-planned communities, announced Minister for Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford.

The new authority will be responsible for leading the Government’s large-scale urban development projects and for being a world class state housing landlord. It will bring together three existing agencies that build homes – Housing New Zealand, its subsidiary HLC, and the KiwiBuild Unit.

Read more here…

Neuroscience research is revealing the social nature of the high-performance workplace

Neuroscience research is revealing the social nature of the high-performance workplace

Naomi Eisenberger, wanted to understand what goes on in the brain when people feel rejected by others. She designed an experiment in which volunteers played a computer game called Cyberball while having their brains scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. “People thought they were playing a ball-tossing game over the Internet with two other people,” Eisenberger explains. “They could see an avatar that represented themselves, and avatars [ostensibly] for two other people. Then, about halfway through this game of catch among the three of them, the subjects stopped receiving the ball and the two other supposed players threw the ball only to each other.” Even after they learned that no other human players were involved, the game players spoke of feeling angry, snubbed, or judged, as if the other avatars excluded them because they didn’t like something about them.

Read more here…

Right time to discuss the purpose and role of local government

Right time to discuss the purpose and role of local government

“We need local government representing the needs and views of people and communities, something larger government bodies and corporations cannot do, and we need regional government to lead economic development and spatial planning.

“What everyone can agree on is that we need local government. This conversation provides the opportunity to repurpose its role to improving community wellbeing and focusing on people rather than operating pipes in the ground,” Selwood says.

Read more here…

Advice from Silicon Valley: How tech-sector practices can promote innovation in government

Advice from Silicon Valley: How tech-sector practices can promote innovation in government

Public-sector leaders recently met with leaders from the region’s most innovative companies to learn about their culture of innovation firsthand.

What government leaders took away from the established tech heavyweights and disruptors who participated in the meeting could transform the way the public sector functions. Tech executives encouraged government leaders to be bold in vision but iterative in delivery—to think big but start small. They encouraged these public-sector executives to become obsessed with their end users: citizens, yes, but also companies, organizations, and foreign visitors and investors. They recommended cultivating talent and practices with an eye to the future rather than anchoring them in the present. And they encouraged public-sector leaders to harness the insights of others: around the world, governments are tackling the same challenges, some with great success. What follows captures highlights of the group’s discussion on these themes.

Read more here…

Microsoft Releases 125 million Building Footprints as Open Data

Microsoft Releases 125 million Building Footprints in the US as Open Data

Bing has made very significant investments in the area of deep learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence to support a number of different search scenarios. The Bing Maps team has been applying these techniques as well with the goal to increase the coverage of building footprints available for OpenStreetMap. As a result, today we are announcing that we are releasing 124 Million building footprints in the United States to the OpenStreetMap community.

Read more here…

Street smarts are crucial to planning our cities

Street smarts are crucial to planning our cities

The congestion on our streets from bikes, dockless bikes, scooters, e-scooters, e-bikes, EV-charging, and even people are making our kerb-side a battleground. We need to think smarter about how these increasing and competing channels can all access the veins of our city. Most roads are still designed for cars first.

We are still designing and ruling streets with antiquated engineering and infrastructure led design logic that is neither delivering new streets worthy of celebrating, nor ensuring our streets evolve to respond to modern pressures and challenges from changes in our cities and technology.

Read more here…

Align was a proud sponsor of #WellyTech 2018

Align was a proud sponsor of #WellyTech 2018

The #Wellytech 2018 event brought together 1,500 tech related individuals at the Wespac Stadium in Wellington. The event was for all of Wellington tech, from the Minister up to those that actually make the computers do what they do. Creative tech individuals run stalls where meeting new people and making new connections is encouraged.

The event is described as Wellington’s Tech Glastonbury.

#Wellytech supports the Neonatal trust auction.

Visit the website here for more information

Major infrastructure partnership for North Auckland

Major infrastructure partnership for North Auckland

Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff today announced a partnership that will fund $91 million of roading and wastewater infrastructure to support the building of 9000 homes at Wainui, north of Auckland.The Government Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has been created in partnership with Auckland Council, Crown Infrastructure Partners and Fulton Hogan Land Development.

Read more here…

Local government position statement on three waters

Local government position statement on three waters

New infrastructure financing scheme a major step forward

New infrastructure financing scheme a major step forward:

The Government has announced that third party debt will be used to finance the roads and water infrastructure needed to unlock land for development in Milldale, north of Auckland… Crown Infrastructure Partners will establish a ‘special purpose vehicle’ (SPV) to raise funds from investors, comprising itself, Fulton Hogan and the ACC, to enable the construction of bulk housing infrastructure which otherwise would be deferred…

Read more here…

Thriving amid turbulence: Imagining the cities of the future

Joe Frem, Vineet Rajadhyaksha, Jonathan Woetzel – McKinsey’s Dubai and Shanghai offices.

The world faces unprecedented rates of urban expansion. According to the United Nations, 55 percent of the global population currently lives in cities. By 2050, that number is expected to reach 68 percent, which means an additional 2.5 billion people will reside in urban areas. China’s cities alone will be home to a staggering 900 million people.

Although cities may appear to be in a state of continuous expansion, their population growth has historically occurred in cycles. Innovations have generally addressed the challenges posed by rising populations, only to be replaced by new hurdles. For example, the early 20th century invention of the automobile has addressed some of the difficulties associated with long commutes. However, as cities are increasingly designed to accommodate cars instead of people, sedentary lifestyles have become common and health issues proliferate.

Read the rest of this comprehensive article here.

‘City of surveillance’: privacy expert quits Toronto’s smart-city project

Wired neighborhood planned by Google sister company has raised questions over data protection.

When it was announced last year that a district in Toronto would be handed over to a company hoping to build a model for new tech-driven smart city, critics were quick to voice concerns. Despite Justin Trudeau’s exclamation that, through a partnership with Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs, the waterfront neighborhood could help turn the area into a “thriving hub for innovation”, questions immediately arose over how the new wired town would collect and protect data.

A year into the project, those questions have resurfaced following the resignation of a privacy expert, Dr Ann Cavoukian, who claimed she left her consulting role on the initiative to “send a strong statement” about the data privacy issues the project still faces…“I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” she wrote in her resignation letter. 

Read the article here.

The Best Micro Apartments In The World Reveal Their Clever Interior Designs

How small does an apartment actually have to be for it to be considered small? What’s small to some people might be tiny to others or standard to some. What about a micro apartment? Well, we can assume that it would have to be pretty tiny so how do you imagine such a space looks like and what could you fit in such a small space anyway? Would you be able to live in such a tiny space? While it’s true that anything smaller than 35 square meters is challenging in terms of interior design no matter how you organize it, you’d be surprised to see just how spacious some of these micro apartments actually are. Some even make you wish you lived there yourself. In the images that follow we’ll show you the best micro apartments around the world, from smallest to largest.

Read the article here.

The Science of What Makes People Care

The article delves into the science behind what makes people care. It identifies five principles that are supported by research from a range of academic disciplines. Collectively, these rules offer a framework for building and assessing communication strategies and designing efforts more likely to result in belief and behavior change. 

Stanford Social Innovation Review, By Ann Christiano & Annie Neimand Fall 2018

The Code for Smart Communities released

The Code for Smart Communities

The the Code for Smart Communities as been released as part of Smart Cities Week Australia in Sydney. The code is a new benchmark for urban development practices across greenfield communities, urban regeneration precincts and diverse institutional campuses.

Enhanced telecommunications connectivity, data insights, digital planning practices and innovation districts are among the issues addressed in a new standard of practice released today by the Smart Cities Council and Green Building Council of Australia.

To download the report go the The Code for Smart Communities webpage on the Smart Cities Council (Australian New Zealand) website. 

Cities are using new cloud technology to fight increasingly expensive and catastrophic flooding

CNBC – Diana Olick (CNBC Real Estate Reporter) and Erica Posse (CNBC Producer)

Intense storms are becoming much more frequent, resulting in heavier rainfall and flooding that wreaks havoc on local infrastructures, budgets and economies… That’s why, instead of looking on the ground for answers, new companies are turning to the technology cloud to find ways to manage what comes out of the sky.

Read more here…

Here’s how to design cities where people and nature can both flourish

October 24, 2018 by Georgia Garrard, Nicholas Williams And Sarah Bekessy, The Conversation

Smart City Solutions Planning

Local Government Magazine | Patricia Moore | August 2018 

When it comes to co-creating planning solutions, director Nick Williamson of Align Limited suggests councils could learn a lot from the tech and entrepreneurial communities. When these groups hold events, they attract people with great ideas who are prepared to work for days on solving problems – frequently many more people than are drawn to council events. 

Smart cities and human-centred design are part of the emerging civic technology movement,” says Nick. “They’re using technology to help empower the public in its dealings with government through better information generation and sharing, and better decision-making and accountability. “Simply applying smart cities technology to existing local government structures is the equivalent of steam-punking,” he says. “It just digitises industrial-age business models.” Nick urges councils to stop trying to help communities and start working alongside community-led initiatives. “Councils need to enable and facilitate bottom-up initiatives. That’s the only way things get any traction”.

Council decision-making processes

Local Government Magazine | Patricia Moore | June 2018 

With councils deep in the throes of their 2018-28 long term plans, Patricia Moore asked four specialists how planning processes are changing and how local authorities and their communities could benefit. 

According to Nick Williamson, a senior planning consultant at Align, speeding up council decision-making processes could well relieve some of the pressure. “It doesn’t need to be this way,” he says. “Right now, councils are developing their 2018-2028 Long Term Plans. Within that same timeframe – by 2022 – Elon Musk plans to deliver the first cargo mission to Mars.” 

Read more here…

How smart cities enable citizen co-creation in policy, consents & services?

The purpose of this paper is to determine how smart city principles and technologies can enable citizen co-creation in public policy-making, consent processing and service provision.

Smart city governments focus heavily on the participation of citizens in the co-creation of civic affairs. The evolutionary aim of the smart city model is to integrate all of the dimensions of human intelligence, collective intelligence, and artificial intelligence using digital telecommunication networks (nerves), ubiquitously embedded intelligence (brains), sensors and tags (sensory organs) and software (knowledge and cognitive competence).

TEDx: Time for citizens to take back urban planning

A few years ago, urban planner Nick Williamson came up with a transformative experiment: working with ordinary citizens and using rapid iteration to experiment with the design of their city. The result was more than he could have imagined, and paved the way for a whole new approach to planning.