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.