2015. Site Location: Wakefield, Tasman, NZ

Client:  Wakefield Community, VUW

Type: Community Driven Project, Re-envisioning the future of rural townships

Bridging the ecological and community divides between the Wakefield village and the local National Reserve was the main objective. A proposed green space situated between the town boundaries and the Wai-iti River was intended to extend the existing biodiversity and ecology from the local reserve into the village footprint. The effort was to use this as a tool to facilitate blending the rural entities together to create a new type of settlement driven by habitat, through the village, the waterway and the reserve.

The hope was to make Wakefield a more vibrant and attractive location for travellers heading between Nelson and the Westcoast. It was intended that habitat creation around the river would feed the local ecology into the village centre.

Flooding risks in the area prevented building new housing directly along the river’s edge, therefore structuring the green buffer as vegetation corridors for pedestrian flows was conducted. This would have provided a subtle path from the village core to the Wai-iti River.
 

Exhibited at the Wakefield Design Exhibition 2015