Hamilton City Heart Revitalization Project
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The city heart project looked at the downtown area of Hamilton that had fallen into economic decline and that become the focus of anti-social behavior. The conceptual design options were developed to revitalize local business and retail while giving the community a greater buy into the area. The concept master plan had to deal with the existing traffic and pedestrian movement issues and the issues of reconnecting the city heart to the Waikato River.
The project was to create stronger non-financial 'business case' for businesses locating in the Hamilton CBD that included but was not limited to creating a safe vibrant environment that would draw both the community and business back to the CBD. The project master plan and documentation was complete in a charrette type process that involved the whole community from interest groups of actors to local businesses, the police and the local iwi (tribe). Beyond the normal landscape and ecological initiatives that would now be considered typical in urban design, the one issue that was innovative was the focus on an urban design plan that could be staged to reduce the carbon and financial cost of the civic square redevelopment. This meant we had to create a design that worked around the aesthetics of the old design. The design morphed from the existing civic square into the new design over three stages. |
Location:
Hamilton Client: Hamilton City Council, Collaboration: Urbanismplus (Project Lead) |