Site Criteria

I am currently on the look out for a site to base my design on. My site search in Wellington, New Zealand didnt work out too well so now I am in Auckland and think i have found a site in Saint Mary's Bay in central Auckland.

One of the issues with choosing a site is a variety of issues,

1: The site must be in the central city, as I am exploring a way to create density in the city I cant choose a site that exists in the suburbs as I cannot contribute to suburban sprawl as this is an issue i am fighting against.

2: The site must be located next to a certain amount of flat land. I am wanting to use the idea of soft infrastructure to connecting the floating community to the land. I have realized there needs to be a intermediate element between the city and the water community and as this is in the central city there is not room for this space to serve only one function, it must address a variety of issue and be multifunctional. Soft infrastructure uses natural vegetation to help defend the city against sea level rise and effects associated with it like storm surges. If this is located at the bottom of a hill it serves not purpose as the buildings on the hill are protected to a large degree by their height on the hill, so to help protect the city this soft infrastructure must be located next to land of a low gradient close to sea level.

3: The site cannot overtake essential existing city services and infrastructure.

4: The site must have enough room for a small community to exist, although I have yet to define how many people i expect to live in the community it will be under 40 houses.

5: The site needs to be close enough to the city centre to reduce the need for extensive use of the car. Walking is to be encouraged and so the site must have available a number of access routes and links to the central city.

Saint Mary's Bay is a 7 minute drive or 25 minute walk from the Sky Tower, a land mark in Auckland City. This is in down town Auckland and is entering the CBD. This location makes it easy enough to walk, is located very close to the city but also exists across fro exisiting msuburb houses so as not to be out of place.

Also one of the benefits of this site is the Auckland waterfront redevelopment is occurring only 200m away and although some industrial buildings and functions occur between this residential development and my propose site, there is the potential for this redevelopment to continue along the waterfront and eventually connection with my water community greatly improving and connecting a valuable land use area of Auckland.