Designing for an Active Community Focus

Abstract

This research dissertation set out to determine what form the design and integration of a suburban community centre as a catalyst for moving towards a sustainable built environment might take. The literature of theoretical arguments and built precedents were investigated to identify potential design parameters. A viable site for the project was also investigated. As a result, the Sustainability Drop-in Centre was created in the heart of Karori. Its design was based on international case studies that emphasized green urbanism and TOD design initiatives, whilst also looking at Calthorpe's arguments for TOD design and Lynch's concept of place legibility as a set of inhabitable paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. The integration of these crucial design parameters required a design intervention at multiple scales, from a new traffic design for the suburb to a detailed ramp design aimed at achieving energy efficient building design, thus limiting the need for lifts and escalators. As a result the final chapter illustrates the new design proposal in the form of representational renders of the pedestrian experience. These renditions, informed by the construction drawings referred to throughout the study, determine that the integration of a community centre as a catalyst for moving towards a sustainable built environment would create many improved quality of life opportunities, including, but not limited to, chances for social interaction, spaces and occasions for local bartering, and an opportunity for education in regard to sustainable practices. The design intervention has generated a stronger walkable suburb that gives importance to public sustainable forms of transportation and the needs of pedestrians, resulting in a suburb that will function well into a post-oil future.