Occupying Paekakariki’s Coastal Edge

Abstract

Many coastal environments around New Zealand are under threat from rising sea levels, storm surges, king tide inundation and coastal erosion. New Zealand is a long narrow country with a large coastline and this has influenced the human lifestyle with many residents living and working near the coast. It would be a tragedy if, in the future, occupying New Zealand’s coastlines became impossible due to the effects of nature on the coastal edge.

This thesis aims to enable New Zealanders to continue to occupy coastal sites. It poses the question ‘How can architecture, coastal engineering and landscape be integrated together to enable people to continue to occupy the coastal edge’?

The host site for the investigation is located on New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast, at 40 Ames Street Paekakariki. This site is steep, extends to the water’s edge and has a small stream exiting onto the beach. This naturally beautiful site has a range of sensory experiences, is forever changing and is greatly affected by the moods of nature and natural forces.

This site is appropriate for this research investigation because of its harsh coastal environment, and the natural challenges that it faces from the ocean and stream. The implication of the two opposing movements of water, the stream and the ocean, are similar to other sites around New Zealand. This provides a difficult yet interesting site for this design-led research investigation. This site and its neighbouring sites are unique because of erosion and the owners boundaries’ now extend across the beach providing constant public access to the property and create a public access versus private space challenge.

This thesis argues that the integration of architecture and coastal engineering to manage the landscape will provide mitigation of erosion, enabling long term occupation of this site and the neighbouring sites, while enhancing public use and the human experience.

The proposed aims and objectives are:

- Restoring a stable beach and creating recreational areas while mitigating further erosion. This will be achieved using coastal engineering solutions.

- Enhancing human occupation and creating connections with the surrounding environment. This will be achieved through the design of the architecture in association with the coastal engineering.

- Occupying this site as part of the process of making it more sustainable. Increasing beach occupancy through public uses to increase viability and support the engineering design cost.

- To create a hybrid architecture and engineering solution that has the potential to be replicated on similar problematic coastal sites around New Zealand.

Overall this research highlights the potential of integrating architecture, coastal engineering and the landscape to enable a continuing coastal lifestyle in suburban and rural New Zealand.