Meeting the coastal challenge

The devastating earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan have reminded us all of the fragility of our built environment – and the importance of designing resilient buildings and landscapes, particularly those located on and around our coastlines.

With offices in the harbour cities of Auckland and Wellington, Stephenson&Turner is acutely aware of the wake-up call the earthquakes have delivered. We understand the implications of climate change and welcome the opportunity to challenge the old norms – to use our expertise as architects, engineers and urban designers to create solutions that work in harmony with our environment.

As a first step, we’ve begun examining the concept of ‘coastal defence’ for New Zealand. It’s already being discussed overseas, with some great ideas emerging. For example, a team of engineers, architects, landscape architects, planners and students at Princeton University’s school of architecture have suggested an innovative, locally differentiated approach for the New York/New Jersey Upper Bay*.

The group’s coastal planning strategy is designed to mitigate the potential damage from storms while providing new ground for recreation, ecologies, agriculture and urban development. Using ‘soft infrastructure’, which rethinks the thresholds of water, land and city, it includes:

• an archipelago of islands and reefs along the shallow shoals, which dampens powerful storm currents while encouraging new estuarine habitats
• a revitalised waterfront in which a broad, porous, fingered coastline combines marshes, parks and piers for recreation and community development
• a new zoning that recognises potential impact areas with the aim of increasing their resilience to potential natural disasters.

Work like this inspires us to see our waterfronts in a new light, offering opportunities to enhance the biodiversity of estuarine habitats while providing working and living spaces that protect us against the worst that Mother Nature can throw our way.

We are witnesses of a mind-shift towards a new approach of engaging with the natural environment. Smart but soft solutions will replace systems that were built on the beliefs of the superiority of man. Images like those of Japanese engineers groping in the darkness of the control room in the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant ultimately challenge the illusion of our ability to control natural forces. Architects’ and engineers’ visionary ideas will help to forge new pathways to reduce the impact of looming threats like global warming, overpopulation, and pollution.

We welcome your thoughts and ideas on how we can create environments for the future. Contact Bernd Gundermann on 09 914 6093.

*Nordenson/Seavitt/Yarinsky, On the Water/Palisade Bay, Ostfildern/New York 2010