We'll be bringing you a new topic of conversation every couple of months, and have an exciting range of speakers lined up.
The series launched in September with a conversation about the carbon landscape, led by landscape architect Craig Pocock. Didn't make it? Watch the video.
Next: Walkable urbanism | Monday 17 May
5.45pm to 7pm at the Globe Theatre: Register now
Walkable urbanism: the heart of a creative city
What is a city without people? Cities at their best are natural gathering places; places where people meet, interact, exchange ideas, laugh, love and live engaging lives. In the headlong rush to motorisation in the second half of the twentieth century, we risked losing sight of this fundamental truth. In the 21st Century, the tide is turning. Cities and towns around the world have been returning to people-centric design. And walkability is at the heart of it.
Stantec’s Daniel Chapman will discuss the role of walking in vibrant and creative urban places, ingredients of walkable urbanism, and inspiration from elsewhere of successful transformations from suburban stasis to urban dynamism.
Daniel Chapman is a principal urban designer at Stantec and the practice lead for Urban Design and Advisory in New Zealand.
He has worked in the overlapping fields of urban design and landscape architecture for over 17 years, at design-led, multi-disciplinary and public sector design practices in New Zealand and the UK.
His project experience is wide ranging, from strategic urban design, regional green infrastructure, and masterplanning, to streets and award-winning parks and urban spaces. This range of skills at different scales enables him to connect strategy and deliverability.
His recent work includes contributions to the Auckland City Centre Masterplan; development of a design-led city strategy for a major growth city in Australia; providing urban design guidance for transport programme business cases; and an outcomes-focused corridor study for the City Centre to Māngere light rail in Auckland, seeking to maximise benefits for people and place through significant public transport investment.
Daniel counts himself lucky to live in a walkable, amenity rich, 15-minute neighbourhood, especially now that he is the proud dad to his one-year-old daughter, Skylah. He is passionate about supporting other places to embrace walkability and to put people first in urban planning and design.
Join the conversation. Register now
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Previous talks
Urban strategist Greer O’Donnell shares a fresh perspective on the role of housing for health and wellbeing, exploring examples of housing models that have evolved in response to rising house prices and housing inequality, and outlining what cities like Palmy can do to expedite the development of more diverse, fit-for-purpose and affordable homes.
Reflecting on his own projects over the last 16 years, landscape architect Craig Pocock asks the question: Does our carbon consumption offset our carbon creation? While landscape and open spaces projects can be seen at face-value as green and sustainable, how sustainable they are when applying a CO₂ cost to them?
Liz Halsted is the NZ Advisory Services Leader for global infrastructure company Arup. She led our March talk, which explored human-centric transportation and how we can bring about social, environmental, economic and cultural improvements through road strategy and design that support all transport modes, including walking.
