Urban renewal, masterplanning and design information management: A New Zealand waterfront case study

Abstract

In the context of a very limited body of literature on urban masterplanning processes, this paper presents a case study of the recently completed masterplanning process for the urban waterfront of the city of Auckland, New Zealand. The focus of the paper is on the management of design information during this process. The paper outlines the workshop-based collaborative decision-making of the masterplanning team, and in particular the management of the shift from the problem-focused design brief development phase of the initial workshops to the creative design work undertaken in later workshops. The importance of developing overarching design themes to guide the decision-making process, and the potential for these thematic statements to link the design brief priorities with subsequent design-generative work, and to knit together design work at different scales within the masterplan, is identified. The paper concludes by assessing the case study process in relation to the characteristics of successful methodologies for urban renewal projects suggested by Mayer et al (2005).