School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/13907
AUT is home to a number of renowned research institutes in architecture and creative technologies. The School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao strong industry partnerships and the unique combination of architecture and creative technologies within one school stimulates interdisciplinary research beyond traditional boundaries.

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Browsing School of Future Environments - Huri te Ao by Subject "11 Sustainable Cities and Communities"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Biodiverse Residential Development: A Review of New Zealand Policies and Strategies for Urban Biodiversity
    (Elsevier BV, 2024-04-01) Varshney, K; MacKinnon, M; Zari, MP; Shanahan, D; Woolley, C; Freeman, C; Heezik, YV
    Urban residential development is expanding globally to accommodate increasing housing demand, greatly impacting biodiversity and human wellbeing. Enhanced sustainability of these developments requires an integrated approach to conserving, supporting, and restoring biodiversity through the built environment and understanding the implications of residential development policies, regulations, and guidelines. This paper details a review of current New Zealand policies, strategies, planning documents, and design guidelines that inform urban design and planning at national, regional, and local levels. Three major gaps in biodiversity considerations and opportunities for improvement in residential developments were identified. Firstly, current policies and strategies tend to protect significant indigenous habitats, but the interventions required to improve or retain biodiversity in residential developments are not explicitly considered. Secondly, there is a need for design guidelines with explicit biodiversity outcomes. Thirdly, existing planning documents and guidelines do not account for biodiversity monitoring and management and could be amended to include biodiversity-related outcomes. We conclude that current New Zealand policies and strategies related to residential developments are inadequate and fail to recognise or encourage the enhancement of urban biodiversity in any meaningful way. Holistic and strategic ecosystem-based approaches are required to protect and enhance urban biodiversity and human wellbeing through the built environment to ensure that biodiversity continues to thrive in New Zealand cities and enrich the lives of urban residents.
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    Enhancing Construction Waste Management in New Zealand: Lessons from Hong Kong and Other Countries
    (IOP Publishing, 2023-10-06) Doan, Dat Tien; Albsoul, Hadeel; GhaffarianHoseini, Ali
    Global construction waste (CW) poses escalating environmental, social, and economic challenges. While New Zealand grapples with a dearth of research on optimal construction waste management (CWM) techniques, it stands to gain from the comprehensive practices employed in regions like Hong Kong. Drawing from the extensive literature on CWM practices in Hong Kong and other countries, this study seeks to furnish New Zealand's construction professionals and policymakers with invaluable insights. Key findings illuminate the determinants of successful CWM, the motivations steering stakeholder behaviour towards CW reduction, the transformative potential of public policy, and innovative enhancement strategies. The research underscores the instrumental roles of green building and big data in CW curtailment, delving into the attendant challenges and rewards. By assimilating lessons from these international paradigms, New Zealand is poised to refine its CWM, catalysing a shift towards a more sustainable construction landscape.
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    Improving Urban Habitat Connectivity for Native Birds: Using Least-Cost Path Analyses to Design Urban Green Infrastructure Networks
    (MDPI AG, 2023-07-21) MacKinnon, M; Pedersen Zari, M; Brown, DK
    Habitat loss and fragmentation are primary threats to biodiversity in urban areas. Least-cost path analyses are commonly used in ecology to identify and protect wildlife corridors and stepping-stone habitats that minimise the difficulty and risk for species dispersing across human-modified landscapes. However, they are rarely considered or used in the design of urban green infrastructure networks, particularly those that include building-integrated vegetation, such as green walls and green roofs. This study uses Linkage Mapper, an ArcGIS toolbox, to identify the least-cost paths for four native keystone birds (kererū, tūī, korimako, and hihi) in Wellington, New Zealand, to design a network of green roof corridors that ease native bird dispersal. The results identified 27 least-cost paths across the central city that connect existing native forest habitats. Creating 0.7 km2 of green roof corridors along these least-cost paths reduced cost-weighted distances by 8.5–9.3% for the kererū, tūī, and korimako, but there was only a 4.3% reduction for the hihi (a small forest bird). In urban areas with little ground-level space for green infrastructure, this study demonstrates how least-cost path analyses can inform the design of building-integrated vegetation networks and quantify their impacts on corridor quality for target species in cities.
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    Multiple Roles of Green Space in the Resilience, Sustainability and Equity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Cities
    (MDPI AG, 2024-07-08) Blaschke, P; Pedersen Zari, M; Chapman, R; Randal, E; Perry, M; Howden-Chapman, P; Gyde, E
    Green space is needed in urban areas to increase resilience to climate change and other shocks, as well as for human health and wellbeing. Urban green space (UGS) is increasingly considered as green infrastructure and highly complementary to engineered urban infrastructure, such as water and transport networks. The needs for resilient, sustainable and equitable future wellbeing require strategic planning, designing and upgrading of UGS, especially in areas where it has been underprovided. We explore the implications of these needs for urban development through a detailed review of cited UGS analyses conducted on the larger cities in Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ). There are important differences in UGS availability (i.e., quantity), accessibility and quality within and between cities. Some of these differences stem from ad hoc patterns of development, as well as topography. They contribute to apparently growing inequities in the availability and accessibility of UGS. Broader health and wellbeing considerations, encompassing Indigenous and community values, should be at the heart of UGS design and decisionmaking. Most of AoNZ’s cities aim (at least to some extent) at densification and decarbonisation to accommodate a growing population without costly sprawl; however, to date, sprawl continues. Our findings indicate a clear need for the design and provision of high-quality, well-integrated UGS within and servicing areas of denser housing, which are typically areas in cities with a demonstrable UGS deficiency.
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