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WellUrban / June 2007

Personal reflections on urbanism, urban life and sustainable urban design in Wellington, New Zealand.

July 2007 | May 2007
    • A breath of fresh air
      • While the council's first moves after announcing their "carbon neutral" aspirations were dubious to the point of being counter-productive, here's one very tiny step in the right direction. Vector Energy is trialling urban micro-turbines, first in Waitakere and then in Wellington.
      • Tagged as:
      • conservation

    • How not to go carbon neutral
      • A couple of weeks ago, Wellington City Council decided that Wellington should aspire to become carbon neutral. Since then,a council-controlled organisation has started promoting cheap weekend parking; andthe Regional Council plans to increase bus and train fares by 10%.
      • Tagged as:
      • conservation
      • parking
      • fares

    • Mojo rising
      • Mojo already has six cafes in Wellington, and the cartel continues to expand. There's an outlet planned for the ground floor of the Watermark apartments, and according to the neighbours, there will soon be a Mojo in upper Cuba St.
      • Tagged as:
      • cuba-street
      • retail
      • waterfront

        • Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Tag team
      • We've already had a few discussions here on WellUrban about graffiti, and while I've tended to be sceptical of anti-graffiti "flying squads" while singing the praises of street art in Waitangi Park and Ghuznee Street's "Graffiti Alley", a lot of other people see all graffiti as mindless vandalism.
      • Tagged as:
      • architecture
      • art

    • Quick questions
      • Is it better to have a supermarket in Mt Cook, so that the locals can do their shopping on foot rather than taking a taxi from Thorndon via the bypass, or a swimming pool? Would replacing Crossways with 3-4 storeys of apartments, and creating a new set of community facilities on the ground floor, be a possible compromise that would keep Mt Vic residents happy?
      • Tagged as:
      • architecture
      • crossways
      • mount-cook

        • Mount Cook, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Toytown
      • I've been wondering when the houses relocated for the bypass would be re-inhabited, thus bringing some life back to a ravaged district. Surely it wouldn't be long before they were snapped up? But no: Karo Drive and Tonks Grove are going to look like toytown for quite some time to come.It turns out that under the Public Works Act, Transit has to look for the original owners or their descendants, and then offer the properties to them at market prices.
      • Tagged as:
      • architecture
      • bypass

    • Neutral aspirations
      • Thanks to ShoppingFix for pointing out that at tonight's Strategy & Policy meeting, Wellington City Council will consider becoming carbon neutral. At first I thought that this just referred to the council's own operations, but on reading the report it turns out that they also intend for the whole city of Wellington to become carbon neutral.
      • Tagged as:
      • conservation
      • wellington-city-council

    • Fear and Loathing
      • The Dominion Post have followed up their lists of the best and worst buildings in Wellington (selected by the Architectural Centre) by telling us what "we" like and "loathe". It's not clear from the article exactly who "we" are: it seems to be a combination of reader's letters in response to the other lists, random vox pops, pupils from Upper Hutt College, and Russell Walden.
      • Tagged as:
      • architecture

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