Community Projects
Community projects are unique, to the individuals, hapū, region, budget and the intent of each project. Whether it be an eco village, papakāinga, co-housing development, landscaping or community resource centre - there’s usually an over-riding vision from stakeholders to enhance social connectedness and work in harmony with the environment.
Greenbridge offers a wide range of services for community projects, from: preliminary site assessment and feasibility services, to design brief development, facilitation, broadscale concept and developed design services, right through to detail design and consent documentation for the landscape dwellings and other site infrastructure. Due to the varied nature of these projects , pricing of our services are customised to suit the site, budget and client requirements specific to each specific project.
Co-housing Design
Co-housing is a resident led co-operative housing model, that offers the autonomy and privacy we expect in the twenty first century. People own their own self-contained homes with all the usual facilities – kitchen, dining, bedrooms, bathroom, living room and private outdoor space. However co-housing adds another layer of ‘home’ between individual houses and shared public space.
Greenbridge has been involved in the early planning stages for several co-housing projects across Aotearoa, providing the design expertise and a thorough understanding of the patterns and objectives, required for successful co-housing development.
If you’re interested in finding out more about co-housing and how Greenbridge can help your group develop its vision then click the button below to get in touch.
Pocket Neighbourhoods
Pocket neighbourhoods are very similar to co-housing, in that they are communities designed around a cluster of homes, gathered around a landscaped common area, however without necessarily having the same degree of shared infrastructure, or fixed invisible structures that determine how people engage with and live in community.
The great thing about Pocket Neighbourhoods, is how they support community interaction, without forcing it, or requiring legal entwinement, or community lead development and/or decision making. Which makes them a great option for people looking for ways of developing property and subdividing within a more community focussed context.
Greenbridge was lead designer for New Plymouth’s first pocket neighbourhood ‘John Mana Way’ that was developed and built in conjunction with local construction company Pepper Construction.
Papakāinga & Eco Villages
Any Papakānga design is specific to each individual project and hapū. The physical infrastructure however, often utilises many of the same design patterns found in both co-housing and pocket-neighbourhoods. Which are then adjusted to fit the te ao Māori world view and specific hapu’s cultural context.
Papakāinga projects may often encompass other areas of the larger marae, including urupā, wharekai, wharemātua, kitchen, wharepaku and ablutions etc… Greenbridge director Daniel Woolley whakapapa’s from the Peka whanau, of Ngāti Rauwawe, Ngāpuhi in Northland and has completed levels 1-3 Te ara Reo Māori at Te Wānanga o Aoteroa.
Greenbridge has been involved in some early stage Eco-village designs and althoug we currently have limited experience in Papakāinga projects, this is an area we’re passionate about bringing Greenbridge’s regenerative approach and knowledge to enhance people and place.
Medium Density Housing
Medium density housing comes in the form of apartments, terraced housing and also within the formats outlined above. Within a town or city context, medium density provides a more sustainable and human centred design approach to housing.
Bernoulli Gardens is an 120 apartment development, based in Hobsonville Point, Auckland that Greenbridge worked alongside Ockham Residential, to design an industry leading landscape, that includes: greenspace, ecological function and enhanced community connectedness – within an apartment context.
The projects landcsape incorporated many regenerative features including: Corralled car parking, below the main apartment block to achieve an impressive 35% of green-space; a common central glade; bird and habitat corridors; ecological and endemic plantings; community vegetable gardens & composting; and activated bump spaces – to encourage resident interactions, to name just a few…
Community Gardens
Community Gardens can provide so many amazing outcomes and benefits: education; resilience; community connections; helping people to reconnect with nature; physical exercise; bringing people together; and let’s not forget the kai…
Greenbridge director Bena Denton, lead Omata Primary School through a collaborative design process that engaged the school’s students in several learning rich topics, undertook community fundraising and then organised working groups to install the gardens.
Aside from the deep community building and learning that took place, an unused corner of the school grounds was turned into an edible and outdoor education oasis.
Several years later the garden has matured and is still cared for and used extensively by the staff and students…
Community resilience projects
Community resilience projects come in all sorts of shapes, with the unifying theme being – that they bring a community together to develop resilience and sustainability, through: education; training; connection; localisation and community resources.
One such project that we were involved with was New Plymouth District Council’s resource recovery centre. During the first phase of this project, we grew the council’s vision of what was possible, developed three initial concept designs, which were later refined into a final concept – that in the second phase, we then lead a team of architects, landscape architects and quantity surveyors to develop and price a proposed site plan, building design, infrastructure plan and landscape design.
An amazing project to have been involved with, we also learnt first hand what happens when theproject lead is passed onto other businesses for the later stages that don’t hold to the original intent for the project…
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