A New Heart for East Porirua, Waitangirua

<p>Waitangirua is a vital piece of the puzzle when completing the Porirua Regeneration Scheme and The Transmission Gully Motorway. Waitangirua is a small suburb of 4020 residents located in the East of Porirua City. The current regeneration of East Porirua is seeing 2000 state homes being renovated or demolished and 2000 additional dwellings on site. With that in mind, a transmission gully link road drives straight to the heart of the community’s village centre: this road alone will see an additional 3000-4000 cars travelling down it daily. Waitangirua currently hosts a diverse and young population, but it lacks the architectural features to encourage diversity and social interaction. With Transmission Gully’s completion in 2020 and the regeneration at the beginning of its 25-year plan, it is timely to think about the future of Waitangirua, not only for the social growth of the suburb but also the liveability for the community. The current village centre does not match its neighbourhood, let alone have the capability to host all these new people. Leading to the research question, ‘How can an under-utilised centre be re-imagined for the social growth and liveability of its residents?’ This thesis examines the importance of connections for social growth and liveability; while considering the priority of community engagements in the success of the design. It also investigates the significance of architecture and urban planning in integrating the identity of the community and their culture into the design schemes. A New Heart for East Porirua proposes this can be achieved by renewing the flow and connection of the people; to each other, their village centre and wider Porirua. At the same time as engaging with the community and cultural narrative to enhance the site; and finally, by re-imagining the under-utilised centre and community hub in a holistic approach for the on-going journey of the community of Waitangirua.</p>

A New Heart for East Porirua, Waitangirua

<p>Waitangirua is a vital piece of the puzzle when completing the Porirua Regeneration Scheme and The Transmission Gully Motorway. Waitangirua is a small suburb of 4020 residents located in the East of Porirua City. The current regeneration of East Porirua is seeing 2000 state homes being renovated or demolished and 2000 additional dwellings on site. With that in mind, a transmission gully link road drives straight to the heart of the community’s village centre: this road alone will see an additional 3000-4000 cars travelling down it daily. Waitangirua currently hosts a diverse and young population, but it lacks the architectural features to encourage diversity and social interaction. With Transmission Gully’s completion in 2020 and the regeneration at the beginning of its 25-year plan, it is timely to think about the future of Waitangirua, not only for the social growth of the suburb but also the liveability for the community. The current village centre does not match its neighbourhood, let alone have the capability to host all these new people. Leading to the research question, ‘How can an under-utilised centre be re-imagined for the social growth and liveability of its residents?’ This thesis examines the importance of connections for social growth and liveability; while considering the priority of community engagements in the success of the design. It also investigates the significance of architecture and urban planning in integrating the identity of the community and their culture into the design schemes. A New Heart for East Porirua proposes this can be achieved by renewing the flow and connection of the people; to each other, their village centre and wider Porirua. At the same time as engaging with the community and cultural narrative to enhance the site; and finally, by re-imagining the under-utilised centre and community hub in a holistic approach for the on-going journey of the community of Waitangirua.</p>

Medieval Activity at Beech Tree Close, Oakley, Hampshire

An archaeological excavation in advance of a housing development revealed a range of deposits dating from the 11th to 13th centuries. The features do not conform to what would be expected either for the nucleus of an isolated farmstead or as part of a medieval village, but they perhaps indicate an area of activity adjacent to a more densely settled area. The deposits were relatively rich in charred plant remains indicating arable production. The parish church, usually considered to be located close to a village centre, lies several hundred metres to the west and if the deposits here do not relate to an independent farmstead, perhaps they pre-date the formation of the nucleated village. One feature is potentially a Saxon SFB (sunken-featured building). Some early Saxon and Roman pottery sherds were also recovered.

Transformations of traditional land use and settlement patterns of Kosarysche Ridge (Chornohora, Western Ukraine)

The traditional character of Hutsul villages and their spatial development has been changing slowly but inevitably over the course of time. Historically, single farmsteads were built separately and were mostly self-sufficient, the distance between them being considerable. Nowadays, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic transformation brought along many changes, among these the fact that depopulation is taking place and alterations in spatial development are occurring again. The localisation of secluded farmsteads, situated far away from each other is no longer as important as it used to be. Reasons for the abandonment of farmsteads were examined, and factors such as altitude, distance from the village centre and the administration affiliation were taken into account. Land use changes were analysed in relation to the slope inclination. Some of the most important factors influencing the intensity and direction of these processes are high prices of land, improvement in living conditions, better access to services and the general ‘westernisation’ of lifestyles. The depopulation rate has been seen to increase in correlation with the rising altitude and distance from the village centre. On the other hand, there was no unambiguous link between the abandonment of farmsteads and administration affiliation. Mowed areas were localised on the slopes with the smallest inclination. Animal breeding has become unprofitable due to a lack in demand and low product prices, which has led to an increasing number of meadows and pastures lying fallow.

Pardon My French: Captain Haddock and the Suff erings of the Savoyards

Spending time in the European Alps means, especially in the tourist season, being constantly reminded of both the heroism and suffering brought about by this magnificent landscape. The bookshops of Grenoble all have prominent displays of the exploits and adventures of living and prematurely killed Alpinists, and on the radio you can but wait for the news of this year’s first deaths on the slopes of Mont Blanc—at 15,782 feet (4,810 metres) the highest mountain peak in Europe. But this landscape used to be cruel in a more sinister and hidden way, invisible to the naked eye. Not before certain experiments were made on seaweeds gathered on the Normandy beaches could we begin to understand and deal with the cause of the terrible sights and encounters Swiss Alpinist pioneer Horace-Bénédict de Saussure had in a small remote village near Aosta in the Piedmont in present-day Italy. Saussure, a young professor at the university of Geneva, was out on one of his numerous hikes in the western Alps, nowadays part of Switzerland, Italy, and France, but then largely under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Sardinia. On this summer’s day in 1768 he came upon a small village and naturally wanted to know where he was, so he asked the first man he met on the way into the village, but got no reply. With one person, that could have been a language problem, or a general distrust towards suspicious strangers (entering a small café in a remote village and registering everyone inside going completely silent does not mean they have all simultaneously developed a speech disorder). However, as he got further into the village and still got no more than inarticulate grunts from the second and third person as well, he began to wonder what was going on. Closer to the village centre he saw a disquieting number of men and women with enormous goitres, fat lips, perpetually halfopen mouths, and blank expressions, and was terrified. As he recalls in the second volume of the first serious description of this region, Voyage dans les Alpes, ‘It was as if an evil spirit had transformed every inhabitant into a dumb animal, leaving only the human form to show that they had once been men’.