Because 75 percent of New Zealand’s visitors arrive and depart through Auckland International Airport (AKL), it creates first and lasting impressions of the country. Since 2007, Surfacedesign has worked with airport executives to create inspiring outdoor environments that elevate New Zealand’s national identity and celebrate its dramatic natural landscape. Surfacedesign’s co-founding partner and Auckland project lead designer, James A. Lord, FASLA, is a life-long traveler to New Zealand, connected to the country by multiple generations of Kiwi lineage. During numerous AKL arrivals and departures, Lord witnessed the country’s agrarian culture disappearing, as continuous airport expansions industrialized the region’s green spaces. “The only thing that let you know you were in this country renowned globally for its stunning natural beauty was the New Zealand Van Lines signage,” he says. Surfacedesign continues to create natural remedies to this cultural erosion.
Adding to the airport region’s importance is the nearby site where the Maori first arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia. Besides hosting the country’s original village, Auckland features 90 volcanic cones, which sheltered various Iwi (individual Maori tribes). The Iwi shaped the cones’ edges into stone-walled terraces. Now known as stonefields, these built landscapes served two purposes: as fortification against enemies and as protection for imported Polynesian plants that were not inured to the colder New Zealand weather. The country’s rich agrarian tradition also includes fruit orchards and hedgerows planted by European immigrants in the 1800s. “The overall project connects the airport to the greater New Zealand ecology, history, and culture,” Lord says. “Auckland International Airport introduces travelers to the country’s landscape from land and sky.”
To extend the region’s legacy of large green spaces and environmentally sensitive landscapes, the airport commissioned Surfacedesign to plan ongoing improvements through 2044. The general design directive for AKL’s nearly six square miles (1,500 hectares) of land was to ecologically and economically create built landscapes to connect existing green spaces. Continuing the National Bike Trail through airport property was another priority. Environmental parameters include re- purposing materials by relocating graded dirt to other areas of the project, sourcing plants and hardscape locally, and addressing stormwater remediation. Aesthetically, Surfacedesign integrated historical Maori and European landscape influences into the design. This gives the project a specific sense of place, creating a memorably welcoming experience at Auckland International Airport’s continuously expanding terminal and outlying landscapes.
The design directive was to celebrate and elevate New Zealand’s national identity and its naturally dramatic volcanic and coastal landscapes while adding aesthetic continuity among project phases. Environmental mandates include stormwater conveyance, watershed remediation, and sustainable practices through re-purposing graded dirt to other projects on airport property and sourcing materials locally. Safety was addressed by separating pedestrian and bicycle paths from traffic lanes with greenbelts and mounded hardscape.
Surfacedesign addressed the project’s performative compulsories, stormwater and sustainability, then integrated these features into culturally rooted designs that are distinctive from both air and ground. Herringbone hedgerows are inspired by19th-century European immigrants’ planting practices. V-shaped patterns were added along the airport’s main feeder road, George Bolt Memorial Drive. These shapes are significant in the Maori culture and also reference bird flight as well as airport runway chevrons.
Local flora was chosen to enhance the projects’ functional designs. For example, a corridor of trees was planted to lure birds away from the runway to the project’s primary stormwater retention pond, where lowland edge plants were added to encourage additional wildlife habitation. Runoff remediation follows the Maori tradition of water always passing through rocks before it enters a larger body. Native understory was used to further filter watershed particulates and toxins. Pedestrian paths use locally sourced, shoreline-inspired materials wherever possible (including ground shells) to minimize radiant heat produced by asphalt and concrete. For curbs and pavers at The Landing Business Park, recycled volcanic rock was used in the concrete mix to cost-effectively add a dark tint, helping hide dirt that accumulates in curbs’ shadow lines. Additional hardscape uses local basalt (formed when lava flows into wetlands), supplemented by other rocks available from nearby quarries.
Material Used:
Prominent tree species: Poplars, London plane, peach, native pohutukawa
Ground cover: Native tufted grasses, oioi, carex, flax
