July 3, 2025 • 59 mins
The inspiring and active Ellen Young is Managing Director of Paper Road: Connecting Community and Place.
Based in Whanganui, with her unique previous ‘placemaking’ experience at Whanganui District Council, Ellen is now in a position to lead and advise community co-design processes with local councils in our regions.
Her discussion highlights the advocacy processes with councils and communities in activating vital street and public place urban design schemes.
There is much to learn here from her philosophical, yet feet on the ground, knowledge of these important contemporary works.
Based in Whanganui, with her unique previous ‘placemaking’ experience at Whanganui District Council, Ellen is now in a position to lead and advise community co-design processes with local councils in our regions.
Her discussion highlights the advocacy processes with councils and communities in activating vital street and public place urban design schemes.
There is much to learn here from her philosophical, yet feet on the ground, knowledge of these important contemporary works.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is bothom Rabi here on Local Architecture now with
Ellen Young.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hi am hello, how are you wonderful?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And Ellen is managing director of your own company called
Paper Road, connecting community and Place and you began it
all here in Fanganui.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I've been in Wanganui for sixteen years. I moved
to Castle Clock which is the coastal area of Wanganui,
when my daughter was three months old. Got involved with
the community there through just volunteer efforts and joined Progress
Castle Clock, which is the charitable trust that kind of
is the umbrella organization for different efforts from the community,
(00:58):
and ended up running a consultation process as a volunteer
alongside my ex partner with the council to create a
vision for that suburb and that led me after the
delivery of parts of that vision being a bit of
a thriving little hub out in Castle Cliff, which was
(01:20):
such a beautiful experience to be part of, I jumped
on board to be a project manager at the council
to do some regeneration work in the town center and
I led the town Center regeneration project as a team
of one.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Was this after Castle Cliff.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
This was after Castle Cliff, So the strategy was adopted
in twenty sixteen, but kind of sat there for a
couple of years without having anyone to really instigate it.
And I jumped on board after that in two thousand
and end of two thousand and eighteen, I feel like
(02:01):
to deliver that and it was a really broad document
that had a lot of ideas in it, so trying
to prioritize what to bite off and what not to
bite off with quite a small budget was quite hard,
and I kind of I learned on the job. I
guess my practice, which I think is one of my strengths,
is not really having a traditional project management background, but
(02:26):
really having the heart for community projects and competter community
into them. So I'm grateful for that experience. It was
such a steep learning curve jumping into the council machine
for five years and stressful but super rewarding and built
(02:47):
a skill set that enabled me to take the leap
and jump out of council. And I now kind of
am working across a variety of different types of projects,
but predominantly helping counsels guide their vision making processes and
then a little bit of implementation too, because I think
the way you approach implementation alongside the community matters, and
(03:09):
you can a bed so much more value if you're
including them in that process and finding the skill sets
and the treasure from that community and really letting that
come out through the project. So it's been a cool journey.
I feel so privileged to be sitting in this space,
and I'm just really grateful for all of the experiences
(03:31):
and opportunities that I've cared up to now.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. So you're actually really enjoying
the work and you've got a harp for it and
you understand it from a community base.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, I mean I have moments of frustration with counsels
because they're pretty tight structures with very clearly defined categories
and boxes that you have to work within.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
But I keep having learning.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Experiences, so like it's easy to butt up against those systems,
and I've kind of had this real realization that you
need to kind of gently align with parts of them
to bring out the potential of everybody working together. So
there's some risk taking in that and breaking apart of things,
(04:17):
but there's also like bringing everyone on that journey so
that everyone can still you know, be it can be
one effort in building a project. So yeah, it's nice
to come into a council with a bit of a
fresh perspective and a bit of renewed energy because people
that sit in those positions are generally they generally.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You don't see it, but they're they're answering to whole communities,
so they can get.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Bogged down very easily. And when you're in.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
That position of kind of overwhelming and and trying to
trying to please everybody, you can't please everybody, and that
builds a kind of sense of frustration. So acknowledging the
space that they're working in and then trying to help
build that sense of potential alongside them and re energize people.
(05:13):
And I mean it depends where the council is that
on their journey, but generally they get me involved to
try and push things.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Along a little bit.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So there's a little bit of an interpersonal element to
it to help bring that potential of that community out.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, I mean that you're actually in a position where
you can recognize the multi headed nature of the urban
design brief like the client and urban design is a
multi headed in the Europe the point where you can
actually engage with council from which is really you know, dynamic,
(05:54):
because that is where you can be the mediator between
like the community and council and also the idea with
a vision of being to implement these things.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yes, yeah, so's there's all this kind of I guess
some would look at it as ideology, ideology, but to
me it's like a it's a collaborative approach and it
can seem fluffy at the beginning, but I describe it
as slowing down to speed up. I've been involved in
(06:24):
so many projects where there's some isolated visioning going on
within the project team and they create a designer or
a plan separate from the community, and then down the
track you realize there's all these complications about the design
because you haven't included them and you don't understand the
existing behavior around where the public spaces. So there's there's
(06:49):
kind of these separations between consultation, which is what do
you think we've already created it kind of engagement, and
then there's engagement which is kind of a step for
ther than consultation, which is like asking them at the
start what their idea is and then embedding that a
little bit into it, and then kind of going this
(07:11):
is the plan. And then there's co design, which is
bringing them onboard right at the beginning, talking to them
about the parameters, talking to them about the budgets, talking
to them about the goals of the project, and then
helping shape what those goals are. Clearly there's got to
be existing goals, so there needs to be a container
to hold this in so so it makes sense still,
(07:32):
but you know, the community is able to manage that information,
and then establishing really clear roles for the community versus
council start versus designers so that everyone's expectation around their role.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is clear, and then enabling them to be part.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Of that conversation and development of the design and building
some like fun into it as well, you know, like
what is the identity of this place? What are the
cool stories? What are the hidden little gems? And I
always talk about that part of it as being treasure
hunters all together finding hidden cool stories or that kind
(08:13):
of helped create the vision for whatever the project is
or whatever the places and place is a key word
in that is like establishing weirdness is what the context
of this is historically what the ecological systems are around it.
It sounds disconnected from the actual outcome of a project,
(08:33):
but that can shake the project hugely and then really
impact what the outcomes and the snowball effects of the
project are.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So trying to think of an example, because the sounds
it sounds kind of disconnected from an actually actual delivered project.
But I guess there was an example where we had
some great conversations in Alpham recently.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
About place and that really helped.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I don't know if I can really talk about it
because it's not established yet the roadmap.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
We're in the process of building it.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
But we kind of were trying to overlay projects that
might reinvigorate that town alongside their co design group, which
is made up of local community members, and then kind
of talking to EWI about the stories of this area
being a food basket and the different ecological systems that
inform the abundance that was there and could be brought
(09:34):
about again, and that kind of informed an idea that
would connect those things into the town center, which to
me is really significant because it has this potential of
evolving continually even after the projects delivered.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, So I mean I don't think you can really
get a successful without this code design, without this idea
of views sort of facilitator understanding, this idea, this whole
idea of community. I don't think you can really get
a successful piece of placemaking without that, without that community
(10:13):
collaborative approach.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Especially being someone from somewhere else, you know, like it
was easy for me because I've lived in Wanganui for
so long and even me like I probably not even
lockdown as a local, but you know, like you have
to go into these spaces, especially if you've got somewhere
else with questions at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know, there's.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
The key starting point is understanding and allowing the community
to speak for themselves and finding what makes them them
at the front and understanding.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
The context of the projects.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So you know, I've had I've had moments, uncomfortable moments
where I didn't know about a context raised its head
being like a difficult water cross throughout the delivery. And
that's where I think you've got to really invest the
time upfront and go slowly and learn about the people
who are really active in that community, they contribute to
(11:14):
that community, what historic stories there are, what existing organizations
there are contributing because they have so much amazing knowledge
about how the system already works in that community, how
the relationships work, and if your bricks and mortar project
doesn't speak to that, you can see very clearly a
(11:37):
disconnect and you can also see missed opportunities because I
think urban design projects require.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
That programming over the top where the meaning.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Is actually created by the connections, the human connections and
the natural connections. And if you don't know about that
stuff as you're managing this process, then there's so much
potential misted. And it's it's difficult to encourage people that
(12:06):
maybe are used to a progress timeline where it's anchored
to like let's get it done, to get them to
slow down and really take all of that in at
the beginning, and it's but it's a real privilege to
be able to do that when you manage to get
that kind of space and to be honest, there there's
(12:29):
a place for that as well. You know, there's a
place for having a timeline and a budget and like
we need to deliver this by now, because if it's
all just visioning, then where's the outcome? You know, So
there's a balancing act the air, and it's knowing when
it's right to slow down and when it's right to
speed up.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But slowing down to speed up.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, and I agree.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You know, we want we're doing this because we want
to see things, actually good things activating a space. To
actually get to that point, you need all of this understanding,
and I guess from your experience it's wonderful that you've
got this experience, this unique experience, but also a sort
(13:13):
of philosophical approach to understand what this approach, what is
required and this kind of work in terms around people
in environment you're slowing down to speed up. I totally
get that, because it can really get lost in translation
if you're not continually referring back into everybody's idea of
(13:36):
the story. And then people then do take on roll,
sometimes sort of intuitively, and it works for them, you know,
the different members of the whole sort of code design team.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It brings out skill sets when they're ideating. You know
they've got specific areas of knowledge and understanding, and if
you really observe it in that you can see how
they can contribute so that the life of the project
isn't the delivery, it's the continuation of activity around it,
so exactly. You know, one of a good example is
the Drews Avenue project, And want to know that you
(14:11):
and I met next to the marble run that we
put in, yes and a lot of brilliant night the
night before Sergeant opened it.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
That whole area was just absolutely buzzing that night.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, So a lot of the quirky features in that
street that make it really unique come from that co
design process and that treasure hunting. It just would never
have happened in the way that it did without having
those community conversations up front. So a good example of
(14:45):
this is and this is where, like to be clear,
I'm not actually a designer. I have a design thinking,
but I wasn't the architect that designed the core part
of that project. But I worked along side him very
very closely because I find that the relationship between the
designer and the community can sometimes get disconnected, and so
(15:09):
I sit between that and I embed some design thinking
into it that's informed by the community. So that's kind
of my special kind of that's where I see myself sitting.
And so when I ran the co design process, I
kind of started it off with you know, clearly the parameters,
so we're managing the expectations. Everything in that project had
(15:30):
to be semi permanent, so there was restrictions on that.
We had specific budget boundaries, et cetera. And then when
I opened it up to like, you know, what is
the identity of this place and what are the stories
underneath this place and what is missing on in this
public realm that happens inside the buildings and what's your
(15:50):
experience of this place? And we had such a cool
group of people that were just adding in their little
bits and pieces, and I kind of knew them because
this was kind of my little area of town that
I always frequented. It's kind of the creative hub and
the musical area, but it wasn't really didn't really communicate
that outside the buildings. And what came out of those
(16:11):
discussions was some key themes and they very much informed
what the design looked like. And those things were creative
creativity and artwork, local artwork, history because fun and I
was rich with all sorts of history. The Ewie context
and the connection to the river, which is where Drewsvenue
(16:36):
kind of sits this between the river and which is
where Sergeant Gallery is. We had recycling and reuse come
up as a theme. We had DIY renegade come up
as a theme because these there was like you know,
always these kind of like underground gigs and stuff going
(16:56):
on in the area that we're flying under the radar,
but we're awesome.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
We had.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Connection came up, like creating a key.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
One was actually creating a community living room because there
was a key cafe that has a very long table
inside it, and I know this is something that's starting
to happen all over the place now and it's all
about getting groups of people to sit.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Next to each other and strike up conversations.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And I just always say to people, if you moved
to I'm going to just go to article and everyone
will introduce themselves, which.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is so great. So people wanted that to come.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Out of the buildings and be out on the streets
so that there was more connection to the wider community
because it was very much an arts hub, but for
a healthy community and foster positive you know, for a
healthy community to be established at needs diversity, and I
think encouraging the wider community engage in that area has
(18:01):
been amazing. And then also greenery came out as a
really important piece of the project. The project itself was
kind of informed by climate change and trying to get
people to think more about alternative moments of transport, and
I think community connection and nature connection is part of that.
So what came out of those things was, you know,
(18:24):
we put in a mystery history phone, which is something
that actually Anthony Tonnan once told me it was a
good idea of celebrating local history. He's a musician in
New Zealand. It's a few listeners might know him know him,
but he was. He kind of told me this years
(18:46):
ago when he first moved here, and I was like,
that's such a good idea.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So we got a.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Local friend of ours who's a programmer to program this
phone up, and then another friend to record some stories
that were more of the quirky, unusual stories from the street.
And now you can kind of go along and pick
up this fine and push a button and it will
tell you this funny story with music in the background,
and new way to consume history because I'm one of
(19:11):
those people that will just look at every single plaque
every time I go anywhere and read everything, much to
my partner's frustration. But you know, that came out of
visioning that alongside these creative, quirky people that exists.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Then change isn't an ongoing kind of recording or is it?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Sort of the idea was to change it, but I'm
not the counsel anymore, so I can't drive it, but
I mean eventually it could. It's very easy programs and
new recordings into it. The other one that I like
to bring up that came out of engagement is working
alongside EWI with this project. We work with to see
(19:50):
their commitor, who is a artist who teaches at U cult.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
She's also an arts.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Advisor through to football, which is one about EWE to counsel.
And we also engaged with another group that comes in
that comes in regularly to counsel, and I just continually
showed them the plans and how they were evolving, and
they formed a lot of it, and they were really
keen to see water feature. That kind of got the
(20:18):
Tanadik gave them something to do some a play feature,
and they wanted it to kind of connected with the
theme of the river and you know these parameters around there,
and so it's easy to say, no, that's not possible.
This has to be semi permanent we don't have the
budget for water infrastructure, blah blah blah. But you know,
(20:39):
if you take that little treasure of an idea and
try and fit it with the parameters that you're dealing with,
then you can still deliver something that's totally informed by
their ideation. And so I kind of went away and
thought about how we could do this. And there was
a desire from our glass artist, Katie Brown, who sits
(21:00):
She has a glass gallery right next to where this
feature that came out of this idea is. She wanted
a bubble machine. This is a real reflection of waging
with people. And we kind of evolved this idea into
a marble run which sits It's about five meters long,
It sits in a car park and it uses the
(21:22):
slope of the hill to get the marbles running down
mountains and river tributaries that turn into one river. And
there's a gumball machine next to it where kids can
grab the their marble from the gumball machine and have
races on this marble run. And we developed this idea
(21:43):
with a couple of There was a local guy who
worked for Wetter Workshop and then he connected me into
this amazing woman and I always forget her name, but
everyone should look her up if you google Weta Workshop
and concrete. She developed this concrete product that gets mold
it over the top of sculpted tinfoil and it's colored.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And she kind of.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Stayed in my sleeepout for a couple of weeks while
she built the top of this, and she tested it
and tested and tested it. Made sure that you didn't
know who won, who.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Was going to win. You couldn't choose the right river
to win.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So we turned the idea that originated with EWI and
into this and presented it to them and they were
really stoked on their idea being able to be put
into the street for the Tamaduki to play with. And
what I found is the outcome is actually a lot
of older people playing with it because Katie Brown is
(22:40):
such a good ambassador for it.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
She gets her customers.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
To go out there and have a marble race and
it's great.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It's great watching it's.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Really good watching the kids play, for sure, and Katie
Brown is a really good advocate for the street game.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yes, yeah, and everybody is.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, but also, like I love how you say that
it's the linkway between the river and the arts on
the hill. Like I was walking back from a library
one lunch ower and just wandering down from that hill
and then you just see these buildings like this goes
past the Pink Music Musicians Club, and then the other
little buildings start to come into view, and it's just
an amazing, you know, like sequence of buildings all linking
(23:25):
as a sort of like pathway. And actually took several
pictures and sent them to my brother in England. He said, oh,
it looks like New Orleans. Yeah, from an English that
just was so colorful.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And a lot of those buildings were like had smashed
windows and graffiti all over them prior to this project,
and I already knew that we had a local councilor
working on He thankfully purchased them and it was working
on upgrading them during the projects.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So there was a good little bit of base knowledge.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Drawing room, someone said to me that drawing the architect
from she's a long some of those designs.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I thought she did the designs. Yes, she did some of.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Those blocks of shops, she did the renaults.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I'm she did. I'm pretty sure she did all three.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
She had all three buildings so that sorry, what is
her name, I've forgotten eleanor McDill. Eleanor McDill. Yeah, actually
someone said she did those and it's really pretty.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So being able to like knowing that that was on
the cards really helped contextualize that this was the right
area to be doing this project and knowing the community
already gathered, but it wasn't well, it wasn't visually there
to the outside community. So you know, the strategy comes
(24:49):
in over over that local knowledge, which kind of a
game brings out the importance of learning about context and
learning about those people before planning anything.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I remember when I first my first job in this
was when I graduated working at aug Con Regional Council,
and the line was nobody knows a place better than
those who live in it, and we always had to
keep referring to that was that was way back like
in the eighties, that line and having to refer and
that it was like, how you have managed your briefs
(25:22):
and approaches and slowing down to speed up. You have
that idea from the start, then the design and the
delivery at the end is really effective and activating because
it's come through that process.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It has a different energy about it, Yeah, because it
feels like a shared effort, and if the community is
involved along the way that it starts ideas and then for.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
How to activate that space, you know, and it becomes
a living thing.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
And even when it's completed, because if you had that process,
it's open ended, even it's sort of so called completion,
and then it actually if you're doing this work with
that sort of grounded approach, then business is coming behind
once the thing has happened, and there it creates that
decision making space where people can actually make decisions about
(26:12):
what they want to because they and that becomes an
economic sort of powerhouse because businesses get started, things get
done and it's not on going sort of it's an
economic revitalization process.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, exactly. I think you hit the nail on the
head right there. I think people quite often think about
projects as being this concrete, static thing that's delivered at
the end of a process.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
But actually, if you're really.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Thinking about potential, the project itself should be part of
a process that extends off into the future. And if
you approach it in the right way, I think methodology matters.
So there's kind of an old view where you know,
you deliver a thing and then you've done it and
it's there and it doesn't really matter how how you
(27:03):
got there, and you can get wrapped up and playing
games in that and that actually whittles away, in a
funny way, the potential of that the outcomes the snowball. Yeah,
and I think approaching it, like I've learned this so
much through these projects, and I've made mistakes. I have
to say that, like, this is hard work to do,
(27:25):
and there's a lot of pressure on you, and and
I think you just really have to learn how to
really hold your integrity in those moments and make sure
that you're approaching it with the right kind of spirit.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I don't think it can really happen without the methodology,
without the understanding of what this work is about the
multi headed nature of the client. It's not like you
can just design something as you're saying, and that's it,
and it's meeting that particular need. Well, it is a
meeting in need, but it's it's understanding that that the
(28:06):
curious nature of all of the people who are involved,
but still actually being so strong with why you're doing it,
that the product the delivery, say, is really sort of
super cool because it's comes through that slow, slow down
to speed up process.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, and I think that in that process there's like
inevitable moments of discomfort and compromise and not knowing whether
the outcome is going to be good. Like this is
something that I always like to say in councils. You know,
everybody feels vulnerable in these projects, like there's something it's
there's nothing there right now. Putting something in is risky
(28:46):
by nature. So helping people come on that journey get
comfortable with that discomfort, like it's inevitable. It's not because
you don't know what you're doing. It's just because you
haven't done it yet.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
But the nature of design is the conflict intention is
part of the design process.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, And it's kind of learning how to deal with
those conflicts intention in a way that doesn't exasperate them
but helps build understanding.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
And that work is you have to have space to
do that work.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And that's why I think my consultancy works better for
me personally, because you're holding a lot of energy and
responsibility and having a working full time insider council is
overwhelming and it's hard to have the emotional capacity to
do that. So I mean, that's what I think I
(29:47):
help with is being able to go away and really
think deeply and have the space to think deeply and
come and bring that to the table and help those
people come on that journey. And like you know, traditional
project management has such amazing strengths in it for delivery
and has to be valued alongside this. It's a coming
(30:09):
together of thinking and it's like bos string a foundation
where we can have those difficult conversations but have an
aligned division of where we're going and what our goals are,
you know. And that's another part of that slowing down
to speed up is really understanding the foundational.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Where everyone's coming from. You know, what is the ground?
Speaker 4 (30:34):
You know?
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, thanks so much for that. How you're sort of
aligning understanding that, you know, the project management is a
whole sort of industry in itself, but explaining how, how,
how or how it is working with counsel and with community.
And that's slowing down and allowing allowing decision making with us,
(31:01):
because that is a decision making. Because I was at
a council meeting earlier last year in Capity and we
have a brilliant member of council, a young woman called
Sophie Hanford and she was the chair of the Finance
Strategic Committee or something. I can imagine all the demands
and finance. We've got to make decisions, we've got to
have stuff done, we've got to deliver. And she was
(31:23):
sitting there and was able to run a board meeting
with this level of uncertainty. There was no sense of
Russian urgency. So everybody was able to slow down and
had confidence to say what they had to say around
the table because because she had this kind of ability
to just handle uncertainty as a chair, and things really
(31:45):
did come out well.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I think, Yeah, so interesting you bring up Sophie because
she's kind of come into my realm a couple of
times recently. I met her father recently, who's a fantastic
Borest Street expert. I don't know if that's as late,
but he has some really integrated thinking going on, and
he talked to me about her and she sounds amazing,
So I'd love to meet her. But yeah, as you
(32:11):
were just saying that, I was kind of thinking, you know,
potential doesn't exist without uncertainty, and we can approach things
like looking at what is here now and let that
inform things of what's what the potential of the future is,
or we can go what is here now and what
(32:31):
could it be rather than what should it be? And
that has that again that discomfort in it where you
don't know if it will be that, but like it
definitely won't be that if you can't see the potential.
You know, if you limit potential, it won't it's not
going to reach that that full potential that it could have.
(32:52):
So it's it's like helping people remove their fears in
the first instance and let them be free just completely
idea and then bringing that back into what the parameters are,
what what's possible now without limiting what it could be
in the future. And I find myself, I find it
(33:14):
really easy to sit in that space and potentially and
I sometimes have to bring that back and and sometimes
those those like more traditional ways of thinking help me
bring that back. Yeah, and instead of seeing that as
a conflict, seeing it how they support as how they
support each other.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah. I think I think what can help is like
what you're saying about the story and looking at the
story and even though you're thinking about something that what
the potential is I think if you can slow down
and say, in some way, look at what is here.
I think I think with master plans and counsel and
the you know, the procurement process of bringing an architects
(34:00):
is that you do get peed into this master plant
idea and everybody is lost in the process of getting
that result. Whereas if we can just be humble to
what is here, learning to love the ugly, learning to
see all the little treasure hunts that you're talking about,
so that everybody then can identify with that. Whereas I
think we're told, oh, this is rubbish or this is awful,
(34:21):
let's redesign everything, and they can only then rely on
the so called experts, which brings in a procurement process
and all of the rules and regulations around that, and
the actual place is become sort of lost in that
whole process. But if you stop and have that story
and narrative and everybody's saying, hey, what is really happening
with that riverend, what is really the color of the river,
(34:43):
And how is the river in context with those hills
on the other side, and how do the hills on
each side speak to each other? People have native intelligence
no better where they come from, and when they can
talk about those things, they start to get a sense
of confidence in themselves and then they can be part
of the conversation.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, it's anchored to something quite concrete when you think
about it like that, Actually it sounds aerie, very but
it's actually the ground is very concrete, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I because I'm an architect, so I always talk with
site and I guess that's I'm going into architect's rolem
and maybe that's just what we well.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I mean, the other thing that just kind of came
up for me when you were talking about engaging experts
and then having the council staff sitting.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Separately from the experts.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I've kind of experienced this recently and it was a
real good learning curve for me. And really the experts
role should be evolving those staff so that they can
continue the capability growing of that council and the transformation
of the way they approach things. So bringing them on
(35:49):
that journal is like experiencing this process. They will have
skill sets that are super valuable, and it's just trying
to find how to align the motivations and this position
they're in with project and build that as part of
the process. It's easy for an expert to come in
and be like, oh, I have to prove that I'm
(36:10):
an expert.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Yeah, I've been guilty of this. Yeah, I need them
to know that they need me, you know. And sometimes
that just like overwrites the.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Value you're trying to create, you know. And and when
you say humbleness and even that's totally key. But it's
also like a balancing act, isn't that because you do
need to be seen as an expert on some levels
so that you're heard in a certain way, and it's
just trying to hold both of those things at the
same time.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
So do you think there are I mean, you're obviously
established or developing a role in this and understanding the
reasons and the benefit from it and you enjoy it.
Are there I mean an urban design field that is
this kind of thing happening, Like the experts are becoming
able to considering that they have to sort of enable
within councils or is it quite I'm really good question.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I don't know if that's I mean, you're very limited
by the project brief, you know, like you're genuinely brought
on and you have to sign a contract and you
don't have the freedom for that. It's not in the scope.
There's the possibility of having that discussion and bringing it
into the scope. But I think like even in doing
the work, you have opportunities where that can happen. You know, inevitably,
(37:25):
you're working alongside council staff to deliver something, and you're
doing that, you have this opportunity to think about that.
And I think it's becoming a little bit more. I mean,
maybe I'm taking I'm going a step further. I'm not sure,
but there's a lot of regenerative practice building within these
kind of disciplines, and like I've watched it over the years,
(37:47):
even with the way in which funding was handed out
for specific projects through the previous government, there was requirements
of building a co design process and they actually providing
guidance on how to do that. So I learned a
lot of the skill set I have through that process
and then have kind of taken it a bit further
(38:08):
engaging in my own kind of courses. So I think
inevitably these larger firms have got some of that thinking
going on. For sure, I can see it becoming something
that becomes quite normal, especially if we're able to build
that relationality to the systems that are already established and
help them kind of grow. It's like it's a funny
(38:30):
kind of balancing act of breaking apart the system but
also bringing the best fits.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
But ultimately it saves money because solutions process becomes more fluid,
so you're saving everybody's time and money, and then you're
getting more involvement by people who are participating, just room
for them to make effective decisions.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
You're limiting streets as well stuff if you pieces together
and have those well established roles right at the beginning,
and you have people from the local community saying what
they want and what they need. But you also like
in that you have to build a sense of compromise
because no one's going to get what they want completely
and there will.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Be uncomfortable moments.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
There's some people that I kind of I hate to
get to this point, but sometimes there's unconvincibles in these projects,
and you can tend to focus on them and expend
quite a lot of energy on that. So there's it's
another piece of reflection that you have to do throughout
and be like, hope are they are they shaping this
too much as a single voice or a single group,
(39:36):
and learning when when to try and you know, simplify
that a little bit, and trying to be restorative in
those relationships where you're trying to just build understanding and say,
you know, like, inevitably we have to put something on
the grounds, there's a project, and you know all these
other people are saying this.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
You know this is the goal.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Sure you can understand that context, and you know if
that doesn't work, but I just kind of keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Wow, that's part of the skill in the work that
you're doing. It's inevitable, part of the skills in a wind.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
It's something that can keep you up at night. I
have experience of that happening to me, and I guess
that's that reframing of that discomfort being potent learning because
you know, as I said, I've made mistakes in those
situations before in the past.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
So learning, I think that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Like people, it's so easy culturally to throw people under
the bus to keep yourself safe, and I don't think
people realize.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
How much damage that does.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
And I think we have to grow out of that
because you end up not speaking the same language when
you're in that space, you're trying to protect yourself.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
You're not really being authentic or acting with integrity.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So because do you know, the thing that I find
really profounder is that there's all these ideas around professional
development and capability and skill sets, but actually there's no
line between professional development and personal development. I think you
clearly you have to take on a professional role in projects,
(41:18):
but it's contributing to who you are those positions and
if you approach it like that, it's interesting how much
you can gain personally.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
I think when you've got something a project that you're
really really committed to complicely in design world, it's the
negatives that you can really focus on, you know, the
things that go wrong or the things that annoy you.
They can it's really good that you say, just try
not to let those take up too much of your time.
But it's the things that you think are going to
go wrong that you can become very focused on, and
(41:50):
we're more aware of them. The things that go right.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
We I mean, that's a great thing to research if
anyone's feeling like they're grappling with this negativity bias is
profound in human psychology.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
And it's not only across the project team, it's across
the community.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
So you know, when you're engaging with the community bringing
these up, these these issues up and saying, look, you're
going to have a brain that wants to focus on
what possibly could go wrong. Yes, it's going to do
that because that's what it does, Like.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
We're perfectionate. Stn't we out of survival mode exactly?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And it's people on different parts of that journey of
learning that, and these engagements are actually opportunities to help
that that then travel along that pathway a little bit further,
you know, and it's building that awareness of like if
I'm catastrophizing, I need to look into the reality of that.
(42:52):
Is that something that my brain's just telling me. But
you know, part of that is like there's some value
in it as well, because it's helping you identify risks
that could be could be real risks, you know, and
not just writing it off, but going what is the
reality in this? What's the nugget in here that I
need to be paying attention to without limiting the potential
(43:14):
of this project because I'm getting sucked into that kind
of potential fear based thinking. And yeah, and it's the
whole thing, balancing act across every part of it. Positive
in it, I'm not negative, but like you know, there's
different sides of every concept that are helpful or not helpful,
(43:36):
and it's learning how to identify that.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
And this might sound a little bit every theory as well,
but I think in the DNA of a project like that,
if you've gone through that process, I think it comes
through in the project. And I think a little sort
of a vibe with an even the delivered thing, where
there's a sense of spaces that people feel, oh, you know,
I can be a bit of a geek here, or
I can be a bit wrong, but you know I
can just sit with that and see what's going to
(44:00):
have to see what I'm going to learn from it
in the actual final outcome, you know, these public spaces
that aren't all perfect, and it enables people to feel
like at home enough to sort of see, I don't know,
that's me going down my airy fairy trap.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
That's that's I mean, listen to me.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I think I think the answer to that is like
taking an experimental approach to it. I know that there's
like everyone cares about the outcome. They totally care about
the outcome, and it's hard to let go of wanting
to control what the outcome is. But it's loose helping
people loosen that into like this is an experiment. If
(44:42):
parts of it don't work, that's not the end of
the world. And actually, if you hold it like that,
they're more likely to work because you're you'll take calculated
risks and you will look for more unique solutions and
it will have a point.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
You can learn on the go. You can change things
on the go as well. Yeah, problems come even better solutions.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
And that's where I think agile approaches is really important.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
And I know some people find it really frustrating when
they're really in a traditional project manager role. They want
a decision to be done and made, But actually new
things can bubble up with new potential at any moment
in a project.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
And you need to be able to grab those.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Even when you've already like you know, confirmed a contract
with an engineer who's building something. You can always ring
them and say have you started yet, And it might
annoy them for a minute, but if it's informed by
a really really good reason and it's really meaningful to
the project, it's easy to say Look, I know this
is super frustrating for you. You're probably not ready to like
(45:44):
get going on this, but we've had this really valuable
insight and we want to change this. Can you wait
two days for us to send an updated design? You know,
if you've got a project manager willing to look at
those opportunities for what they are and the potential of
them bringing out additional value and having the patience to
go and make that call, it can be a real
(46:07):
game changer. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
And I think that in my experience, that sort of
actually makes the team stronger because you've evolved that person
in a deep problem and they're involved in solving it,
and then they get they get the project even more,
and so everybody becomes much more committed around the project
because they're part of that ongoing design process. That's from
my experience, oh totally.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
And I think Freuds Avenue is a great example of
that because we had local artists actually building parts of
the project, and then I kind of established relationships with
the engineers that created the.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Structures and the lighting.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
The lighting was like recycled glass insulators from power lines
that I have coverage, got them to build that, and
I think they really enjoyed working on something unusual, and
we ended up having this celebration to open the project,
and it's called Lights on Bikes, which is basically our
whole community dresses up their bikes with lights and it
(47:06):
was a parade and it was almost amazing that, to
be honest, I was so stoked on it. It's kind
of the final celebration after this really stressful year of delivery,
and we had a lot of the contractors that were
involved came down to Through's Avenue and bought their kids
and established this new community, new additional part of Wanganui's
(47:28):
wider community coming and interacting with the state. And it's
established it right at the delivery point of the project.
So there's an example of where the outcome and the
methodology snowballed into a more integrated community, which is super powerful.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Super powerful, and I think that's where, you know, apart
from the whole design ethos, that's where the economic outcome
has become because it spins off so much economic activity
of all of these trades, people being able to talk
together and get more experience in certain things, and then
outside of that to get the whole consumer things sort
(48:05):
of coming on as another layer.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
So I think that's you know, I like it.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I like how it removes the consumer thing, especially when
you're working with local contractors. It creates a job that's
not about the bottom dollar fity necessarily, and they're.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Really proud of it.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
And I feel really privileged to be working in a
position where fairly economics comes.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Into it with fees and things like that.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
But that ultimate goal of what I work on is
not the economic benefit. I mean, it does have those
offshoots massively, like it.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Does have it massively because you're coming from a community space, yes,
but then people get ownership and then and then, because
I always have to relate it back to why are
we doing this spending this money in this particular place.
But if you've got real community identity about a place
and visitors come to experience that local identity and they
feel privileged to experience something that is uniquely Wanganui or
(49:05):
capity or something like that, that's destination experience. Sorry these
are all economic terms, but means something because people all
over the place that they're getting, you know, a really
good experience.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
I think for some people it's hard for them to
draw the connection between intrinsic community value and economic value,
and it's hard to record the data around that, which
is one of the symptoms of that disconnection, but I
have some. I mean, we asked the businesses around here
(49:37):
for their comparison of retail intake from the year before
the project and the year after, and it had grown
thirty percent. And we recorded the occupancy of the street
and the form of such plus pedestrians, and that grew
massively as well, which kind of trains into spending because
(50:01):
they're walking past retail instead of driving past retail.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
And other people both feel so so at home in
the place, they think I'll start up a business head.
It gives them ideas and that's more economics.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
And then they want to be part of the community
like that, like your example, in the sense of contributing
to it. And then the other thing that kind of
came out of the project which I wanted to record
my conversations around this was I got funding for the
following round of threats for people for another street before
I left council, and I was interviewing some project managers
(50:36):
about supporting me in that project because I found the
previous ones so overwhelming, and I interviewed four different people
who had moved to Longanoi because they had visited Drue's Avenue.
And I was just like, can I record you saying
that and then feed that up the chain, because that's
(50:58):
just a really concrete example of you know, we had
a community here that in two thousand and eight when
I first moved here, and economists talked about Wang and
we disappearing off the map because we had a declining population,
we had limited employment opportunities, and we just inevitably weren't
going to exist.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
And there was a real pushback on that. We were
labeled zombie town, and our local community really didn't like
that vision for their town. But also we're a little
bit like battered by it.
Speaker 4 (51:32):
And you know, now we're in this position where these
locally created projects have built the manna and the pride that's.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Transformed Wang and into striving community place. It could still
do with more opportunities for employment, but I think it's
grounded in values here because we still attract open minded
people here and we're kind of in this nice, nicephase
right now where it feels optimistic and creative but also
(52:07):
very connected, and I don't want it to get any
I kind.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Of don't want it to get any better, go further
than that. I think we don't want gentrification.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
Anyone listening to start move here.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
You don't move level, do it in your own place.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Do it, do it in your own in your own place.
I'm happy to help do it in your own place.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
You create so many spaces that can be can have
the narrative kind of extended around them in terms of
whatever form built, form, place making. You know, so many
things that can happen in small corners of the planet
that that that are all asking to be reinterpreted through this.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Kind of process, and you can see it happening.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
To be honest, it's not It's not only happening in
a There's like there's little little potent spots where this
kind of community are into thinking is happening, and collaboration
is happening, and people are doing off their own bat
bats and contributing.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
And there's you know these people that are.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You've got the pragmatic experience of working with councils through
all of that, which is the vital ingredient as well
in terms of yeah that humility.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah yeah, but I just want to like kind of
many people that are sitting in their communities that are
really contributing. Like what I notice going into these places
is these people that have been there for decades, that
are part of organizations that just volunteer and they hold
it down, you know, like they hold like I can
(53:45):
see some of that kind of unraveling through Lions Clubs,
you know, getting this membership and stuff.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
But there's some that are just really solid and they've been.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Contributing for years and years, and they would have seen
the changes that've been.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Able to contribute to and.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
And I mean that raises again the importance of getting
to know a community. There's people sitting in those communities
already that have done transformational things and they may not
have done it in the same way someone with my
kind of experience of background, but it would have been
just as potent the outcomes. You know, there's groups like Lions,
(54:22):
Lions Clubs and stuff kind of blow my mind with
their generosity. And we need more of that type of
infrastructure in communities. And the difficult thing is people are
generally trying to survive. They're a bit occupied by that,
and we've also got a little bit of a distraction
problem going on in society as well. So I just
(54:44):
encourage anyone listening to maybe, if you're in a position
of stability and ableness, maybe reach out and get involved
with your community locally, even just in a small way,
and see what that does to you. It makes you
(55:05):
feel more human, Definitely makes you feel more human.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
Definitely makes you feel more human. Regenerative practice. When you
are we talking, this is what regenerative means. Regeneration? Is
this what it means? Regenerative practice?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Yes, sir, it's kind of a bit abstrict, but I
think you're hearing it through this conversation. Is thinking about
not thinking about things in isolation and thinking about.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
The longevity of whatever your action is.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
And it's kind of thinking about the interrelated systems that
we all live and work in. We kind of put
labels on them being separate, but they've got inevitable overlaps
across them. It's very hard to sum up because it's
a complex kind of system of thinking about it, and
it incorporates multiple different systems and makes it kind of
(55:54):
encourages you to think about how our separate systems and
to relate and affect each other so that we can
uplift all of them for our work and for our action.
It's an incredible kind of philosophy and kind of appeals
to me because I did a philosophy degree and it.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Helps me figure out the most regenerative way.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Of being in a project so that those potentials can
be held and can be collaborated on.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
After all of the work that you've done on the
realto on the street, on the ground, you've had this
luxury and pleasure of doing a course which is summarizing
all the work you've done pretty much.
Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah, It's kind of like a friend of mine, Emma,
who helped me with the project massively, so she delivered
part of Jerry's avenue with me. She was working two
days a week alongside me. She watched me work in
this project and said, you naturally think regeneratively that you
should go and do this course because it will expand
(56:56):
that for you. And I was like, okay, just logged
and applied straight away and started doing it. And it
just was like throwing stuff at me that I kind
of already knew, but it solidified to me that it
was valid. Yeah, because I naturally wanted to do it,
but I kind of questioned myself, going, well, you don't
(57:19):
know what you're doing you know, and this's course kind
of confirmed to me that I was on the right
track and then expanded and gave me tools of how
to embed it even more into.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
What I do. So it was kind of serendipity.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
That I enrolled in that course, and I now have
quite a few books that are written by different people
in that kind of school of thinking, and.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
I got to be careful not to let.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
It become an ideology that I'm pushing too much, because
people are in different places and you're to respect the
day diversity that sits in teams and in communities. But
for me, it's a really good grounding tool set to have.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
Ian. I think with your years of experience and projects
that have actually happened through this valued curd of value
based process, I think I think more education is not
going to sort of do that at all. I think
you've got the balance right. It's wonderful. Anything else you'd
like to say to wrap up, I just love this conversation.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
It's such a nice way to.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Get to know someone because we've only talked for like
five minutes before, and I think you asked some great
questions and I'd love to understand more about what you're
doing at some point, So I would.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Love to talk about what we do with what we're
in the most process of doing, because you could, really, really,
You've given me lots of help already in this last
down O great awesome, Yeah, local architecture now or with
Ellen Young, the magnificent management director of Paper Road, Conecting
community and place here on Wanganui.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
Thank you, Ellen, Thank you so much for having me.
This program was made with assistance from New Zealand I
for radio broadcast as really access to me Robert and
z website. Thank you New Zealand on air.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is bothom Rabi here on Local Architecture now with
Ellen Young.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hi am hello, how are you wonderful?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And Ellen is managing director of your own company called
Paper Road, connecting community and Place and you began it
all here in Fanganui.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I've been in Wanganui for sixteen years. I moved
to Castle Clock which is the coastal area of Wanganui,
when my daughter was three months old. Got involved with
the community there through just volunteer efforts and joined Progress
Castle Clock, which is the charitable trust that kind of
is the umbrella organization for different efforts from the community,
(00:58):
and ended up running a consultation process as a volunteer
alongside my ex partner with the council to create a
vision for that suburb and that led me after the
delivery of parts of that vision being a bit of
a thriving little hub out in Castle Cliff, which was
(01:20):
such a beautiful experience to be part of, I jumped
on board to be a project manager at the council
to do some regeneration work in the town center and
I led the town Center regeneration project as a team
of one.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Was this after Castle Cliff.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
This was after Castle Cliff, So the strategy was adopted
in twenty sixteen, but kind of sat there for a
couple of years without having anyone to really instigate it.
And I jumped on board after that in two thousand
and end of two thousand and eighteen, I feel like
(02:01):
to deliver that and it was a really broad document
that had a lot of ideas in it, so trying
to prioritize what to bite off and what not to
bite off with quite a small budget was quite hard,
and I kind of I learned on the job. I
guess my practice, which I think is one of my strengths,
is not really having a traditional project management background, but
(02:26):
really having the heart for community projects and competter community
into them. So I'm grateful for that experience. It was
such a steep learning curve jumping into the council machine
for five years and stressful but super rewarding and built
(02:47):
a skill set that enabled me to take the leap
and jump out of council. And I now kind of
am working across a variety of different types of projects,
but predominantly helping counsels guide their vision making processes and
then a little bit of implementation too, because I think
the way you approach implementation alongside the community matters, and
(03:09):
you can a bed so much more value if you're
including them in that process and finding the skill sets
and the treasure from that community and really letting that
come out through the project. So it's been a cool journey.
I feel so privileged to be sitting in this space,
and I'm just really grateful for all of the experiences
(03:31):
and opportunities that I've cared up to now.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. So you're actually really enjoying
the work and you've got a harp for it and
you understand it from a community base.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, I mean I have moments of frustration with counsels
because they're pretty tight structures with very clearly defined categories
and boxes that you have to work within.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
But I keep having learning.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Experiences, so like it's easy to butt up against those systems,
and I've kind of had this real realization that you
need to kind of gently align with parts of them
to bring out the potential of everybody working together. So
there's some risk taking in that and breaking apart of things,
(04:17):
but there's also like bringing everyone on that journey so
that everyone can still you know, be it can be
one effort in building a project. So yeah, it's nice
to come into a council with a bit of a
fresh perspective and a bit of renewed energy because people
that sit in those positions are generally they generally.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You don't see it, but they're they're answering to whole communities,
so they can get.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Bogged down very easily. And when you're in.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
That position of kind of overwhelming and and trying to
trying to please everybody, you can't please everybody, and that
builds a kind of sense of frustration. So acknowledging the
space that they're working in and then trying to help
build that sense of potential alongside them and re energize people.
(05:13):
And I mean it depends where the council is that
on their journey, but generally they get me involved to
try and push things.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Along a little bit.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So there's a little bit of an interpersonal element to
it to help bring that potential of that community out.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, I mean that you're actually in a position where
you can recognize the multi headed nature of the urban
design brief like the client and urban design is a
multi headed in the Europe the point where you can
actually engage with council from which is really you know, dynamic,
(05:54):
because that is where you can be the mediator between
like the community and council and also the idea with
a vision of being to implement these things.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yes, yeah, so's there's all this kind of I guess
some would look at it as ideology, ideology, but to
me it's like a it's a collaborative approach and it
can seem fluffy at the beginning, but I describe it
as slowing down to speed up. I've been involved in
(06:24):
so many projects where there's some isolated visioning going on
within the project team and they create a designer or
a plan separate from the community, and then down the
track you realize there's all these complications about the design
because you haven't included them and you don't understand the
existing behavior around where the public spaces. So there's there's
(06:49):
kind of these separations between consultation, which is what do
you think we've already created it kind of engagement, and
then there's engagement which is kind of a step for
ther than consultation, which is like asking them at the
start what their idea is and then embedding that a
little bit into it, and then kind of going this
(07:11):
is the plan. And then there's co design, which is
bringing them onboard right at the beginning, talking to them
about the parameters, talking to them about the budgets, talking
to them about the goals of the project, and then
helping shape what those goals are. Clearly there's got to
be existing goals, so there needs to be a container
to hold this in so so it makes sense still,
(07:32):
but you know, the community is able to manage that information,
and then establishing really clear roles for the community versus
council start versus designers so that everyone's expectation around their role.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is clear, and then enabling them to be part.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Of that conversation and development of the design and building
some like fun into it as well, you know, like
what is the identity of this place? What are the
cool stories? What are the hidden little gems? And I
always talk about that part of it as being treasure
hunters all together finding hidden cool stories or that kind
(08:13):
of helped create the vision for whatever the project is
or whatever the places and place is a key word
in that is like establishing weirdness is what the context
of this is historically what the ecological systems are around it.
It sounds disconnected from the actual outcome of a project,
(08:33):
but that can shake the project hugely and then really
impact what the outcomes and the snowball effects of the
project are.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So trying to think of an example, because the sounds
it sounds kind of disconnected from an actually actual delivered project.
But I guess there was an example where we had
some great conversations in Alpham recently.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
About place and that really helped.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I don't know if I can really talk about it
because it's not established yet the roadmap.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
We're in the process of building it.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
But we kind of were trying to overlay projects that
might reinvigorate that town alongside their co design group, which
is made up of local community members, and then kind
of talking to EWI about the stories of this area
being a food basket and the different ecological systems that
inform the abundance that was there and could be brought
(09:34):
about again, and that kind of informed an idea that
would connect those things into the town center, which to
me is really significant because it has this potential of
evolving continually even after the projects delivered.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, So I mean I don't think you can really
get a successful without this code design, without this idea
of views sort of facilitator understanding, this idea, this whole
idea of community. I don't think you can really get
a successful piece of placemaking without that, without that community
(10:13):
collaborative approach.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Especially being someone from somewhere else, you know, like it
was easy for me because I've lived in Wanganui for
so long and even me like I probably not even
lockdown as a local, but you know, like you have
to go into these spaces, especially if you've got somewhere
else with questions at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You know, there's.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
The key starting point is understanding and allowing the community
to speak for themselves and finding what makes them them
at the front and understanding.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
The context of the projects.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So you know, I've had I've had moments, uncomfortable moments
where I didn't know about a context raised its head
being like a difficult water cross throughout the delivery. And
that's where I think you've got to really invest the
time upfront and go slowly and learn about the people
who are really active in that community, they contribute to
(11:14):
that community, what historic stories there are, what existing organizations
there are contributing because they have so much amazing knowledge
about how the system already works in that community, how
the relationships work, and if your bricks and mortar project
doesn't speak to that, you can see very clearly a
(11:37):
disconnect and you can also see missed opportunities because I
think urban design projects require.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
That programming over the top where the meaning.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Is actually created by the connections, the human connections and
the natural connections. And if you don't know about that
stuff as you're managing this process, then there's so much
potential misted. And it's it's difficult to encourage people that
(12:06):
maybe are used to a progress timeline where it's anchored
to like let's get it done, to get them to
slow down and really take all of that in at
the beginning, and it's but it's a real privilege to
be able to do that when you manage to get
that kind of space and to be honest, there there's
(12:29):
a place for that as well. You know, there's a
place for having a timeline and a budget and like
we need to deliver this by now, because if it's
all just visioning, then where's the outcome? You know, So
there's a balancing act the air, and it's knowing when
it's right to slow down and when it's right to
speed up.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But slowing down to speed up.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, and I agree.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You know, we want we're doing this because we want
to see things, actually good things activating a space. To
actually get to that point, you need all of this understanding,
and I guess from your experience it's wonderful that you've
got this experience, this unique experience, but also a sort
(13:13):
of philosophical approach to understand what this approach, what is
required and this kind of work in terms around people
in environment you're slowing down to speed up. I totally
get that, because it can really get lost in translation
if you're not continually referring back into everybody's idea of
(13:36):
the story. And then people then do take on roll,
sometimes sort of intuitively, and it works for them, you know,
the different members of the whole sort of code design team.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It brings out skill sets when they're ideating. You know
they've got specific areas of knowledge and understanding, and if
you really observe it in that you can see how
they can contribute so that the life of the project
isn't the delivery, it's the continuation of activity around it,
so exactly. You know, one of a good example is
the Drews Avenue project, And want to know that you
(14:11):
and I met next to the marble run that we
put in, yes and a lot of brilliant night the
night before Sergeant opened it.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
That whole area was just absolutely buzzing that night.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, So a lot of the quirky features in that
street that make it really unique come from that co
design process and that treasure hunting. It just would never
have happened in the way that it did without having
those community conversations up front. So a good example of
(14:45):
this is and this is where, like to be clear,
I'm not actually a designer. I have a design thinking,
but I wasn't the architect that designed the core part
of that project. But I worked along side him very
very closely because I find that the relationship between the
designer and the community can sometimes get disconnected, and so
(15:09):
I sit between that and I embed some design thinking
into it that's informed by the community. So that's kind
of my special kind of that's where I see myself sitting.
And so when I ran the co design process, I
kind of started it off with you know, clearly the parameters,
so we're managing the expectations. Everything in that project had
(15:30):
to be semi permanent, so there was restrictions on that.
We had specific budget boundaries, et cetera. And then when
I opened it up to like, you know, what is
the identity of this place and what are the stories
underneath this place and what is missing on in this
public realm that happens inside the buildings and what's your
(15:50):
experience of this place? And we had such a cool
group of people that were just adding in their little
bits and pieces, and I kind of knew them because
this was kind of my little area of town that
I always frequented. It's kind of the creative hub and
the musical area, but it wasn't really didn't really communicate
that outside the buildings. And what came out of those
(16:11):
discussions was some key themes and they very much informed
what the design looked like. And those things were creative
creativity and artwork, local artwork, history because fun and I
was rich with all sorts of history. The Ewie context
and the connection to the river, which is where Drewsvenue
(16:36):
kind of sits this between the river and which is
where Sergeant Gallery is. We had recycling and reuse come
up as a theme. We had DIY renegade come up
as a theme because these there was like you know,
always these kind of like underground gigs and stuff going
(16:56):
on in the area that we're flying under the radar,
but we're awesome.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
We had.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Connection came up, like creating a key.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
One was actually creating a community living room because there
was a key cafe that has a very long table
inside it, and I know this is something that's starting
to happen all over the place now and it's all
about getting groups of people to sit.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Next to each other and strike up conversations.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And I just always say to people, if you moved
to I'm going to just go to article and everyone
will introduce themselves, which.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is so great. So people wanted that to come.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Out of the buildings and be out on the streets
so that there was more connection to the wider community
because it was very much an arts hub, but for
a healthy community and foster positive you know, for a
healthy community to be established at needs diversity, and I
think encouraging the wider community engage in that area has
(18:01):
been amazing. And then also greenery came out as a
really important piece of the project. The project itself was
kind of informed by climate change and trying to get
people to think more about alternative moments of transport, and
I think community connection and nature connection is part of that.
So what came out of those things was, you know,
(18:24):
we put in a mystery history phone, which is something
that actually Anthony Tonnan once told me it was a
good idea of celebrating local history. He's a musician in
New Zealand. It's a few listeners might know him know him,
but he was. He kind of told me this years
(18:46):
ago when he first moved here, and I was like,
that's such a good idea.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So we got a.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Local friend of ours who's a programmer to program this
phone up, and then another friend to record some stories
that were more of the quirky, unusual stories from the street.
And now you can kind of go along and pick
up this fine and push a button and it will
tell you this funny story with music in the background,
and new way to consume history because I'm one of
(19:11):
those people that will just look at every single plaque
every time I go anywhere and read everything, much to
my partner's frustration. But you know, that came out of
visioning that alongside these creative, quirky people that exists.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Then change isn't an ongoing kind of recording or is it?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Sort of the idea was to change it, but I'm
not the counsel anymore, so I can't drive it, but
I mean eventually it could. It's very easy programs and
new recordings into it. The other one that I like
to bring up that came out of engagement is working
alongside EWI with this project. We work with to see
(19:50):
their commitor, who is a artist who teaches at U cult.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
She's also an arts.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Advisor through to football, which is one about EWE to counsel.
And we also engaged with another group that comes in
that comes in regularly to counsel, and I just continually
showed them the plans and how they were evolving, and
they formed a lot of it, and they were really
keen to see water feature. That kind of got the
(20:18):
Tanadik gave them something to do some a play feature,
and they wanted it to kind of connected with the
theme of the river and you know these parameters around there,
and so it's easy to say, no, that's not possible.
This has to be semi permanent we don't have the
budget for water infrastructure, blah blah blah. But you know,
(20:39):
if you take that little treasure of an idea and
try and fit it with the parameters that you're dealing with,
then you can still deliver something that's totally informed by
their ideation. And so I kind of went away and
thought about how we could do this. And there was
a desire from our glass artist, Katie Brown, who sits
(21:00):
She has a glass gallery right next to where this
feature that came out of this idea is. She wanted
a bubble machine. This is a real reflection of waging
with people. And we kind of evolved this idea into
a marble run which sits It's about five meters long,
It sits in a car park and it uses the
(21:22):
slope of the hill to get the marbles running down
mountains and river tributaries that turn into one river. And
there's a gumball machine next to it where kids can
grab the their marble from the gumball machine and have
races on this marble run. And we developed this idea
(21:43):
with a couple of There was a local guy who
worked for Wetter Workshop and then he connected me into
this amazing woman and I always forget her name, but
everyone should look her up if you google Weta Workshop
and concrete. She developed this concrete product that gets mold
it over the top of sculpted tinfoil and it's colored.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
And she kind of.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Stayed in my sleeepout for a couple of weeks while
she built the top of this, and she tested it
and tested and tested it. Made sure that you didn't
know who won, who.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Was going to win. You couldn't choose the right river
to win.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So we turned the idea that originated with EWI and
into this and presented it to them and they were
really stoked on their idea being able to be put
into the street for the Tamaduki to play with. And
what I found is the outcome is actually a lot
of older people playing with it because Katie Brown is
(22:40):
such a good ambassador for it.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
She gets her customers.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
To go out there and have a marble race and
it's great.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It's great watching it's.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Really good watching the kids play, for sure, and Katie
Brown is a really good advocate for the street game.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yes, yeah, and everybody is.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, but also, like I love how you say that
it's the linkway between the river and the arts on
the hill. Like I was walking back from a library
one lunch ower and just wandering down from that hill
and then you just see these buildings like this goes
past the Pink Music Musicians Club, and then the other
little buildings start to come into view, and it's just
an amazing, you know, like sequence of buildings all linking
(23:25):
as a sort of like pathway. And actually took several
pictures and sent them to my brother in England. He said, oh,
it looks like New Orleans. Yeah, from an English that
just was so colorful.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And a lot of those buildings were like had smashed
windows and graffiti all over them prior to this project,
and I already knew that we had a local councilor
working on He thankfully purchased them and it was working
on upgrading them during the projects.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So there was a good little bit of base knowledge.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Drawing room, someone said to me that drawing the architect
from she's a long some of those designs.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I thought she did the designs. Yes, she did some of.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Those blocks of shops, she did the renaults.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I'm she did. I'm pretty sure she did all three.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
She had all three buildings so that sorry, what is
her name, I've forgotten eleanor McDill. Eleanor McDill. Yeah, actually
someone said she did those and it's really pretty.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So being able to like knowing that that was on
the cards really helped contextualize that this was the right
area to be doing this project and knowing the community
already gathered, but it wasn't well, it wasn't visually there
to the outside community. So you know, the strategy comes
(24:49):
in over over that local knowledge, which kind of a
game brings out the importance of learning about context and
learning about those people before planning anything.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I remember when I first my first job in this
was when I graduated working at aug Con Regional Council,
and the line was nobody knows a place better than
those who live in it, and we always had to
keep referring to that was that was way back like
in the eighties, that line and having to refer and
that it was like, how you have managed your briefs
(25:22):
and approaches and slowing down to speed up. You have
that idea from the start, then the design and the
delivery at the end is really effective and activating because
it's come through that process.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It has a different energy about it, Yeah, because it
feels like a shared effort, and if the community is
involved along the way that it starts ideas and then for.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
How to activate that space, you know, and it becomes
a living thing.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
And even when it's completed, because if you had that process,
it's open ended, even it's sort of so called completion,
and then it actually if you're doing this work with
that sort of grounded approach, then business is coming behind
once the thing has happened, and there it creates that
decision making space where people can actually make decisions about
(26:12):
what they want to because they and that becomes an
economic sort of powerhouse because businesses get started, things get
done and it's not on going sort of it's an
economic revitalization process.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, exactly. I think you hit the nail on the
head right there. I think people quite often think about
projects as being this concrete, static thing that's delivered at
the end of a process.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
But actually, if you're really.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Thinking about potential, the project itself should be part of
a process that extends off into the future. And if
you approach it in the right way, I think methodology matters.
So there's kind of an old view where you know,
you deliver a thing and then you've done it and
it's there and it doesn't really matter how how you
(27:03):
got there, and you can get wrapped up and playing
games in that and that actually whittles away, in a
funny way, the potential of that the outcomes the snowball. Yeah,
and I think approaching it, like I've learned this so
much through these projects, and I've made mistakes. I have
to say that, like, this is hard work to do,
(27:25):
and there's a lot of pressure on you, and and
I think you just really have to learn how to
really hold your integrity in those moments and make sure
that you're approaching it with the right kind of spirit.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I don't think it can really happen without the methodology,
without the understanding of what this work is about the
multi headed nature of the client. It's not like you
can just design something as you're saying, and that's it,
and it's meeting that particular need. Well, it is a
meeting in need, but it's it's understanding that that the
(28:06):
curious nature of all of the people who are involved,
but still actually being so strong with why you're doing it,
that the product the delivery, say, is really sort of
super cool because it's comes through that slow, slow down
to speed up process.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, and I think that in that process there's like
inevitable moments of discomfort and compromise and not knowing whether
the outcome is going to be good. Like this is
something that I always like to say in councils. You know,
everybody feels vulnerable in these projects, like there's something it's
there's nothing there right now. Putting something in is risky
(28:46):
by nature. So helping people come on that journey get
comfortable with that discomfort, like it's inevitable. It's not because
you don't know what you're doing. It's just because you
haven't done it yet.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
But the nature of design is the conflict intention is
part of the design process.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, And it's kind of learning how to deal with
those conflicts intention in a way that doesn't exasperate them
but helps build understanding.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
And that work is you have to have space to
do that work.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And that's why I think my consultancy works better for
me personally, because you're holding a lot of energy and
responsibility and having a working full time insider council is
overwhelming and it's hard to have the emotional capacity to
do that. So I mean, that's what I think I
(29:47):
help with is being able to go away and really
think deeply and have the space to think deeply and
come and bring that to the table and help those
people come on that journey. And like you know, traditional
project management has such amazing strengths in it for delivery
and has to be valued alongside this. It's a coming
(30:09):
together of thinking and it's like bos string a foundation
where we can have those difficult conversations but have an
aligned division of where we're going and what our goals are,
you know. And that's another part of that slowing down
to speed up is really understanding the foundational.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Where everyone's coming from. You know, what is the ground?
Speaker 4 (30:34):
You know?
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, thanks so much for that. How you're sort of
aligning understanding that, you know, the project management is a
whole sort of industry in itself, but explaining how, how,
how or how it is working with counsel and with community.
And that's slowing down and allowing allowing decision making with us,
(31:01):
because that is a decision making. Because I was at
a council meeting earlier last year in Capity and we
have a brilliant member of council, a young woman called
Sophie Hanford and she was the chair of the Finance
Strategic Committee or something. I can imagine all the demands
and finance. We've got to make decisions, we've got to
have stuff done, we've got to deliver. And she was
(31:23):
sitting there and was able to run a board meeting
with this level of uncertainty. There was no sense of
Russian urgency. So everybody was able to slow down and
had confidence to say what they had to say around
the table because because she had this kind of ability
to just handle uncertainty as a chair, and things really
(31:45):
did come out well.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I think, Yeah, so interesting you bring up Sophie because
she's kind of come into my realm a couple of
times recently. I met her father recently, who's a fantastic
Borest Street expert. I don't know if that's as late,
but he has some really integrated thinking going on, and
he talked to me about her and she sounds amazing,
So I'd love to meet her. But yeah, as you
(32:11):
were just saying that, I was kind of thinking, you know,
potential doesn't exist without uncertainty, and we can approach things
like looking at what is here now and let that
inform things of what's what the potential of the future is,
or we can go what is here now and what
(32:31):
could it be rather than what should it be? And
that has that again that discomfort in it where you
don't know if it will be that, but like it
definitely won't be that if you can't see the potential.
You know, if you limit potential, it won't it's not
going to reach that that full potential that it could have.
(32:52):
So it's it's like helping people remove their fears in
the first instance and let them be free just completely
idea and then bringing that back into what the parameters are,
what what's possible now without limiting what it could be
in the future. And I find myself, I find it
(33:14):
really easy to sit in that space and potentially and
I sometimes have to bring that back and and sometimes
those those like more traditional ways of thinking help me
bring that back. Yeah, and instead of seeing that as
a conflict, seeing it how they support as how they
support each other.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah. I think I think what can help is like
what you're saying about the story and looking at the
story and even though you're thinking about something that what
the potential is I think if you can slow down
and say, in some way, look at what is here.
I think I think with master plans and counsel and
the you know, the procurement process of bringing an architects
(34:00):
is that you do get peed into this master plant
idea and everybody is lost in the process of getting
that result. Whereas if we can just be humble to
what is here, learning to love the ugly, learning to
see all the little treasure hunts that you're talking about,
so that everybody then can identify with that. Whereas I
think we're told, oh, this is rubbish or this is awful,
(34:21):
let's redesign everything, and they can only then rely on
the so called experts, which brings in a procurement process
and all of the rules and regulations around that, and
the actual place is become sort of lost in that
whole process. But if you stop and have that story
and narrative and everybody's saying, hey, what is really happening
with that riverend, what is really the color of the river,
(34:43):
And how is the river in context with those hills
on the other side, and how do the hills on
each side speak to each other? People have native intelligence
no better where they come from, and when they can
talk about those things, they start to get a sense
of confidence in themselves and then they can be part
of the conversation.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, it's anchored to something quite concrete when you think
about it like that, Actually it sounds aerie, very but
it's actually the ground is very concrete, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I because I'm an architect, so I always talk with
site and I guess that's I'm going into architect's rolem
and maybe that's just what we well.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I mean, the other thing that just kind of came
up for me when you were talking about engaging experts
and then having the council staff sitting.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Separately from the experts.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I've kind of experienced this recently and it was a
real good learning curve for me. And really the experts
role should be evolving those staff so that they can
continue the capability growing of that council and the transformation
of the way they approach things. So bringing them on
(35:49):
that journal is like experiencing this process. They will have
skill sets that are super valuable, and it's just trying
to find how to align the motivations and this position
they're in with project and build that as part of
the process. It's easy for an expert to come in
and be like, oh, I have to prove that I'm
(36:10):
an expert.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Yeah, I've been guilty of this. Yeah, I need them
to know that they need me, you know. And sometimes
that just like overwrites the.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Value you're trying to create, you know. And and when
you say humbleness and even that's totally key. But it's
also like a balancing act, isn't that because you do
need to be seen as an expert on some levels
so that you're heard in a certain way, and it's
just trying to hold both of those things at the
same time.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
So do you think there are I mean, you're obviously
established or developing a role in this and understanding the
reasons and the benefit from it and you enjoy it.
Are there I mean an urban design field that is
this kind of thing happening, Like the experts are becoming
able to considering that they have to sort of enable
within councils or is it quite I'm really good question.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I don't know if that's I mean, you're very limited
by the project brief, you know, like you're genuinely brought
on and you have to sign a contract and you
don't have the freedom for that. It's not in the scope.
There's the possibility of having that discussion and bringing it
into the scope. But I think like even in doing
the work, you have opportunities where that can happen. You know, inevitably,
(37:25):
you're working alongside council staff to deliver something, and you're
doing that, you have this opportunity to think about that.
And I think it's becoming a little bit more. I mean,
maybe I'm taking I'm going a step further. I'm not sure,
but there's a lot of regenerative practice building within these
kind of disciplines, and like I've watched it over the years,
(37:47):
even with the way in which funding was handed out
for specific projects through the previous government, there was requirements
of building a co design process and they actually providing
guidance on how to do that. So I learned a
lot of the skill set I have through that process
and then have kind of taken it a bit further
(38:08):
engaging in my own kind of courses. So I think
inevitably these larger firms have got some of that thinking
going on. For sure, I can see it becoming something
that becomes quite normal, especially if we're able to build
that relationality to the systems that are already established and
help them kind of grow. It's like it's a funny
(38:30):
kind of balancing act of breaking apart the system but
also bringing the best fits.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
But ultimately it saves money because solutions process becomes more fluid,
so you're saving everybody's time and money, and then you're
getting more involvement by people who are participating, just room
for them to make effective decisions.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
You're limiting streets as well stuff if you pieces together
and have those well established roles right at the beginning,
and you have people from the local community saying what
they want and what they need. But you also like
in that you have to build a sense of compromise
because no one's going to get what they want completely
and there will.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Be uncomfortable moments.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
There's some people that I kind of I hate to
get to this point, but sometimes there's unconvincibles in these projects,
and you can tend to focus on them and expend
quite a lot of energy on that. So there's it's
another piece of reflection that you have to do throughout
and be like, hope are they are they shaping this
too much as a single voice or a single group,
(39:36):
and learning when when to try and you know, simplify
that a little bit, and trying to be restorative in
those relationships where you're trying to just build understanding and say,
you know, like, inevitably we have to put something on
the grounds, there's a project, and you know all these
other people are saying this.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
You know this is the goal.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Sure you can understand that context, and you know if
that doesn't work, but I just kind of keep moving forward.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Wow, that's part of the skill in the work that
you're doing. It's inevitable, part of the skills in a wind.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
It's something that can keep you up at night. I
have experience of that happening to me, and I guess
that's that reframing of that discomfort being potent learning because
you know, as I said, I've made mistakes in those
situations before in the past.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
So learning, I think that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Like people, it's so easy culturally to throw people under
the bus to keep yourself safe, and I don't think
people realize.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
How much damage that does.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
And I think we have to grow out of that
because you end up not speaking the same language when
you're in that space, you're trying to protect yourself.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
You're not really being authentic or acting with integrity.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So because do you know, the thing that I find
really profounder is that there's all these ideas around professional
development and capability and skill sets, but actually there's no
line between professional development and personal development. I think you
clearly you have to take on a professional role in projects,
(41:18):
but it's contributing to who you are those positions and
if you approach it like that, it's interesting how much
you can gain personally.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
I think when you've got something a project that you're
really really committed to complicely in design world, it's the
negatives that you can really focus on, you know, the
things that go wrong or the things that annoy you.
They can it's really good that you say, just try
not to let those take up too much of your time.
But it's the things that you think are going to
go wrong that you can become very focused on, and
(41:50):
we're more aware of them. The things that go right.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
We I mean, that's a great thing to research if
anyone's feeling like they're grappling with this negativity bias is
profound in human psychology.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
And it's not only across the project team, it's across
the community.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
So you know, when you're engaging with the community bringing
these up, these these issues up and saying, look, you're
going to have a brain that wants to focus on
what possibly could go wrong. Yes, it's going to do
that because that's what it does, Like.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
We're perfectionate. Stn't we out of survival mode exactly?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And it's people on different parts of that journey of
learning that, and these engagements are actually opportunities to help
that that then travel along that pathway a little bit further,
you know, and it's building that awareness of like if
I'm catastrophizing, I need to look into the reality of that.
(42:52):
Is that something that my brain's just telling me. But
you know, part of that is like there's some value
in it as well, because it's helping you identify risks
that could be could be real risks, you know, and
not just writing it off, but going what is the
reality in this? What's the nugget in here that I
need to be paying attention to without limiting the potential
(43:14):
of this project because I'm getting sucked into that kind
of potential fear based thinking. And yeah, and it's the
whole thing, balancing act across every part of it. Positive
in it, I'm not negative, but like you know, there's
different sides of every concept that are helpful or not helpful,
(43:36):
and it's learning how to identify that.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
And this might sound a little bit every theory as well,
but I think in the DNA of a project like that,
if you've gone through that process, I think it comes
through in the project. And I think a little sort
of a vibe with an even the delivered thing, where
there's a sense of spaces that people feel, oh, you know,
I can be a bit of a geek here, or
I can be a bit wrong, but you know I
can just sit with that and see what's going to
(44:00):
have to see what I'm going to learn from it
in the actual final outcome, you know, these public spaces
that aren't all perfect, and it enables people to feel
like at home enough to sort of see, I don't know,
that's me going down my airy fairy trap.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
That's that's I mean, listen to me.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I think I think the answer to that is like
taking an experimental approach to it. I know that there's
like everyone cares about the outcome. They totally care about
the outcome, and it's hard to let go of wanting
to control what the outcome is. But it's loose helping
people loosen that into like this is an experiment. If
(44:42):
parts of it don't work, that's not the end of
the world. And actually, if you hold it like that,
they're more likely to work because you're you'll take calculated
risks and you will look for more unique solutions and
it will have a point.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
You can learn on the go. You can change things
on the go as well. Yeah, problems come even better solutions.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
And that's where I think agile approaches is really important.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
And I know some people find it really frustrating when
they're really in a traditional project manager role. They want
a decision to be done and made, But actually new
things can bubble up with new potential at any moment
in a project.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
And you need to be able to grab those.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Even when you've already like you know, confirmed a contract
with an engineer who's building something. You can always ring
them and say have you started yet, And it might
annoy them for a minute, but if it's informed by
a really really good reason and it's really meaningful to
the project, it's easy to say Look, I know this
is super frustrating for you. You're probably not ready to like
(45:44):
get going on this, but we've had this really valuable
insight and we want to change this. Can you wait
two days for us to send an updated design? You know,
if you've got a project manager willing to look at
those opportunities for what they are and the potential of
them bringing out additional value and having the patience to
go and make that call, it can be a real
(46:07):
game changer. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
And I think that in my experience, that sort of
actually makes the team stronger because you've evolved that person
in a deep problem and they're involved in solving it,
and then they get they get the project even more,
and so everybody becomes much more committed around the project
because they're part of that ongoing design process. That's from
my experience, oh totally.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
And I think Freuds Avenue is a great example of
that because we had local artists actually building parts of
the project, and then I kind of established relationships with
the engineers that created the.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Structures and the lighting.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
The lighting was like recycled glass insulators from power lines
that I have coverage, got them to build that, and
I think they really enjoyed working on something unusual, and
we ended up having this celebration to open the project,
and it's called Lights on Bikes, which is basically our
whole community dresses up their bikes with lights and it
(47:06):
was a parade and it was almost amazing that, to
be honest, I was so stoked on it. It's kind
of the final celebration after this really stressful year of delivery,
and we had a lot of the contractors that were
involved came down to Through's Avenue and bought their kids
and established this new community, new additional part of Wanganui's
(47:28):
wider community coming and interacting with the state. And it's
established it right at the delivery point of the project.
So there's an example of where the outcome and the
methodology snowballed into a more integrated community, which is super powerful.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Super powerful, and I think that's where, you know, apart
from the whole design ethos, that's where the economic outcome
has become because it spins off so much economic activity
of all of these trades, people being able to talk
together and get more experience in certain things, and then
outside of that to get the whole consumer things sort
(48:05):
of coming on as another layer.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
So I think that's you know, I like it.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I like how it removes the consumer thing, especially when
you're working with local contractors. It creates a job that's
not about the bottom dollar fity necessarily, and they're.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Really proud of it.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
And I feel really privileged to be working in a
position where fairly economics comes.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Into it with fees and things like that.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
But that ultimate goal of what I work on is
not the economic benefit. I mean, it does have those
offshoots massively, like it.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Does have it massively because you're coming from a community space, yes,
but then people get ownership and then and then, because
I always have to relate it back to why are
we doing this spending this money in this particular place.
But if you've got real community identity about a place
and visitors come to experience that local identity and they
feel privileged to experience something that is uniquely Wanganui or
(49:05):
capity or something like that, that's destination experience. Sorry these
are all economic terms, but means something because people all
over the place that they're getting, you know, a really
good experience.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
I think for some people it's hard for them to
draw the connection between intrinsic community value and economic value,
and it's hard to record the data around that, which
is one of the symptoms of that disconnection, but I
have some. I mean, we asked the businesses around here
(49:37):
for their comparison of retail intake from the year before
the project and the year after, and it had grown
thirty percent. And we recorded the occupancy of the street
and the form of such plus pedestrians, and that grew
massively as well, which kind of trains into spending because
(50:01):
they're walking past retail instead of driving past retail.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
And other people both feel so so at home in
the place, they think I'll start up a business head.
It gives them ideas and that's more economics.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
And then they want to be part of the community
like that, like your example, in the sense of contributing
to it. And then the other thing that kind of
came out of the project which I wanted to record
my conversations around this was I got funding for the
following round of threats for people for another street before
I left council, and I was interviewing some project managers
(50:36):
about supporting me in that project because I found the
previous ones so overwhelming, and I interviewed four different people
who had moved to Longanoi because they had visited Drue's Avenue.
And I was just like, can I record you saying
that and then feed that up the chain, because that's
(50:58):
just a really concrete example of you know, we had
a community here that in two thousand and eight when
I first moved here, and economists talked about Wang and
we disappearing off the map because we had a declining population,
we had limited employment opportunities, and we just inevitably weren't
going to exist.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
And there was a real pushback on that. We were
labeled zombie town, and our local community really didn't like
that vision for their town. But also we're a little
bit like battered by it.
Speaker 4 (51:32):
And you know, now we're in this position where these
locally created projects have built the manna and the pride that's.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Transformed Wang and into striving community place. It could still
do with more opportunities for employment, but I think it's
grounded in values here because we still attract open minded
people here and we're kind of in this nice, nicephase
right now where it feels optimistic and creative but also
(52:07):
very connected, and I don't want it to get any
I kind.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Of don't want it to get any better, go further
than that. I think we don't want gentrification.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
Anyone listening to start move here.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
You don't move level, do it in your own place.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Do it, do it in your own in your own place.
I'm happy to help do it in your own place.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
You create so many spaces that can be can have
the narrative kind of extended around them in terms of
whatever form built, form, place making. You know, so many
things that can happen in small corners of the planet
that that that are all asking to be reinterpreted through this.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Kind of process, and you can see it happening.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
To be honest, it's not It's not only happening in
a There's like there's little little potent spots where this
kind of community are into thinking is happening, and collaboration
is happening, and people are doing off their own bat
bats and contributing.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
And there's you know these people that are.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You've got the pragmatic experience of working with councils through
all of that, which is the vital ingredient as well
in terms of yeah that humility.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah yeah, but I just want to like kind of
many people that are sitting in their communities that are
really contributing. Like what I notice going into these places
is these people that have been there for decades, that
are part of organizations that just volunteer and they hold
it down, you know, like they hold like I can
(53:45):
see some of that kind of unraveling through Lions Clubs,
you know, getting this membership and stuff.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
But there's some that are just really solid and they've been.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Contributing for years and years, and they would have seen
the changes that've been.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Able to contribute to and.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
And I mean that raises again the importance of getting
to know a community. There's people sitting in those communities
already that have done transformational things and they may not
have done it in the same way someone with my
kind of experience of background, but it would have been
just as potent the outcomes. You know, there's groups like Lions,
(54:22):
Lions Clubs and stuff kind of blow my mind with
their generosity. And we need more of that type of
infrastructure in communities. And the difficult thing is people are
generally trying to survive. They're a bit occupied by that,
and we've also got a little bit of a distraction
problem going on in society as well. So I just
(54:44):
encourage anyone listening to maybe, if you're in a position
of stability and ableness, maybe reach out and get involved
with your community locally, even just in a small way,
and see what that does to you. It makes you
(55:05):
feel more human, Definitely makes you feel more human.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
Definitely makes you feel more human. Regenerative practice. When you
are we talking, this is what regenerative means. Regeneration? Is
this what it means? Regenerative practice?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Yes, sir, it's kind of a bit abstrict, but I
think you're hearing it through this conversation. Is thinking about
not thinking about things in isolation and thinking about.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
The longevity of whatever your action is.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
And it's kind of thinking about the interrelated systems that
we all live and work in. We kind of put
labels on them being separate, but they've got inevitable overlaps
across them. It's very hard to sum up because it's
a complex kind of system of thinking about it, and
it incorporates multiple different systems and makes it kind of
(55:54):
encourages you to think about how our separate systems and
to relate and affect each other so that we can
uplift all of them for our work and for our action.
It's an incredible kind of philosophy and kind of appeals
to me because I did a philosophy degree and it.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Helps me figure out the most regenerative way.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Of being in a project so that those potentials can
be held and can be collaborated on.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
After all of the work that you've done on the
realto on the street, on the ground, you've had this
luxury and pleasure of doing a course which is summarizing
all the work you've done pretty much.
Speaker 1 (56:36):
Yeah, It's kind of like a friend of mine, Emma,
who helped me with the project massively, so she delivered
part of Jerry's avenue with me. She was working two
days a week alongside me. She watched me work in
this project and said, you naturally think regeneratively that you
should go and do this course because it will expand
(56:56):
that for you. And I was like, okay, just logged
and applied straight away and started doing it. And it
just was like throwing stuff at me that I kind
of already knew, but it solidified to me that it
was valid. Yeah, because I naturally wanted to do it,
but I kind of questioned myself, going, well, you don't
(57:19):
know what you're doing you know, and this's course kind
of confirmed to me that I was on the right
track and then expanded and gave me tools of how
to embed it even more into.
Speaker 3 (57:32):
What I do. So it was kind of serendipity.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
That I enrolled in that course, and I now have
quite a few books that are written by different people
in that kind of school of thinking, and.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
I got to be careful not to let.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
It become an ideology that I'm pushing too much, because
people are in different places and you're to respect the
day diversity that sits in teams and in communities. But
for me, it's a really good grounding tool set to have.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
Ian. I think with your years of experience and projects
that have actually happened through this valued curd of value
based process, I think I think more education is not
going to sort of do that at all. I think
you've got the balance right. It's wonderful. Anything else you'd
like to say to wrap up, I just love this conversation.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
It's such a nice way to.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Get to know someone because we've only talked for like
five minutes before, and I think you asked some great
questions and I'd love to understand more about what you're
doing at some point, So I would.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Love to talk about what we do with what we're
in the most process of doing, because you could, really, really,
You've given me lots of help already in this last
down O great awesome, Yeah, local architecture now or with
Ellen Young, the magnificent management director of Paper Road, Conecting
community and place here on Wanganui.
Speaker 3 (59:03):
Thank you, Ellen, Thank you so much for having me.
This program was made with assistance from New Zealand I
for radio broadcast as really access to me Robert and
z website. Thank you New Zealand on air.
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