Designing Aotearoa New Zealand with nature: landscape regeneration of Western Waiheke Island

Abstract

Design with Nature had a global impact on late twentieth-century landscape architectural practice. This paper looks at both the direct influence of the text and how McHarg’s ideas were developed on Waiheke Island New Zealand. The project that we will examine is the Western Waiheke Entrance Landscape (Western Landscape), a 430-ha (1065 ac.) landscape project that is now 30 years old. The project was designed by a New Zealand landscape architect/planner, Dennis Scott [DJScott Associates Ltd (DJSA)] and has been widely deemed as a well-rounded ecological, social and economic success winning the NZILA enduring landscape award in 2017 (NZILA in Showcase: enduring category winner: Waiheke Western Entrance Headland Landscape, D J Scott Associates. https://nzila.co.nz/showcase/waiheke-island-western-entrance-headland-landscape , 2017). The DJSA design methodology combines integrated catchment management and a wide range of human activity into an ecologically regenerated landscape. We argue that this approach is a conscious, yet indigenous, development of Ian McHarg’s theory and methodology as expounded in the seminal book Design with Nature. These ideas and the consequences for the transformation of an important landscape point to new directions for socio-ecological practice.