Nestled 40km South West of central Auckland lies the country town of Waiuku, which has led the sustainable building charge in a facelift of its Town Centre. With the number of pubs and eateries servicing the centre’s population, the local board raised concerns over the not very old paving’s lack of tolerance to dropped food and other staining. They and Auckland Transport decided that the paving needed a bit of a revival along with a smarter maintenance solution to keep it looking its best for years into the future.

Paving an urban space is problematical as it must stand up to abuse, look great, be safe (slip resistance), have a practical, low cost, cleaning regime and it must do all this for years to come. Along with all these requirements, there is a push today towards sustainable building. It can be difficult to find products that will tick all of these boxes.

Jagas were happy to put forward the new Hydropaver, ceramic permeable paving as a solution to this problem to be tested in stage 1 of the project. Not only did this product meet all the requirements after testing by Auckland Transport, it just happens to be entirely made of recycled porcelain tiles!

The project began in 2016 with an initial installation of around 1800m2 in the very centre of the town. This year in 2018, stage 2 has just gone in. This gave a period of two years for the product to prove itself against all the city has had to throw at it from spilled wine to dropped food from the local take-aways. Guess what? It’s difficult to see where stage 1 ends and stage 2 begins.

You may have noticed that we haven’t even mentioned the fact that permeability was a requirement in this project? That’s because it wasn’t. Auckland Transport were more concerned that the Hydropavers provided a beautiful, easy to maintain solution that was resistant to staining. The product already solved their problems before we even got to permeability. This means that the fact Hydropavers will absorb all spills and rainwater leaving a high slip resistant surface is an added BONUS.

The end results of this project look amazing two years down the track when these photographs were taken and it is great to see NZ beginning to utilise sustainable building products in its urban design.