By Pollen Workshop
Nature is designed to sit alongside the manicured environment of a cricket ground, resulting in a wonderful community space for all to enjoy.
The brief:
Utilise an existing space that would embellish it’s quirks, ensure that it was a space for cricketers and no cricketers alike, and to have a real sympathy for the environment – all whilst remaining quintessentially Kiwi.
Key features:
Initial exploration uncovered the existing site’s potential far beyond the the ground itself. The site is located within a valley that host several springs seeping from the hills above. The stream opens to grazing that runs alongside the ground. This stretch of riparian waterway running adjacent to the ground is an environmental asset to both the working farm the ground sits within, as well the club and is now an aesthetic cornerstone of the project.
Members of the public are drawn to the commitment the club has to the environment on arrival to the ground. It heightens the quintessential kiwi feel required of the brief.
The oval has been cloaked in native riparian waterways to form a beautiful native corridor. Aside from it’s beauty, this has allowed the project to engage the non cricketing community to stake their ownership of the ground with the planting of over 10,000 native plants in the newly formed wetlands and fenced riparian waterways.
The native plantings are beginning to flourish making this project a continuing environmental evolution for the Te Awanga community.
THE POLLEN WORKSHOP WAY
I believe in simplicity and most importantly, sustainability. This design philosophy has been shaped largely by the rural upbringing I enjoyed on the coastal environment of the East Coast of New Zealand.
Life on a farm requires a simplistic functionality. As guardians of the land, sustainability is required to ensure we hand a better environment to our next generations. Pollen Workshop looks to use these values of simplicity and sustainability in all of our design, be it rural, residential or riparian management.
Pollen Workshop is a small, independent Landscape Architecture company based in Te Awanga, Hawkes Bay. Our design philosophy is centered around the creation of simple, highly functional spaces. This ethos can be seen everyday at our Pollen Workshop coastal HQ.
I graduated from Lincoln University with a degree in Landscape Architecture in 2007 and worked in Melbourne before moving back to Te Awanga, Hawkes Bay in 2010. I have been practicing here ever since.
I look forward to seeing you at The Office for a coffee and to chat through your project soon.
– Willie Murphy