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Cities in Bloom: Rewilding Urban Spaces for a Walkable, Regenerative Future

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Exegesis(81.85 MB)

Date

2026

Authors

Hutchins, Sam

Supervisor

Yates, Amanda

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Master of Architecture (Professional)

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Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

Cities in Bloom is a practice-led architectural thesis, undertaken for a Master of Architecture at Auckland University of Technology, that explores how rewilding can serve as a regenerative design framework for reshaping urban ecologies. Situated within Auckland’s Central Business District, the project investigates how architecture might facilitate coexistence between humans and non-humans by restoring lost ecologies and re-imagining the city as an active, living system. Wellesley Street stands as the core focus of the research, a spine that paves its way through the heart of the CBD intersecting with Queen Street and its connection out to the Waitemata Harbour. Through Queen Street, the project follows the contours of the buried Waihorotiu Stream, a forgotten ecology left dormant beneath our feet, which carries an innate potential to restore and reconnect the human to the natural world. Wellesley Street offers opportunity to link two underutilised green spaces, Victoria Park and Albert Park, creating a continuous ecological zone that spans the city, diverting down its many industrialised streets and transforming the CBD into a place of ecology rather than urbanism. The research is theoretically grounded through the philosophy of kinship and vibrant matter. Deborah Bird Rose’s concept of kinship reframes nature not as an external resource but as an extension of family; to think through kinship is to understand that the human and non-human fall under the same obligations. Care, responsibility, and respect unite life, encouraging an ethic of participation rather than dominance. Jane Bennett’s theory of vibrant matter complements this view by asserting that all material possesses vitality and agency. Matter is not inert. It is a form that acts, responds, and transforms in relation to its surroundings, within architecture it implies that all things hold ecological significance beyond just their utility. Terrapin Bright Greens’ framework in the form of the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design lays the foundation for what the thesis aims to achieve. It is built from this set of patterns that the project grounds its roots. A reconstructed framework in the form of The 6 Patterns of Rewild-ed is formed, which entails a move from the anthropocentric to an ecocentric lens, and adopting instead an eco-centric lens. Ecocentrism refers to a viewpoint that design is not limited to the human, but needs to extend beyond, placing the non-human along the same plane of importance and tending to its needs just as much as ours. Based on these considerations, a proposal is developed that re-imagines Wellesley Street as a living ecological corridor. The proposition is inherently speculative, imaging a future in which humans and non-humans coexist through layered urban ecologies. A radical re-configuration of spatial hierarchy is implemented through lifting human inhabitation above the ground plane, into rooftop glasshouse typologies and elevated walkways in which they traverse the city. The streetscape returns to nature, becoming an active ecosystem, allowing living systems to reestablish and move freely through an urban landscape. Cities in Bloom explores the potential of cities, a future where the built form and living ecology merge, trans-forming landscape into zones of connection, vitality, and kinship.

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Permanent link

http://hdl.handle.net/10292/21445

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Masters Theses