Wetlands - Honouring the Past, Building for the Future
Stormwater Conference
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Designing wetlands for stormwater management is more than meeting performance related criteria to satisfy regulatory requirements and the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) stormwater standards. Increasingly through the NZTA’s projects, urban and landscape design, environmental and heritage benchmarks are being applied to deliver multiple outcomes for stormwater management areas.
As part of the Waikato Expressway’s: Rangiriri Section Project the NZTA, Fletcher Construction, Waikato Tainui, Archaeologist and the design team MWH and Boffa Miskell have sought to deliver, social, environmental and cultural outcomes through the stormwater aspects of the project. A Partnering Charter was formed between NZTA, Fletcher and Waikato-Tainui in acknowledgement of the unique cultural heritage of the project area which defined the function and form of stormwater management.
One of the key features is the Rangiriri Wetland, located on the site of the 1863 Battle of Rangiriri, a significant event in the context of the NZ Land Wars. The opportunities for this history to be revealed were established at an early stage through the urban design and landscape framework (UDLF). In close consultation with Waikato Tainui and the Archaeologist, this design framework developed, setting the scene for both the cultural mitigation works and the opportunities for the wetland design. Conceptually the wetland was envisaged to form part of the wider story of the battle site, Pa and historic trench, and Waikato River wetland margins.
This paper provides an overview of the project wide stormwater management philosophy with specific focus on the Rangiriri Wetland design, and how an integrated solution was developed. Commentary on the design will highlight how the form and function of the wetland was developed based on the site specific constraints.
The Rangiriri wetland demonstrates how, through collaboration; stormwater, urban design and landscape outcomes can reveal our important cultural heritage in the landscape.