Disrupting Auckland – new urban ideas take centre stage at Smart Seeds Showcase

New ideas to take Auckland into the future and retain its title as one of the world’s most liveable cities were on display as the debut Smart Seeds programme in New Zealand came to a spectacular finish at the ASB Cube in Auckland during Techweek AKL.

To help the city deliver major infrastructure projects while remaining fully functioning and attractive for residents, businesses and visitors, the winning team proposed a three-pronged approach to solve the ‘Creative Disruption’ challenge. The team navigated through three main area of focus depending on the ‘disruption’:

1. One Auckland’ – an app displaying maps and other data showing locations and expected duration of construction works and images of the finished projects within the city
2. ‘Live Walls’ - making use of construction barricades aesthetically appealing and using space to publicise developments
3. ‘Sound Block’ – a device applied to windows to block noise pollution from construction sites.

The audience, made up of more than 90 people, made a different decision to the judges, voting the People’s Choice Award to a team that explored the potential of an unusual kind of ‘black gold’ – sludge and biosolids that are by-products of wastewater treatment. The team presented on a variety of potential ways to reuse biosolids in construction, fuel and agriculture. Biosolids are currently being used around the world in a variety of sustainable solutions, but the full potential of this resource has not yet been realised in New Zealand.

Smart Seeds is an innovation programme for young professionals focused on solving real challenges in the urban design and infrastructure sectors.

Launched by GHD in Australia in 2013, the annual Smart Seeds programme has been embraced by private and public sector organisations. This year it has come to New Zealand for the first time, bringing together some of the most influential organisations in the infrastructure sector, Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development, Panuku Development Auckland, Regional Facilities Auckland, Watercare, Vector, NZ Transport Agency, EY, Auckland Council, Spark and Veolia. Hawkins provided key support as City Sponsor.

Participating organisations set the infrastructure challenges that reflected their industry and evoked creative thinking. With help from industry mentors, teams made up of young professionals from different organisations and disciplines then had 10 weeks to come up with a solution to each challenge.

At the Showcase event, the team presented their ideas to a judging panel of made up of industry leaders: Geoff Hunt (CEO Hawkins Group), Raveen Jaduram (CEO Watercare), Stephen Town (CEO Auckland Council) and Ian Fraser (New Zealand Manager GHD).

Along the journey to the Showcase event, the participants developed innovation, presentation and teamwork skills, strengthened their professional networks, learned from mentors and each other, and got a buzz from creating and sharing new ideas.

Other ideas presented at the Showcase included

• How to keep Auckland moving? – The team proposed to review policy and funding models for local transport and dis-incentivising the use of cars.
• Upcycling the hood – Focusing on Manukau in particular, the team presented ideas on regenerating areas of the city with high density housing, shared space and local transport links.
• Is a zero waste target achievable? – The team developed a framework which included a series of steps to achieve zero waste going to landfill from Regional Facilities Auckland venues by the year 2040.

Smart Seeds in New Zealand was led by Maurice Hoban, GHD’s Environment and Planning Market Leader, who says, “What’s really special about this program is collaboration between people from different disciplines and organisations. Seeing a problem with new eyes and working together is the way to solve increasingly complex and interconnected urban infrastructure challenges”.

Eve Charles, who is part of the winning team ‘Creative Disruption’, says: “Our team focused on creating solutions that can empower the community and ultimately generate great value for Aucklanders”.

“Smart Seeds provides an amazing platform for collaboration and innovation to flourish. Being part of this event makes you realise how important it is to embrace the different strengths and points of view that people bring to the table, and use them to generate smart ideas.”

Ian Fraser, one of the judges and GHD’s NZ Manager, comments, “We were really impressed with the innovative ideas, the commitment of everyone involved and the quality of the presentations. The ideas needed to be imaginative but still accessible and achievable and attractive. The winning team put forward a number of initiatives that can now be adopted and developed further by the participating organisations.”

Smart Seeds is also running in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Perth, bringing together more than 200 young professionals in total. Planning is under way to expand the programme to other global cities facing infrastructure challenges in 2017.