Urban designer Daniel Chapman will be the fourth presenter in Palmy’s popular Creative City Conversation series. Chapman
will discuss the crucial role walking plays in creating vibrant and creative urban places, share with us the ingredients
of ‘walkable urbanism’, and provide inspiration from elsewhere of successful transformations from suburban stasis to
urban dynamism.
Council’s Senior Urban Designer Dave Charnley has been coordinating the Creative Cities Conversation programme. “We’ve
had a great turn-out at our previous three events. They’ve all been thought-provoking and have helped our community and
city leaders to broaden our understanding of the challenges we face in designing, building and maintaining cities and
the creativity and innovation required to successfully make a great city. We’re delighted to have Daniel in Palmy to
speak on his area of expertise.”
“One of the values of this series of conversations is developing a higher level of civic awareness, critical thinking
and debate, particularly around the value and practice of good urban design.
“Good urban design is a holistic approach to city making and creating human habitat. It is applied at varying spatial
scales across many areas that impact how people live, work and play – including planning, transport, housing, economics,
health, architecture, streetscapes, environment, culture, heritage, placemaking and ultimately our people.
“We warmly welcome anyone with an interest in how we can do things differently with a creative mindset, and those who
want to have input into how Palmy can be a leader in creative city-making.”
This is the fourth of six Creative City Conversations being held over 12 months. The series follows the publication of
the Creative Cities Index report authored by Charles Landry and titled – ‘Comfortable or Captivating?’ which had a
stocktake on the city’s creative pulse.
All of the conversations are recorded and available on Council’s website. Past conversations have covered carbon, housing for well-being and human-centric transportation.
Details of the fourth Conversation follow.CONVERSATION #4: Walking urbanism: the heart of a creative city
What is a city without people?
Cities at their best are natural gathering places; places where people meet, interact, exchange ideas, laugh, love and
live engaging lives.
In the headlong rush to motorisation in the second half of the twentieth century, we risked losing sight of this
fundamental truth. In the 21st Century, the tide is turning. Cities and towns around the world have been returning to
people-centric design. And walkability is at the heart of it.
Daniel Chapman will discuss the role of walking in vibrant and creative urban places, ingredients of walkable urbanism,
and inspiration from elsewhere of successful transformations from suburban stasis to urban dynamism.About Daniel Chapman
Daniel is a principal urban designer at Stantec and the practice lead for Urban Design and Advisory in New Zealand. He
has worked in the overlapping fields of urban design and landscape architecture for over 17 years, at design-led,
multi-disciplinary and public sector design practices in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
His project experience is wide-ranging, from strategic urban design, regional green infrastructure, and master planning,
to streets and award-winning parks and urban spaces. This range of skills at different scales enables him to connect
strategy and deliverability.
His recent work includes contributions to the Auckland City Centre Masterplan; development of a design-led city strategy
for a major growth city in Australia; providing urban design guidance for transport programme business cases; and an
outcomes-focused corridor study for the City Centre to Māngere light rail in Auckland, seeking to maximise benefits for
people and place through significant public transport investment.
Daniel counts himself lucky to live in a walkable, amenity-rich, 15-minute neighbourhood, especially now that he is the
proud dad to his one-year-old daughter, Skylah. He is passionate about supporting other places to embrace walkability
and to put people first in urban planning and design.Creative City Conversation #4 - Walking urbanism: the heart of a creative city17 May 2021 5.45 pm (Doors open 5.30)Globe Theatre, Main Street, Palmerston North
Register to attend on Council’s website. Free attendance