Greetings to you all.  My name is Charles Gordon and my current role is Senior Landscape Architect in Urban Design at Wellington City Council.

I started practicing as a Landscape Architect in late 1986. Completing my post graduate degree at Lincoln, I then worked for DOC for a short period before heading up to the big city world of Wellington early in 1987.  Wellington prior to the stock market crash was all go with a minimum of the hospitality and events that now showcase the city.  Initially I was working as a sole practitioner but this was short lived.  Petone Borough Council offered a temporary position which turned into 18 months before the Borough was amalgamated into Lower Hutt City Council.  A short spell at LHCC followed prior to a position coming up at Wellington City.

Working within the Wellington City Council realm for many years has been an interesting and challenging experience.  People see and think bureaucracy and there is some truth in that.  But inbetween the firefighting and filling out of forms is a great deal of variety in the work that makes for interesting projects and input into the many and varied areas across the Council.

Wellington City Council has had massive change over the last 20 years.  At one time the Council employed their own in-house units of engineers/architects/landscape architects for the cities works and projects. Much of this is now contracted to the private sector.    There have been positives and negatives to this approach.  Hiring consultants can often result in project focused outcomes with little interest or understanding of the Councils underlying vision or requirements.  These can include issues of continuity and sturdiness of design and lack of understanding of maintenance issues.  The positive side of this approach is fresh thinking and some great cutting edge design.  

Previously there were only three Landscape Architects, all occupying design roles in Parks and Recreation.  Currently there are two still in the Parks area though they are now in Parks Planning roles.  Four are employed in Urban Design roles and one is working with the WCC Architects in a project management role.  While some roles are active design roles, all roles bring a design background and understanding to their current positions which are very good for the city.

During my time at WCC I have been involved in design and project input into Parks, Urban Design, Coastal and general infrastructure projects.  The variety of work has covered the redevelopment of Grasslees and Alex Moore Parks, the Midland Park upgrade and considerable work in the Wellington Botanic Garden.  There has been design and project input into work on much of the inner city including Courtenay Place, Cuba Mall, Manners St, Victoria St, and Lambton Quay.   Suburban centre works have included Newtown (Drummond Street), Miramar centre upgrade, and background input into works in Tawa.  Coastal work  input into Moa Pt Sewage Treatment upgrade, Oruaiti Reserve upgrade, Te Kopahou entrance to Red Rocks, Scorching Bay upgrade, Shorland Park, resilience work in Lyall Bay, and TeRaikahau Point upgrade in the Princess Bay area.

These are just some of the more major areas of work.  Of course there is also the day to day work of giving advice and advising on more minor levels to those you work with.  The minor items are often small but of importance as putting people in the right direction, or providing quick reference on a design issue can make a difference in the long term.  The devil is often in the details and people make their own design choices if there isn’t someone within their organisation to give guidance and advice.

Overall the mix of management fashions and bureaucratic structure changes has been challenging but the variety of interesting projects and input into the dynamic city that Wellington has become has been very satisfying.