Four New Zealand landscape architecture projects have been shortlisted for this year’s World Architecture Festival, which will be held in Amsterdam at the end of November. Festival organisers reported a record number of entries this year. LandLAB had three projects shortlisted, and we’ll look at them tomorrow. But here’s the Jasmax project Te Whau Pathway, which has been shortlisted in the Future Projects, Infrastructure category.

Te Whau Pathway features 6km of boardwalks and bridges rising above expansive mangroves and tidal flats along the Whau River and connecting the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean. That in itself makes it noteworthy - how many other such structures are there in the world which link one side of a country to the other?

Winding its way through the mangroves the purposeful long slow curves of the boardwalk provide a new pathway for cyclists and walkers connecting local communities to the city cycle network, each other and the rich ecological and cultural heritage of Auckland’s Te Whau River.

“This could be the next poster child of cycleway infrastructure in Auckland,” says one of the designers, Mike Thomas from Jasmax. “We need to keep collecting these heroes of cycleway infrastructure.”

But while the project’s been recognised internationally - by being shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival - it’s delivery in Auckland has been stalled by a lack of funding.

Jasmax together with architects Monk McKenzie and engineering consultants Stantec, worked with Auckland Transport, Auckland Council and Mana Whenua to develop a design to meet the aspirations of the both the City and local community representatives. And while the principal part of the brief was to create a commuter pathway between the east coast and west coast running along the western edge of the Whau River, Jasmax quickly saw it was going to be much more than a commuter facility.

“The commuter bit - that was about 20 percent of its actual function,” says Mike Thomas. “We saw it more as a community facility because it’s a labyrinth of cul de sacs and windy roads in that area. To get from one place to another you had to jump in your car and drive for miles on the local road network. Or (with Te Whau Pathway) you could simply drop down to the pathway and walk or cycle along and pop out close to your school or rugby field or place of work.”

The idea is to have plenty of signage along the pathway, embedded into the structure, that tells users where they are or how far they have to go to certain spots.