Street smart: Do effective design guidelines exist for enhancing the main streets of rural small towns in New Zealand through landscape architecture? : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University

Abstract

Rural small towns are significant contributers economically, culturally, recreationally and socially In New Zealand. They often function as service centres for surrounding agriculture operations, as well as key settlements for tourism, both of which are the counties top two export industries. However in recent years the attraction and liveability of these rural towns has caused many residents to leave and few tourist to visit. A major contributor to the recent decline in these significant towns is the safety, usability and attractiveness of the towns main streets. In New Zealand there are broad landscape and urban design guidelines for metropolitan centres such as Auckland and Christchurch, however there is no governing design document for rural small towns in decline. This dissertation will answer the primary research question of: Do effective design guidelines exist for enhancing the main streets of rural small towns in New Zealand through landscape architecture?. However It was established that there are no design guidelines existing for main street design of rural small towns in New Zealand. Therefore within this dissertation an effort to identify and describe key principles from existing guiding documents and adapt and abstract them to suit rural small towns in the hope of reversing the recent decline has been undertaken.