Albany Rose Garden | Auckland

Wraight + Associates were engaged by NZ Rose Garden Ltd to provide Landscape Architecture and Urban Design services for ‘Albany Rose Gardens’, a large mixed-use development in northern Auckland. The Stage 1 landscape design includes a slow street with high amenity, a new terraced park interface with the existing Lakes Reserve and a communal podium gardens and lawns for residents. The stage 1 project works were completed in 2018.

The landscape hinges off the slow street, Rose Garden Lane, which is designed for traffic calming, pedestrian permeability and retail / hospitality quality. Native-planted rain gardens along the street’s length receive and treat all storm water while strengthening links to the Lakes Reserve and Lucas creek to the north. The street continues the emerging, and important, network of local streets developing in the area.

Rose Garden Lane folds into a new terraced landscape interface with the Lakes Reserve. The reserve and development mutually benefit with improved activation and amenity. West of the terraces, a boardwalk creates a new east-west connection to the development and offers the chance to explore existing areas of planting in the lakes overflow area. The boardwalk aligns with an existing crossing at Civic Crescent and has potential to form part of a broader path, and perhaps play, network within the ecological area. The communal podium landscape provides recreational spaces for residents as well as a high level of visual amenity for overlooking apartments. Generous planting and tree planting enhances amenity, while fruit trees, herb gardens, a pétanque piste and lawn area encourage resident involvement and use of the spaces. The podium is irrigated with harvested rainwater.

The landscape enhances the Albany Rose Gardens development, which makes a significant positive contribution to - and sets an excellent precedent for - the future of Albany and its residents.