New urban park for Wellington

[JNL]

My city is getting a new urban park. I took some photos while visiting the partially completed park today. It is proving to be a very popular park! It is bordered by the waterfront on one side and a very busy road on the other. A free outdoor photo exhibit has drawn thousands of visitors - 'Earth from Above' by Yann Arthus-Bertrand is touring the world and if you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.

For more info on the park design check this site: http://www.wellingtonwaterfront.co.n..._introduction/

Note: for larger images, check out images in the gallery.


Photo exhibit on the left and skate park on the right.


The skate park is hugely popular and seems to have caused a revival in popularity of skateboarding.




This shows one side of the climbing wall, adjacent to the skate park.


The playground is also very popular. To the right, just out of the picture, are the public toilets, which haven't been completed yet... so we've been getting a few complaints about that from parents! To the left in the background is a glimpse of the harbour.


The kids just love playing with the gravel!


This large grassy area in the centre is for concerts etc. I went to a free outdoor concert here a couple of weeks back and the place was packed with people of all ages, some with picnics. To the right, covered in scaffolding, is an historic building that is being redeveloped into luxury apartments, with retail and commercial on the ground level. Centre background is our national museum, Te Papa.

[noottamevas]

That skate park is cool!! It looks like it belongs there. All the ones I've seen look like an afterthought.

[JNL]

That skate park is cool!! It looks like it belongs there. All the ones I've seen look like an afterthought.

Yes it's pretty cool. I didn't take pictures of the detail but where you can see a whole lot of people standing and looking down in the right hand side of the second photo is a specially-designed skate bowl that has drawn a lot of interest. It is right next to a busy road and there's a supermarket across the street so there's plenty of natural surveillance. Lights go out (apart from street lighting) at 10pm as a deterrent to hanging around there after dark. I'm interested to see how the graffiti battle plays out - I'm already aware that the maintenance manager is getting new graffiti painted out almost daily.... I'd be interested in seeing a little tolerance of graffiti in this area - it's to be used by young people after all and there are a lot of blank concrete surfaces, and as long as offensive graffiti is cleaned up quickly, I don't think a little graffiti should be a big deal.