Motu Design
Urban Strategy, Design and Landscape
Working together to create great places
Motu Design is a collective of design professionals that specialize in cross-disciplinary design practice to help our clients resolve complex urban development and city planning issues. Our collaborative approach breaks down communication barriers to enable positive win-win solutions for property developers, urban communities, iwi and hapū, that create healthy and sustainable environments for existing and future generations.
Ka tu korua aroara ki te aroaro, ka haere anake korua ki tetahi taha atu ranei, a, ka haere pea korua ki muri. Mehemea e hiahia ana korua ki te haere ki mua, me haere korua taha ki te aha.
When you stand face to face you can only step sideways or go back. Only when you walk side by side can you go forward together.
We offer a targeted and personal approach to meet our client needs. No project is too small or big. Our designers are engaged in a range of design, community, planning and research processes for public and private clients.
Design.
We take an integrated and collaborative approach.
Our urban design work starts with a thorough understanding of a project's aim, the site and its context, existing and future potential, character, community, and development feasibility.
Our landscape design services compliment Motu’s integrated approach to urban design and working with multidisciplinary teams.
Community.
Our approach to working with communities is founded on the importance of understanding and respecting relationships, and the diversity of cultural values, needs and aspirations within different communities.
We believe collaboration between communities, governments, Iwi, Hapu and the development industry is important for tackling the big issues towns and cities face in the management of growth and change, including climate change resiliency, social equity and healthy environments.
Planning.
As urban designers we work with town planning processes to ensure that growth and change are managed in a sustainable way, that meets the needs of existing and future generations.
Our team is experienced at working with designers and planners under the Resource Management Act. We understand the complexity of the consenting and plan-making process and how to successfully navigate this through aligning policy objectives with good design outcomes and a robust evidence base
Research
We embrace opportunities to be innovative alongside an evidence based approach to research and the evolution of best practice urban design in Aotearoa.
Considering new ways of thinking and exploring how we might improve urban design and development inclusive of Tikanga Maori. This includes academic research, teaching, ongoing professional development, publications, presentations and working with industry colleagues to make submissions on matters of public significance.
Motu Design
Motu means island or region in Māori and many Pacific languages.
Motu Design Ltd, reflects our team’s passion for seeking urban solutions that uphold the Treaty of Waitangi and respond positively to the challenges of our South Pacific location, amongst the winds of global changes in technology and climate.
We are focused on the art of making urban places for people by working across disciplines and boundaries to encourage collaboration and integration between the social and physical elements that create a city. This includes the design of streets, neighbourhoods, buildings, landscapes and the activities they support, which collectively create a city and define its character.
In the context of contemporary New Zealand, good urban outcomes support the creation of well-functioning urban environments whilst being kaitiaki (guardians) of our land and waterways. Ensuring that what we build is of a quality and character that is sustainable and resilient and that enables a diversity of living environments to support the health and well-being of communities and future generations. This requires holistic and multi-disciplinary design skills, understanding the complexity of context at varying scales, and working with natural systems (such as ecology, topography, and water) to support the human systems (such as transport, food, economy, culture) that form cities and create great places for people to live work and play.
Motu Design was founded in 2005. Tracy has over 20 years of experience working as an urban designer for local government and private clients within multi-disciplinary teams on complex projects. She has taught at the University of Auckland, and is a Chair of the Auckland Urban Design Panel having been a panel member since 2012. She is also a Certified Hearings Panel Commissioner.
Director Tracy Ogden-Cork BAS, Arch (Hons), March (Hons)
Get in touch.
Our design and communication skills combined with our understanding of communities and planning approval processes, will add significant value to your project.