A beautiful, sculptural piece of cycling and walking infrastructure evoking the West Coast, Southern Alps and broad Canterbury Plains has opened near Christchurch International Airport.
The 100-metre cyclist and pedestrian underpass, plus 80-metre ramps, were commissioned by the NZ Transport Agency and designed by Jasmax’s Landscape Architecture team.
It is built east to west on Russley Road, linking the airport with the route to the city (under the roundabout at the intersection of Russley and Harewood Roads).
Inside the underpass, irregular, facetted white sculptural forms (made of precast concrete panels) jut out – referencing the snow-capped Southern Alps. These are bracketed by colour panels marching from west to east.
On the western side, orangey sunset colours set the scene on the panels, followed by dark grey panels representing the stormy west coast sky, then the nor’-west arch and the open blue skies of Canterbury.
Intense pools of sunlight are guided into the underpass by 25 circular skylights, which pierce the roundabout overhead.
“It’s a beautiful piece of the city’s new infrastructure. It’s built to be visually striking. It’s crisp and vibrant,” says Mike Thomas, a principal of Jasmax and a senior landscape architect who founded Jasmax’s Christchurch studio.
“This is exemplary promotion of cycling and walking in the city, and easily matches similar links in Auckland or Wellington.
He adds that most of Jasmax’ staff cycle to work. “It is philosophically important to us to elevate cycling in Christchurch to a level in public perception above a shared lane on the side of the road – hence the care, quality and design attributes in this piece of work. Cycling is a brilliant sustainable form of transport.”
Thomas says that the underpass will form part of the network in Christchurch which is aiming for a threefold increase in cycling movements by 2041.
“Positive design has a tremendous effect on people,” he believes. “People are encouraged by environments that respect the comfort, safety and experience of the user while also responding to the local area they know and love.”
Built by McConnell Dowell-Downer joint venture for the Transport Agency, the underpass recently won a “Concrete Sustainability Award 2016 for Excellence in Civil Concrete Construction” and will be submitted for a number of other national design and building awards.
The underpass is part of the $112 million four-laning of State Highway 1 from Belfast to Hornby, one of the three Christchurch Motorways projects as part of the government’s Roads of National Significance programme.
Images credit: Dean Mackenzie
