River of light

The RiverLink engagement container and project team were at Lower Hutt City’s Highlight - Festival of Lights in October 2017. RiverLink partnered with Victoria University Wellington landscape architect students Nicole Crawford and Kadin Hegglun to create Down to the River, a river themed light and sound landscape inspired by the RiverLink designs and the River. Thousands of people walked through the experience and talked to the RiverLink design team.

Down to the River was one of around 20 exhibits and dozens of entertainers that attracted tens of thousands of people to central Lower Hutt over four nights.

Hutt City Council’s Urban Design Manager, Paki Maaka, was delighted with the amount of interest in RiverLink and people’s understanding of the project and its potential.

“For Lower Hutt, RiverLink is so much more than making us safer from floods. It’s great to see so many of our residents taking an active and informed interest in the project and sharing their ideas about making Lower Hutt better. Later this year we’ll share with the community more of the preliminary design and a model of what RiverLink will look like when the city turns to face the river,” he says.

RiverLink provides an opportunity for Lower Hutt to refashion the area between the city and the river into

a lively recreational belt around the Hutt City centre. A promenade will be created that connects to and

over the flood protection stopbanks and will include a pedestrian bridge from Margaret Street to Pharazyn Street, opportunities for urban living in new apartments and space for cafes and retail overlooking the river.