Gold stars for flood workshop

For two days The Dowse turned into an interactive design hub for adults and children alike.

As well as tablet computers and a video, there were crayons and sheets of paper to draw on.

There were gold stars to affix to walls and special stickers to attach to a giant satellite image of the Hutt River. But the events weren’t part of any school holiday programme. Instead, the ’’design workshops’’ were part of the consultation process for a $143 million flood protection.

Held on September 29 and October 1, they were designed to get public input into the design of the RiverLink project.

The project combines the final stage of Greater Wellington Regional Council’s flood protection upgrades with elements of Hutt City Council’s Making Places project, between the Ewen and Kennedy-Good bridges.

The back wall of the room is lined with large sheets showing design features of other similar projects around the world.

Those taking part in the workshops were given a large, printed satellite view of the river as well as a set of stickers.

If people liked one of the design features from elsewhere and would want to see it included in the RiverLink design, that’s where the gold stars come in.

The number of stars on each image would then be recorded in a spreadsheet to be factored in to design considerations.

Other stickers handed out showed activities such as swimming, biking and even ‘‘relaxing’’, which were able to be stuck to a large printed image of the river to show where people would like to be able to do those things.

Marc Baily, an urban planning partner with consultancy Boffa Miskell is overseeing the Riverlink project’s design.

The input from those who attended the workshops would be incorporated in to the preliminary design for the project, due to be unveiled by March 2017.

Baily said it was great that children attended the workshops.

‘‘This is a long-term project. We want to see what tomorrow’s adults want too.’’