East Frame Space Activation Programme

A rich, diverse and exciting programme

Fletcher Living engaged Gap Filler to design a placemaking strategy and programme for them. They’ll be building 900 homes in a six block area (the East Frame) over about eight years, and want to use the vacant sites awaiting development to deliver good community outcomes within a fixed budget. We worked with Fletcher Living and development partners Ōtākaro  and Matapopore to articulate the overarching aims of the programme. We started dialogues with more than 30 different local community groups, social enterprises, and businesses – and five inner city residents associations – about what they’d like to see in the programme and whether they’d wish to be part of it. We brought in Field Studio of Architecture and Urbanism and JN Creative to work on the spatial design and graphic design and layout. We presented a 110-page full-colour document with strategic objectives, maps of current activity hotspots, summaries of resident feedback, six overarching programme themes, long-term integration strategies with the future development, a relationship and engagement plan, media and branding content, and an indicative programme of 34 projects all cross-referenced as to which of the strategic objectives they’d be achieving. We presented a full budget, with the indicative programme Quantity Surveyed by Aecom, and had the whole document peer reviewed by our colleague Mike Lydon of Street Plans Collaborative (NYC). You might be able to tell we’re just a bit proud of the end result – and of the rigorous process that got us there.