Rewarewa Footbridge

The Rewarewa Footbridge was one of the early jewels in the crown of the eco city.

It is a pleasant way to get to New Lynn Town Centre.

The footbridge is a work of art turned, by engineers, into a physical reality. It is simultaneously beautiful and utilitarian. It is "different" and yet it enhances safety. It spans a creek and yet it delights the eye and enhances its environment.

This is a principle of the eco city, where utility does not have to be ugly; where beauty does not have to be costly.

The design concept sprang from the creek name, Rewarewa. The bridge form is based on the twisted triangular canoe form and of the Rewarewa seedpod. The flower provided the motifs for balusters, light standards, and lights. The strong visual impact of the bridge enhances the creek experience, providing views of the creek. It has resulted in a planting programme of Rewarewa trees and other native species along the adjacent banks. It has also focused attention on the stream, not as a backwater, but a valuable urban feature.

The project was an outcome the Council's "Urban Villages" strategy, which promotes the creation of high quality environments for residents within existing urban areas. Whereas before, residents were reluctant to use the previous footbridge located deep in the stream gully, the Rewarewa Footbridge enables a safe and accessible link between a retail centre and a residential development. In so doing it provides a pedestrian shortcut to shops and services.

The Council conducted extensive community consultation to determine what form of crossing would best serve the growing residential area of New Lynn and its town centre. The result, commissioned by Waitakere City Council in 1996 and completed in September 1997, has received national attention and a national accolade in the form of a Judges Citation at Creative New Zealand's Creative Places Awards in July 1999.

Making it all happen

The project team consisted of the artist, City Design (architects) and Waitakere City Council. 

Artist Virginia King produced the concept design in response to the following Council brief:

'The footbridge is to be an artistic statement, a sculptural form which relates to the environment. Waitakere City has a well-developed partnership with the arts and would expect to see these talents integrated into the project.' 

Virginia focused her research on the Rewarewa Stream and the Rewarewa tree motifs of seed-pod and flower, as well as the incandescent qualities of the wood, the burning of which was used as a source of lighting by pre-European Maori. The canoe reference has obvious significance for Maori but also builds on Virginia's own work that has often alluded to vessels and passages of transit. Her concept drawings were developed into architectural form by John Anderson from City Design. 

Andrew Jackson is the engineer credited with understanding, interpreting and fabricating an extremely difficult 3-D puzzle.

The project's chief engineer, Simon Guillemin, said that: "Andrew Jackson of Global engineering, deserves a special mention. The work he and his team did was outstanding and the end product is largely a result of their input. One very interesting aspect was the manual bending of the 200mm diameter main truss. This was achieved by applying controlled heating to the tubes in specific places so that expansion and contraction forced bends in the tubes."

This project took Waitakere City's well-developed partnership with the arts to another level that has since been replicated and developed in other civic projects.

How to get there

Access to this walk and footbridge is at the end of Hugh Brown Drive, off Delta Ave, New Lynn. View location map.