Waka Toa Ora

The diagram above describes the different factors that the built environment can contribute to making Christchurch the most liveable city in the world for people of all ages and abilities.

In the centre is this goal. Surrounding the goal are the principles to assist in achieving the goal: health promotion, equity and social justice, environmental sustainability, the Treaty of Waitangi and universal design.
Surrounding the principles are the guidelines used such as physical and visual access, safety, and friendliness to all ages (children, youth and elderly) and for those with dementia.
Lastly surrounding the guidelines are the design domains or settings: the parts of the built environment. This includes housing stock and neighbourhoods, green spaces, public, retail and commercial buildings, health, sport and recreation facilities, and also transport.

The Fact Bank contains relevant demographic and economic information that can inform design and building decisions.

This page contains links to resources and publications relating to each of these factors.

Your feedback on this Building for All portal is welcomed. Please send any suggestions, comments or questions, including documents to add to Allison Nichols-Dunsmuir (allison.nichols-dunsmuir[at]cdhb.health.nz).

Design Domains

Green Spaces

• Open and green spaces [Christchurch City Health Profile].
• The Value of Public Space: How high quality parks and public spaces create economic, social and environmental value [CABE Space UK].

Health and Education Premises

• North Carolina’s Plan to promote the health of people with disabilities: Everywhere everyday everybody 2010-2020 (Second edition) gives an example of how a US state approaches improving the health of people with disabilities, including the role of health premises [North Carolina Office on Disability and Health 2013].

Housing Stock

• Beacon Beacon Pathway Incorporated has online resources on being HomeSmart, building back smarter and environmentally sustainable housing.
• Buildings and health [Build: Issue 129 (April/May 2012) from BRANZ].
• Getting Accessible Housing: Practical Approaches to Encouraging Industry Take-up and Meeting Need reports on ways to improve lifetime housing supply in New Zealand. The report was written for the Office for Disability Issues and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. [CRESA 2012].
• Homes for life [Build: Issue 138 (November/December 2013) from BRANZ].

Neighbourhoods

• Planning and health resource guide for designing and building healthy neighborhoods identifies useful links about the ways that neighbourhoods can promote health [Centres for Disease Control USA].
• Urban design and planning [Christchurch City Health Profile].

Public Buildings

• Active by Design: designing places for healthier lives [Design Council UK 2014].

Retail and Commercial Buildings

• Good access = good business: A business accessibility checklist [Tasman District Council].

Sport and Recreational Spaces

• Activity levels and exercise [Christchurch City Health Profile].
• Doing sport differently: A guide to exercise and fitness for people living with disability or health conditions [Disability Rights UK 2014].

Transport

• Active Transport [Christchurch City Health Profile].
• Guidance on accessible car parking gives specifications and advice on meeting requirements for mobility parking [Department of Building and Housing and Barrier Free Trust NZ 2008].
• Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide is New Zealand's comprehensive official guide to planning and design for walking. It sets out ways to improve New Zealand’s walking environment. Addresses the varied abilities of pedestrians [New Zealand Transport Authority 2008].
• Public Transport [Christchurch City Health Profile].

Guidelines

Age Friendly

• Age Friendly City [Christchurch City Health Profile].
• Building age-friendly communities: New approaches to challenging health and social inequalities looks at reducing of social and health inequalities by improvements in the built environment [Kendig and Phillipson 2014].
• Checklist of essential features of age-friendly cities includes how the built environment impacts on elderly [World Health Organisation].
• Global Age-friendly cities: A guide gives comprehensive guidelines on age-friendly cities [World Health Organisation 2007].

Child Friendly

• Child Friendly Cities [UNICEF NZ].
• Child Friendly Communities [Planning Institute of Australia].
• What we know about how urban design affects children and young people: The interaction between health outcomes and the built environment. [Stevenson 2007].

Dementia Friendly

• 10 principles for enabling dementia design [Alzheimers Australia].
• Building dementia-friendly communities: A priority for everyone [Alzheimer’s Society UK 2013].
• The Dementia Services Development Centre at the University of Stirling has several publications on the design and adaptation of homes for those with dementia.
• Excellence in design: Optima living spaces for people with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias [Alzheimers Foundation of America 2014].
• Making Christchurch Dementia-Friendly: Perspectives of People with Dementia - presentation by researcher Karen Smith (2014).

Physical Access

• Barrier Free Built Environments: guidelines for quality accessibility using NZ Standard 4121 and the NZ Building Code [Barrier Free NZ Trust 2013].

Safety

• Creating Safe Places to Live Through Design [Design Council UK 2014].
• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) [Ministry of Justice].
• Including people with disabilities: Information for the CDEM Sector gives consideration for emergency planning [Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management 2013].
• Issues experienced by disabled people following the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake series: Evidence based analysis to inform future planning and best practice guidelines for better emergency preparedness gives consideration for emergency planning [Phibbs et al. GNS Science Report 2012/40].

Visual Access

• Accessible signage guidelines gives advice on signage to assist people who are blind, low-vision or deafblind. These guidelines are now incorporated into the New Zealand Building Code (Section F8 Signs) as an acceptable solution to achieve compliance [Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind 2013].
• "I might not see you but you can always see me" road and pedestrian safety campaign from Vision Australia.
  View an audio described version of the "I might not see you, but you can always see me" safety video.
  View a captioned version of the "I might not see you, but you can always see me" safety video.

• "Let's Go! - Assisting Blind Passengers" is a video from the Association of Blind Citizens' (Southland Branch) that helps airline ground crew, taxi and bus drivers give their blind, vision impaired and deaf/blind passengers a smoother ride.

Youth Friendly

• Urban design guidelines with young people in mind [New South Wales Urban Design Advisory Service 1999].

Principles

Environmental Sustainability

• Your home: Australia’s guide to environmentally sustainable homes [Government of Australia].

Equity, Culture and Social Justice

• Better Design and Buildings for Everyone: Disabled People’s Rights and the Built Environment [NZ Human Rights Commission 2012].
• How to design a city for women considers urban design and transport from the female perspective [The Atlantic Cities 2013].

Health Promotion

• The Case for Healthy Places [Project for Public Spaces 2016]. NEW
• Active by Design: designing places for healthier lives [Design Council UK 2014].
• Enabling Health: Taking action to improve health of people with a disability: Evidence-based health promotion resource examines health and disability using a public health perspective [VicHealth 2014].
• Healthy Community Design Checklist Toolkit [Centres for Disease Control USA].
• Healthy Environments [Issue 36 (April 2013) of VicHealth Letter].
• Healthy places, healthy lives: Urban environments and wellbeing [Public Health Advisory Committee 2010].
• Healthy Spaces & Places. A national guide to designing places for healthy living: An overview [Planning Institute Australia 2009].
• How can we make communities healthy by design? is a presentation from Bilie Giles-Corti (University of Western Australia) on the relationship between obesity, health and the design of environments.
• Promoting public health and wellbeing in your community [Public Health Association NZ 2010].

Treaty of Waitangi

• Maori kuia in Aotearoa/New Zealand looks at perceptions of Marae and impacts on health [Pimatisiwin: Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health 2012].
• Marae accessibility toolkit [Te Whakaaheitanga Marae 2010].
• Te Pae Mahutonga: a model for Maori health promotion [Durie 1999].

Universal Design

• Universal Design Toolbox [BRANZ 2013].

Fact Bank

• Disability and Physical Activity poster [Centres for Disease Control USA 2014].
• The economic benefits of increasing employment for people with disability was commissioned by the Australian Network on Disability [Deloitte 2011].
• Including a disability perspective in recovery planning: A guide for people doing recovery planning in Greater Christchurch [Ministry of Social Development and the Office for Disability Issues 2012].
• Valuing homes that perform well [Beacon Pathway].