Intergrated Solutions for Grey Lynn: Workshop with APW

Auckland Permaculture Workshop (APW) members Gary Marshall, Rilke de Vos and Finn Mackesy ran a workshop at the August Grey Lynn 2030 meeting. APW is a collaborative design, research and education initiative set up to explore and create innovative permaculture solutions for the Auckland bioregion.

The intention of the workshop was to expose Grey Lynn 2030 members to systems thinking, problem solving and community resilience through the lens of regenerative design. APW began by asking the community members at the meeting to name the major issues, concerns and opportunities of the Grey Lynn community today.  The task was for participants to apply design thinking to these issues to begin to explore appropriate solutions.

Each group was asked to choose two main issues from the original brainstorm to focus their design process. One group identified transportation and public space as the two issues they wanted to investigate while another group identified housing (quality) and Health as their two main issues for the community today.  Each group brainstormed what they thought the underlying issues were and their causes (survey) before beginning to explore the opportunities and constraints associated with those issues (analysis). Once each group had a clearer understanding of what the opportunities and challenges were and how these issues related to each other they began to explore possible creative integrated solutions for both issues. Each group drew and recorded their design process on A3 sheets of paper and presented their designs to the wider group at the end of the activity. This was followed by a group discussion on various ideas, challenges and proposed solutions that arose from the design process.

For more information on Auckland Permaculture Workshop visit their website:
http://www.aucklandpermacultureworkshop.co.nz/index.html

For more information on the design activity and proposed solutions to these issues contact greylynn2030@gmail.com