The city you want is closer than you think
A journey to reclaim Tauranga’s city streets through playful, community-led experiments in temporary urbanism. What if pop-ups, parklets and a little imagination could transform the city — not in five years, but next weekend?
Tauranga, a city in Aotearoa/New Zealand, has been through the wringer over the past few decades — controversial construction chaos, vacant shops, and a slow-moving identity crisis that’s made it hard to feel excited about what’s next. And yet… as I started talking to more people across the city, I could feel something bubbling under the surface. Amid the pessimism and the narrative that everything’s going downhill, I found people who spoke with optimism — hopeful about what could change.
For myself, as someone who’s lived and worked in cities around the world, seeking meaningful connection wherever we’ve landed, I found my attention turning inward and toward the place I’m in now. I’ve always been interested in the idea of place — not just the physical landscape, but the cultural, emotional, and social textures that give it meaning.
This is a story about what happens when you pause long enough to ask:
What if we didn’t have to wait for massive civic developments to transform the city into a vibrant hub?
What if small experiments made with heart, collaboration and curiosity could help us reimagine our streets, not five years from now, but next weekend?
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Hitting Pause — and Looking Sideways
A while back, I stepped away from UX design. Not because I stopped caring about design — but because I wanted to care differently. The speed, the hype, the AI features promising to outpace us all left me wondering to what end? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-tech, but I do like to keep an attentive eye on how it shapes our lives, and what we let go of in return. One question I kept circling back to was where meaningful work lives when everything moves this fast?
I took a sideways step — not to another agency or startup, but to a bookshelf. My own bookshelf at home in fact. Stacked upon it are books on cities, ethnography, planning, atlases — books I have collected over the years without quite knowing why.
That curiosity led me to study environmental planning at the University of Waikato. Somewhere in a lecture or a textbook, I stumbled across a phrase that lit a small fire in me:
Temporary urbanism.
Pop-Ups, Parklets, and Proof-of-Concept Cities
Have you ever seen a shipping container turned into a coffee shop? Or a vacant lot transformed into a mini-park? That’s temporary urbanism.
I’ve been especially inspired by the work of Kim Dovey and Quentin Stevens in Melbourne. Their book Temporary and Tactical Urbanism breaks it down well. Temporary interventions aren’t just one-off flukes — they’re nimble, creative responses to the rigidity of cities. They’re fast, iterative and a bit messy — but in a good way. They make room for art, small business, whimsy and spontaneity. Most of all, they give communities a chance to say: This is what we want more of. It tapped into my sense of what good design should be.
In the words of Jan Gehl, the pioneering Danish architect who championed people-first cities:
“First life, then space, then buildings.”
Cities aren’t just infrastructure and investment. We don’t need to wait for permanent, top-down development to create vibrant public life.
A City on the Edge of Something
Back in Tauranga, the timing felt oddly right. After a decade of stalled leadership, new developments have started a transition: new laneways, a museum, a library, a city transforming, shifting and growing in new ways. But there has been damage. Construction zones have pushed people out. Small businesses are hurting. Grey Street is really living up to its name.
There have been efforts to activate underused spaces — colourful sculptures in windows, high-fiving car parks — but it still feels hard to find the pulse. The skeleton of an exciting future is here. But where’s the street life?
I keep thinking of examples from around the world where temporary, community-led projects have transformed underused streets into something vibrant. Milan has had inspiring success with its Piazza Aperte program; Ōtautahi/Christchurch has found creative ways to reunite and rebuild after the traumatic earthquake with Gap Filler and Life In Vacant Places. Hannah Fry in London found a way to turn an unloved car park into a creative and cultural hub for Peckham. Surely there’s a way to bridge the gap between Tauranga today and the long-term vision ahead? Something collaborative and playful. Something that doesn’t need a $5 million grant or a three-year plan.
The pandemic only underscored what temporary urbanism has been saying all along — we can move quickly when we need to. We don’t always need years of planning and big budgets. Sometimes, we just need creativity, community, and the courage to try.
That’s when I started sketching out what would become The Local Lab.
From Ideas to Invitations
At first, it was just me and a vague sense that things could be different. So I reached out — to artists, business owners, planners, architects, community advocates. I asked questions and listened carefully, realising that I wasn’t the only one craving this.
Last month, I gave a talk about temporary urbanism at Priority One. I expected a quiet room. Instead, the space buzzed with energy — educators, designers, small business owners, even a few from Council.
We talked about small, tangible interventions. Low-cost and reversible. Public DJ turntables and floating pontoons, even a new mini beach in the city. Things that don’t need to wait for top-down planning. There is an optimism that we can shape our streets ourselves — now.
So, What’s Next?
This is my belief: we don’t have to wait for big-budget projects to make Tauranga’s streets more vibrant.
Right now, I’m developing workshops to gather ideas for sites and interventions. I’m drafting proposals for larger initiatives — ones that both excite and intimidate me. But what’s the harm in dreaming big and inviting collaboration? An open-source urban design experiment.
Are you a teacher working with young people? I’d love to hear how students could shape their city.
A young person hoping for positive change? Your voice matters.
A landscape architect or planner? Let’s talk.
An artist thinking about provocation, colour, reclaiming space? Your creativity belongs here.
A business owner who understands what actually works on the ground? Your insights are gold.
Temporary urbanism opens up new pathways for everyone to co-create the city. It’s faster, more playful, more inclusive than traditional planning ever was. We can prototype the fun into the city. We can test community-run installations. We can build weird and wonderful spaces that make you stop and smile. Yes, they’re temporary — but not throwaway. They’re test beds for belonging. They spark conversation and build trust. They help to create the kind of public life that permanent infrastructure can grow around. It’s not just about events or aesthetics. It’s about creating a sense of belonging to place that is meaningful to each of us no matter what our story or background is.
Want to come on the journey?
If you’ve made it this far, maybe you’re one of the curious ones too. Maybe you have an idea or a question. Or just a lingering feeling that something is missing. Please reach out. Building strong and diverse connections across the community is what makes this work. You don’t have to be a designer or an architect, just someone who cares about the future of this place. Right now, The Local Lab is small, but the doors are wide open. Let’s build something — before someone tells us we can’t.