Nothing is stopping
New Zealand from building like this…
Aotearoa has a choice: to keep constructing cheap, soulless buildings that only benefit investors, or to put care and love into thoughtfully designed buildings, with beautiful details, proportions and traditional elements - features that make buildings timeless
New Zealand is known around the world for its landscapes. Visitors come for mountains, lakes and coastline that rank among the most beautiful anywhere, then arrive in towns where much of what we have built recently could be anywhere.
Our natural beauty was given to us. Our architectural beauty is a choice.
This isn’t just about new construction.
We aim to fix disastrous urban planning and architecture in 4 ways: restoring the existing, rebuilding what the lost, fixing what breaks a street’s unity, and, mainly, building new, in a traditional style suited to what’s already there.
Conserve
Protect and maintain the heritage buildings New Zealand still has from the Victorian and Colonial era’s
Rebuild
Replace what has been lost in earthquakes, natural disasters or demolition.
Upgrade & Improve
Revitalise buildings that break an otherwise unified street back into line with its neighbours.
Build Traditionally
And mainly, design and construct new buildings in a traditional style suited to what’s already around them.
Civex stands for civic excellence: everything built with purpose, and built to sit well beside its neighbours.
Homes and apartments
Traditional, at a human scale.
Civic buildings
Built to last, and to be proud of.
Large and specialist buildings
Modern is fine. Blank walls are not.
Not just for decoration…
Even if your taste isn’t traditional, beauty is a human need. Aesthetically pleasing places reduce stress, lift our mood and strengthen our connection to where we live. Here are three reasons it matters.
Beautiful buildings help put our country on the map.
Beauty draws people into the central city.
Beautiful places get looked after, so they last for centuries.
One landmark can transform an entire city.
A single ambitious building makes an impact outweighing its cost.
New Zealand doesn’t need 40 of these. It needs just one or two, done properly, in each major centre, something iconic, something to define the country.
What’s Paris without the Eiffel tower? Sydney without the opera house?
Tourism
A landmark gives people a reason to visit a city. Without landmarks, a city has almost no appeal other than being a place to live.
Third Spaces
A cost free space to socialise and relax, away from work or home, landmarks can help form the basis for a 3rd space.
Land Value
Districts built around a landmark see property values climb exponentially around the anchor building
“We shape our buildings, and afterwards they shape us.”
Winston Churchill
Read the full argument.
Each section goes deeper into one part of the case, from why we stopped building beautifully to what needs to change.
Why did we stop building like this? →
What changed, and what it costs to change it back.
The case for tradition →
Why ornament and craft make buildings that last.
Urban planning →
Human scale, walkable streets and squares.
What government must do →
The rules and incentives that need to change.
Our proposal →
Plans for four New Zealand cities.
New Zealand has work to do.
But where do we start?
The following cities aren’t the only ones up for improvement. Click on a city to find out how we invision its potential future.
“Tradition is the sum of successful innovations”
- Mieke Bosse
Traditionalism is not a rejection of innovation, but the preservation of what has proven to be the best. It is the accumulated wisdom of generations of ideas and techniques refined over centuries and passed down, because they work well.
civic excellence
contact@civex.nz
Parklands, Christchurch 8083, New Zealand