Aotearoa Design for Urban Biodiversity Guide

Aotearoa Design for Biodiversity Guide

Supporting architects, landscape architects, planners, policy-makers, and communities, to make design-led decisions that enhance urban biodiversity, strengthen ecological networks, and improve outcomes for people and nature.

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The Aotearoa Design for Urban Biodiversity Guide brings together unique Aotearoa understandings of human nature relationships and recognises buildings as potential contributors to habitat, rather than focusing only on the spaces around them. Beginning with an exploration of the Aotearoa context, particularly in relation to Mātauranga Māori, the guide introduces a Design for Biodiversity Process and a set of Design for Biodiversity Principles to help support and expand design practice.

It also provides a range of specific Design for Biodiversity Strategies that can be explored in relation to spatial scales, species’ needs, synergies with other design goals, and ways that biodiversity focused design can help address common spatial challenges within built environments. The guide includes Case Studies illustrating the application of these approaches and can be used alongside the NZ Biodiversity Factor, a suite of tools for assessing the biodiversity value of urban developments.

DESIGN FRAMEWORK

MĀTAURANGA MĀORI & BIODIVERSITY

Mātauranga Māori frames biodiversity design as a relational, place-based practice grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems, where cultural values, ecological understanding, and long-term stewardship are integrated to guide decisions and outcomes.

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DESIGN FOR BIODIVERSITY PROCESS

A step-by-step design process that moves from understanding place and ecological context through to selecting and integrating targeted design interventions, then evaluating and adapting outcomes over time.

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DESIGN FOR BIODIVERSITY

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

A comprehensive way to expand practice and understand design for biodiversity strategies, concepts, and techniques in architecture and urban design. Adapted and expanded from the Biodiversity Sensitive Urban Design (BSUD) framework (Garrard et al., 2018).

Strategic theme: Co-design with ecological processes
Strategic theme: Co-exist and cooperate
Strategic theme: Connect habitats and facilitate dispersal
Strategic theme: Create and conserve habitats
Strategic theme: Control threats and disturbances

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DESIGN FOR BIODIVERSITY

STRATEGY TYPES

Design for biodiversity strategies are specific design interventions that support ecological health, habitat quality, and species diversity across urban and built environments. Strategies can be explored in relation to different spatial scales, synergies with other design goals, common spatial challenges, and ways to support species needs, helping identify strategies for specific ecological and design contexts.

SCALE

Explore how biodiversity can be considered across interconnected spatial scales, from regions and catchments through to neighbourhoods, sites, buildings, and detail design. This section highlights the need for design responses that are both site specific and connected to wider ecological systems.

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SYNERGIES

Explore how design for biodiversity can strengthen and integrate with wider social, cultural, climatic, and ecological goals. This section highlights the interconnected benefits that can emerge when ecological systems are integrated into urban and built environment design.

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SPATIAL CHALLENGES

Explore common spatial design challenges in urban contexts, from constrained sites to fragmented habitats and altered water systems, and how biodiversity-focused design may work to address these challenges.

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SPECIES

Explore the needs of different native species within urban and built environments, and how design can support habitat creation, ecological connectivity, and more biodiverse urban ecosystems.

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DESIGN FOR BIODIVERSITY

DESIGN STRATEGIES

Find suitable strategies by selecting different combinations of tags related to site scales, species needs, common spatial challenges, and synergies with other design goals.






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DESIGN FOR BIODIVERSITY

CASE STUDIES

How design for biodiversity can be applied in real urban contexts across Aotearoa, across a range of project types, scales, and conditions.

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Aotearoa Design for Biodiversity Guide Acknowledgements

Professor Maibritt Pedersen Zari led the creation of this guide with assistance from Dr Maggie Mackinnon and input and review from the wider Aotearoa BiodiverCity team. Special thanks to Dr Erana Walker for leading the collaboration on the Matāuranga Māori content of the Guide. Thanks to Deon Dean, Abigail Tempe Spence, and Chris de Wattignar for research assistance, case study preparation, formatting, and photography. Thanks to Prof. Amanda Yates, Dr Rachel Nepia, Dr Kiri Wallace, Dr Craig Liddicoat, Prof. Gerry Closs, Dr Shawn Awatere, and an anonymous reviewer for their insights and advice on various sections of the guide. Thanks to Andy Spain for providing the image of Ngā Mokopuna, Wellington at the top of this page.

Aotearoa Design for Biodiversity Guid contact: Maibritt Pedersen Zari [email protected]

Cite as: Pedersen Zari, M., MacKinnon, M., Walker, E., Dean, D., Shanahan, D., van Heezik, Y., Theis, J., Woolley, C., and Freeman, C. (2026). Aotearoa Design for Biodiversity Guide. Aotearoa BiodiverCITY. www.aotearoabiodivercity.org