Road markings in Palmerston North took a decidedly creative turn on the weekend. The intersection of Church St and the Square was transformed by tactical urbanists into a colourful work of art to walk, ride or drive over, based on poutama designs.
"The idea of poutama in this case is
about climbing to a point in life," said Warren Warbrick.
"To attain a higher achievement and in a sense, looking at what's happening right now, the concept of Te Marae o Hine, as you can see everyone here is working together to create an artwork as a community to reach a common goal."
Streets were closed for the day to allow the community from the Square Edge building next to the roundabout to get stuck in and make its marks. It's been a long time coming for some.
"We've been engaging with the community for just under six to eight months to get into this process," said Georgina Dean of Palmerston North City Council. "And this is just a test to see if we can slow down speed, create pedestrian safety, slow it all down, make people feel more comfortable in the space.
"From there, we'll be able to see if it works and if it does work, we can develop the project further."
The project received funding from Waka Kotahi as an Innovating Streets project and was collectively designed by artists from Square Edge.
"Tenants inside Square Edge wanted to reflect the kind of vibrancy in life that we have happening inside the building on the outside," said Dr Karen Seccombe.
"Often people will walk past our building and don't really know what's going on in there.
It's just a way for showing people all the kind of diversity of the arts that goes on in our building."
Once the intersection was back in action, drivers weren't thrown off course by the designs which bodes well for other innovating streets projects coming to Palmerston North.
Video footage supplied by Palmerston North City Council.
