Immensity - An Exploration of Emphasis in Kapiti Quarry

Quarries are powerful. They are full of energy. They are vast. However, what happens when they are exhausted? What happens when the excavations cease and they begin to decay? This thesis is an investigation into how Kapiti Quarry’s post-industrial landscape can be redeveloped. Quarries are often repurposed, remediated and redeveloped in three ways. They are filled with water to become a lake. They are built upon to create housing developments. They are filled up with sculpted vegetation to become a garden.  This thesis is an investigation into how Kapiti Quarry’s powerful landscape can be characterised, emphasised and designed. The thesis contains a series of design experiments that examine how the landscape scale interacts with the human scale, how small interventions can create moments of emphasis, how framing and viewports highlight the landscape, and how large interventions interact with their surroundings.  These experiments come together to develop the post-industrial quarry while emphasising the quarry’s key characteristic of immensity.