Waiheke Island Terracing & Gabion Retaining

The site was a steep coastal slope with very little flat, useable ground. The owners wanted terraced, usable outdoor space without a retaining solution that would dominate the landscape.

Working on Waiheke adds a logistics layer to everything: plant, materials and disposal all move by ferry, on a schedule. A day lost to a missed booking is a day lost outright.

We planned the terracing and the material schedule together, so machine time on the island matched exactly what the barge deliveries could support.

Gabion baskets were selected over a concrete system - they suit the coastal setting visually, drain freely on a slope like this, and could be filled with material handled on site rather than trucked in finished.

Terraces were cut and retained in sequence from the bottom up, keeping the working platform stable throughout.

The section now steps down in usable terraces instead of falling away in one unusable slope, roughly doubling the ground the owners can actually use.

The gabion walls weather into the coastal landscape rather than standing out against it.