Charting Auckland waterfront's course

Plans to develop Auckland's waterfront present a great opportunity to make a mark on the world. ANNE GIBSON reports.

American architect Eric Kuhne, who advocated a radical plan for Auckland's Viaduct Harbour last week, says the city has a chance to make its mark on a global scale with its waterfront redevelopment.

Commenting on the debate on the future of the land, Mr Kuhne said yesterday the chance to have a campus on the Tank Farm and emphasise our knowledge economy could not be missed.

"What will make Auckland's waterfront different to the predictable cappuccino brigade that litters the rest of the world's urban waterfronts is that it will feature the invention and innovation of New Zealand's global leadership in marine industries and it will intricately weave a compelling educational strategy into the entire waterfront," he said.

"But to use these development typologies to underwrite and endow civic garden rooms, that is exceptional.

"To make this a place that empowers the best of New Zealand and creates opportunities in a knowledge economy ... well, that is something that will tweak the rest of the world."

As for the ideas for Victoria Park, Mr Kuhne said there were two options.

"The first is that we want to bring the park down to the water's edge," he said.

"The second option is to bring the harbour closer to the park. In either case, the result is the same - a grand, majestic gateway for the citizens of Auckland and New Zealand to congregate close to the water in a civic garden.

"However, none of this is possible without the economic engine of development to build, maintain and breathe life into this public park/waterfront.

"The offices, shops, residences, leisure amenities and most of all the maritime industry are as essential a use of this waterfront as any."

John Whitehead, project director for the Auckland Waterfront Advisory Group, said the core group of architects would present between three and five proposals for the land in April or May. In the meantime, the group wanted to be left alone to get on with its job. The time for public feedback and debate would be when the core group had come up with a range of options.

Others have criticised Mr Kuhne's ideas, saying Auckland could be laughed at by the rest of the world if it adopted some of the suggestions.

Dushko Bogunovich, associate professor of urban design at the School of Architecture at Unitec Institute of Technology, warned against some of Mr Kuhne's proposals.

"Waterspouts and canals will not be of great help," he said. "The big boys of the global scene - the Manhattans and the Darling Harbours - will once again look down upon us and will pity us for trying to be Venice or Geneva, when for a million obvious geographic and historic reasons we are not and will never be.

"Even if the execution of these projects is aesthetically and technologically impeccable, we will not get much attention because in this world obsessed with technological primacy everybody knows that water canals belong to the 19th century and waterspouts to the 20th century.

"The brief for this project should start from the excellent idea of an innovation harbour as Auckland's response to the global challenge of developing a knowledge economy. The core of the innovation theme should be led, but not necessarily dominated, by the maritime theme.

"The focus should be on learning, research, experimentation, arts, design, media, engineering, technology - everything that is either directly connected to the yachting industry or is inspired by the design philosophy that has dominated the production and servicing of boats, ships and yachts for centuries.

"There is no need for the Tank Farm to look or function like another playground.

"The business of the Tank Farm should be that - business - centring on design and technology of every possible kind, including manufacturing, landscape design, architecture, urbanism, civil, environmental, marine engineering, etc."

Nicky Treadwell, also of Unitec, said plans to further develop the harbour edge as a place for people were a step in the right direction, but that such moves needed to be considered in an overall design context and not simply as an exercise in planning or of architecture.

Ms Treadwell, a lecturer in Unitec's bachelor of landscape architecture programme and executive member of the Institute of Landscape Architects, said the Tank Farm alone had significant issues of contamination by toxic substances

"It is still, despite the removal of many of its former activities, a potential explosive risk," she said.

"Considerable remedial work will need to be undertaken to make the area safe, which may, by its very nature, have an impact on the resulting use and shape of the adjacent areas.

"Much of the reclaimed land in the area is suitable for some activities but not others, and detailed research will need to be undertaken as to its suitability for the suggestions in the concept plan.

"Ecologically, the harbour edge is fragile and unique and any development should seek to recognise and remedy damage."