Top talent lends its expertise to Viaduct plans

By ANNE GIBSON

The group that is reshaping Auckland's waterfront was formed last year by some powerful organisations with a vested interest in seeing the best use made of the land.

Infrastructure Auckland joined landowners Viaduct Harbour Holdings, Ports of Auckland and America's Cup Village Ltd to form the Auckland Waterfront Advisory Group, which will spend this year producing a blueprint for redeveloping the area.

Sydney-based urban planner Malcolm Latham is chairman, and the project director is John Whitehead, former boss of Mainzeal, now with consultancy Lanterra.

Some of the world's top architects and urban planners are also involved.

Eric Kuhne and Sir Peter Hall are two members of the advisory group's international review panel, a group of overseas and local experts established to lend a global perspective to the project.

Texas-born Mr Kuhne heads architect, landscape and civic arts consultants Eric R. Kuhne & Associates, whose headquarters are in London. His firm was concept architect for the vast Bluewater development, near the M25 motorway south of the Dartford Tunnel in Kent.

This £350 million shopping and leisure centre - on a 100ha plot of land which had been a chalk pit - is said to be the most advanced building in Europe of its type.

Mr Kuhne was also involved in Sydney's Darling Harbour redevelopment.

Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London, is one of the world's top city planners and author of more than 30 books on urban and regional planning.

Also on the international review panel is Stuart Hornery, the recently retired chairman of international property conglomerate Lend Lease, Sir Ron Carter, the executive director of consulting engineers Beca Carter in Auckland, and Dr John Hood, vice-chancellor of the University of Auckland.

A core group of six architects and urban planners are also in on the action. They are Clinton Bird, associate professor of architecture at the University of Auckland, Marshall Cook, of Cook Sargisson and Pirie, Gordon Moller, of Craig Craig Moller, David Mitchell, of Mitchell Stout, Pip Cheshire, of Jasmax, and Patrick Clifford, of Architectus New Zealand.

The job of this core group is now to draw up the master plan for the area. It is expected to differ markedly from the concept graphic sketched by Mr Kuhne and published in the Weekend Herald of February 2-3.

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Civic Art

University College London