what? No Colossus of Kerry? I was hoping someone might have stolen my idea as I didn’t have any time for it….

That said, I love one of the first entries from the Wellington Waterfront site – a proposal for an exhibition hall. Umm….

ugh… i wish i hadn’t started looking at the competition entries. Some of those are too depressing to even contemplate.

Wow, something to annoy everyone! Everything from “Gee, maybe a hotel isn’t such a bad idea after all” to those who still believe that, in the face of all meteorological, sociological and historical reality, a wharf stuck out into the middle of a windswept harbour is the ideal place for a lawn.

Yawn…

Do we actually need to develop it at all, especially in the current climate of profligate rates increases (if you go along with old Rodder’s). What is so wrong with status quo until an actual need comes along (and it seems awfully shortsighted to create a need simply to raise revenue for re-piling…. The alternative, already explored, is to give the site up for commercial development, so that we lose any opportunity to have something meaningful located there for the next half century or so (depending on the rate of rising seal levels…).

There are other areas of the waterfront that need completing before we tackle this one – Frank Kitt’s Park, The dreadful TSB Arena, and north of Kumutoto would be good places to start – get the promenade completed before indulging in fantasies of iconicness, which, call me a realist if you will, are never going to be fully committed to…

Can’t wait for those “rising seal levels”, although I suppose that, in theory, the seals do rise along with the seas??

Perhaps we should just raze everything there currently, and then let people build what they want there. A giant community lego set.

Is there anything stopping us building more “t”s or piers jutting out in to the harbour on piles? I can’t imagine it’d be any more expensive to build a new one than to re-pile an old one. So we could pop a hotel on one (if Hilton were prepared to pay to re-pile the Outer T, then presumably they’d pay to build a new T if they could pop a hotel on it), an exhibition center on another, and a roller coaster on a third.

I think we should build our own London Eye – would be a perfect spot for it and add an iconic feature to our skyline.

Iconic, iconic, schmonic. Scweppes and tonic. But yes, exactly.

From memory, only cost $90m NZ. You got enough tourists to fill it every day and every night?

Maximus – it doesn’t have to be filled every night.
And anyway didn’t you read the paoer yesterday – Wellington is NZ’s most loved destination.

Wellington actually has a pretty good occupancy rate – I believe it’s about 80% Mon-Thurs and 60% Fri-Sun, which is very high by international standards.

We are hampered by not having a five star hotel in Wellington (and please don’t write and tell me that the Intercontinental is 5 star – it’s not, even if they say they are….).
Anyway that’s enough on the Hilton…

I to was disappointed at the quality of the entries for the Outer T.
Especially compared to teh quality of the entries for Auckland’s Queens Wharf.
Did you check those out? Fantastic.

But then I realised that there is a 100% chance of something getting built on Queens Wharf and they had a very clearly defined brief (“Party Central – Tourist Area – Cruise Ship dock”).
What we have is a 0% chance of getting something built and a very wishy-washy brief (“Um… iconic…um… whatever you think is best….”)
*sigh*

Before you consider the value of our own “London Eye” google the news reports of the disasterous “Southern Star” observation wheel in Melbourne. I was there a few weeks ago and it was in a number of pieces. Not ideal.

Love the various design ideas, particularly the one that looks like a huddle of giant glowworms in a sexual frenzy. Truly, I haven’t seen anything so unusual since I stopped taking LSD back at Uni.

But here’s the thing: people need to want to *go* there. It has to have shops, places of interest etc, otherwise it just becomes a monument to some architect’s ego. Adding giant glow-worms to Queen’s Wharf doesn’t change the equation. It needs to be a place attractive and habitable by human beings. And it needs to be approachable and integrated with the rest of the waterfront. So I agree with the previous poster: tearing down the ASB monstrosity would help.

But I’m sure if we put up these proposals and then have a democratic vote by all of Wellington then the best design will burst forth. This is the way it is with all urban design. Just as it is with art, the masses always have the best sense of taste and aesthetic, not to mention the best long-range vision.

“And, Pike says, the competition has brought forward entries from parties keen on investing in the Outer T – something Wellington Waterfront Limited was hoping for.” (Capital Times)

A blue sky concept competition ….. Yeah right!

Prole – we haven’t put up the other ones in the competition yet, but yes, they would be an interesting contrast. And for once I think that the profession have come out rather well off from this competition, in comparison to the public. Aside from teh school kids, with their wonderfully naive drawings and perceptions of reality, the general public seem to have totally lost the plot.

A Rugby Museum.
A place for NZ produce, such as NZ fruit juices.
A jewish holocaust museum – just explain to me what relevance a memorial made of 600,000 buttons would have to murdered Jewish school children stuck on a wharf in the middle of Wellington harbour?