Another professional, sensible and aesthetically comfortable scheme where the only thing concerning is the absence of anything exciting. How difficult is it to design an articulate public realm, particularly on such a brilliant site. Is 'active edge' and nice details all we get?

The gray parade continues…

“Affordable housing part of waterfront makeover
5:00AM Wednesday May 28, 2008
By Anne Gibson

Developers working on Auckland’s Tank Farm development are discussing building a cheap housing cluster in the heart of the city’s waterfront makeover.

John Dalzell, project director for Sea+City, a subsidiary of Auckland Regional Holdings, yesterday announced that a component of affordable housing was earmarked for the marine area.

Over the next 25 years, the 35ha sweep of land to the east of downtown Auckland will be transformed from a bleak industrial precinct into a modern waterfront. The multibillion-dollar project will include apartments, offices, shops, bars and cafes, as well as the existing marine and fishing industries. There will also be a 4.25ha park jutting out into the Waitemata Harbour that could include an iconic public building.

The Government wants to force developers to build low-cost housing in all new residential estates to redress rapidly falling home ownership levels.

This month, a parliamentary committee sat in Auckland to hear submissions on the new affordable housing law which would give councils powers to strong-arm developers.

Patrick Clifford, director of Architectus Auckland and the designer who has worked on concepts for the Tank Farm, said yesterday no prices had yet been discussed for affordable houses and details were yet to be finalised.

Mr Dalzell said precisely where and how the bargain housing could become part of the mixture had been encouraged by the Tank Farm’s technical advisory group.

He cited Piermont in Sydney as an example of an area with a desirable social mixture, adding: “We’re looking at how that could be adapted here.”

Asked if this could mean dozens or even hundreds of places selling for around $250,000, Mr Dalzell said this was not decided but the places could be built in the middle of the development, not on waterfront edges where prices would be at a premium.

He was responding to questions about public concern over multimillion-dollar apartments being developed in the Western Reclamation area, and he criticised the CBD for having a narrow range of apartments which appealed to few groups and particularly ignored families.

Next Tuesday, independent commissioners will begin hearing a private plan change application for the area which could see its zoning changed from industrial, marine and commercial uses to a new mixed-use belt. Around 700 submissions are expected to be aired and building heights will be hotly debated.”

Will they have the Ooompf to run the project out of town, as they did with the Hilton proposal on the Outer T of Queens Wharf? Where does Pauline Swann get her energy from? Do they have some mystery backers this time – because sure as hell it is going to cost as much dough, or more, to fight this battle. Or are they finally on a hiding to nothing, being up against a much more powerful local cabal of architect Athfield and developer Willis Bond?

Time will tell. But don’t expect much building action on the OPT for the next few years….

I can also assume that your “not-for-profit” did not have $100 million to spend on your waterfront site (as Willis Bond does with the Overseas Terminal).

The point is – the money has to come from somewhere.

There has to be a demand for “public use” buildings (sports centre, art gallery, museum…) and as Monday correctly points out – there is no real demand for these at the moment and they are mainly catered for elsewhere.
(Unless someone would like to propose other alternate public uses for the Overseas Terminal site – a question that has been put to a number of posters on this blog – and which has, to this point, remained unanswered).

There is also the question of funding public proposals and getting them through the bureaucratic process (both local, national and waterfront watch) – not a simple task as starkive points out.
Rumours have circulated about a cost of $25 million just to strengthen the wharf. A sum that a not-for-profit, or public use proposal, would probably have trouble justifying.

I can attest to the problems of getting a not-for-profit public use up and running on the waterfront. It takes a coalition of local and (usually) central government with an activist organisation and almost superhuman stamina to wade through the interest groups and objectors. In the end it can be remarkably liberating to walk two blocks inland and find so many of the problems gone.

Meanwhile, Willis Bond/Athfield and their like at least provide some population for what would otherwise be a bleak expanse – more Danzig than Barceloneta – if Waterfront Watch had their way. Good for a remake of the French Lieutenant’s Woman, or taking an apartment-bound dog for walkies, but sod-all use to citizens.

A very interesting post from LK.
I would be very much interested in your thoughts and definition of ‘contemporary public space’ and how this could be achieved in todays environment – and more relevant to this discussion – on this site.

i concur with the above assessments that the waterfront is becoming a procession of uninspired responses to important questions about contemporary public space. the kumutoto competition generated some restless projects addressing this. needless to say, they did not win. the overseas passenger terminal seems a pretty building sitting ‘on’, not ‘within,’ its site. it does not engage with its physical or cultural context except in a particularly complicit economic/professional manner. playful aesthetics aside, this is a deeply reduced and cynical vision of architecture.

athfield is certainly not the only archi-culprit, he is however the posterboy for this particularly complicit mode of architectural practice. ‘the wellington condition’?

Sandy – that’s an extremely negative summary of the development isn’t it?

The proposal can be compared to a lot of similar spaces around the world I guess, but I’ll use one : King St Wharf in Sydney – a place I spent many an hour (and dollar) at

Low-rise, exclusive apartments above, food/beverage/retail below, a waters edge and public access. Its a thriving area of activity, constantly busy, constantly alive. People love it.

“The housing development” is, if I am not mistaken, what you are actually proposing with the affordable housing argument – true?

About the idea of apartments, its like with the Hilton – having some sort of constant human presence in the area goes a long way to making it a useful, safe and popular environment.

@sandy
There are no gates. Public access to the wharf + platform is guaranteed once the construction process is complete–WCC realise they would be foolish to do otherwise. All of the ground floor and some of the mezzanine level is given over to retail tenancies, and there is very little parking provided at wharf level(I think I saw about 5 parking spaces on the west side)–so arguably there will be more space made available to the public than is currently.