Posts by Tom Beard
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Aren't Tongariro National Park, Fijordland and the Southern Alps "great public spaces" enough for us?
Not really: we need great urban public spaces. On the other hand, I don't really see stadia as being public spaces, compared to streets, squares and parks.
Stadia are difficult to integrate into urban settings, but not impossible. Russell's vision of "glass walls encasing bars and cafes and concourses and function rooms gazing over the harbour, its lights blazing at night" is quite achievable, and while it's not easy to combine an active, humanly-scaled edge at ground level with a grand iconic structure, that's what we have architects for!
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Just out of interest, does Auckland have any buildings "built this or last century" that are really good?
I haven't spent much time there in the last decade, so I can't comment with much conviction, but while I agree that there are few if any world-class C20 buildings in Auckland, there are some pretty good ones.
There are a few office buildings in or around Queen St that aren't bad, like the Phillips Fox towers, the bronze glass Fay Richwhite building and that white elliptical one near the waterfront that recently won an "enduring architecture" award. Anything more recent I've only seen in magazines, but some of the new Viaduct buildings (like Stratis) are really good architecture, if not quite such good urbanism. And there are some indoor stadia in the suburbs and some recent additions to the university that look quite exciting in the photos, but again, that's all I've seen.
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As for "property spruikers", I just hope that the former Eden Park land gets some proper medium- to high-density housing, not the squat little retirement village that got built on Athletic Park.
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I don't get it: are they actually proposing to clone a stadium from the other side of the world? Or is it just a case of "here's something vaguely similar to show that it would fit", and they'll work out the design as they go? I hope it's the latter, or Herzog & de Meuron should get their lawyers ready.
The only thing that makes the simulation unattractive is that the Allianz Arena wasn't designed for the site. It's actually one of the more exciting recent stadia designs in the world, but a stadium for the Auckland wharves needs its own design.
Then again, I think the caketin looks good, so what do I know?
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Ah well, looks like I've missed it (short of burrowing through Newstext). At least we're getting an indoor stadium next door.
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They CAN'T expand the Caketin.
Hadyn: any reference for the story about the engineers' report?
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I still think they should have expanded the Cake Tin!
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It may be hasty, but if it is anything like the Allianz Arena by Herzog & de Meuron then we could be on to a winner. The Herald image doesn't do it justice: see this image for a better look.
On the other hand, I hope that by "based on" they don't mean "slavishly copying". The architects will have to respond to NZ's climate, culture and the waterfront location (by providing it with active edges at ground level - stadia don't have to be mute fortresses), but if that's the level of design they're aspiring to, then I say go for it!
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Heh heh - sorry - but why is letting them off in the day fun?
Because they still go bang, and scare the bejeesus out of anyone in the vicinity.
As for the connexion between fireworks and entrepreneurialism, my best friend & I used to get up to all sorts of dangerous, crazy, pet-unfriendly stunts with bangers. There were no double happies in those days, but if you unpacked enough of the biggest ones you could find and packed the gunpowder into a film canister, you could still do a respectable amount of damage. We gave up doing that, though, when we found out that local chemist's would sell saltpetre (to 10-year-old boys!), there were chunks of sulphur lying around on the docks, and charcoal was pretty easy to come by. After that, the sky was the limit...
... and my old best friend is now the founder and CEO of one of NZ's best-known entrepreneurial exporters.