THE DRUNKEN ISLE RECLAIMING AUCKLANDS FORESHORE
The first human settlement of the Tamaki / Auckland isthmus was by Maori. Their occupation of the Waitamata followed the existing geography, with iwi, small family based groups, settling in the bays with easy access to kai moana (sea food). Also fortified villages were constructed by terracing the existing topography, occupied by the headlands. The painting depicted above is the first culmination of exchange between two different worlds. It portrays the beach, the foreshore in New Zealand as a place that has witnessed trade, confrontation, and the emotions connected to its history, the land, and its people.
Despite the 150 years of urbanisation, Auckland’s CBD still retains the original topography of hills and gullies, however the original landscape of bays has disappeared under an extensive ‘pinafore’ of reclaimed land. Auckland’s waterfront now can be divided into roughly two parts; to the west, a mix of marinas, ships industry, and storage facilities, to the east, the extensive wharf infrastructure of a working port. It is in the centre of the waterfront, in the lower Queen Street area, that new, non-port developments have begun. The first of these was the development of Princes Wharf in the early 90s.
Staring into the sombre dark waters of Auckland’s harbour, we only perceive the reflections of an industrial wilderness as monument to our consumptive existence. Strips of grey concrete protrude out into the open waters of the Waitemata, barricading any possible arrival into Aucklands topography. We are lost in the structures, the material, the physical entities such as houses, parks, quays etc. The content of expressions such as ‘to feel like home in the area, and not just as a temporary visitor’ canot be applied as we have lost the capacity to develop a dialogue with the city, its harbour and its people.
As time progresses our connection to water is diminishing. Though development and infrastructure are inevitable in a growing nation, the city is slowly being consumed by our own ignorance. Creative cities, cities that go through a ‘Golden age’ are almost certainly uncomfortable, unstable, collectively self examining and in the course of time kicking over the traces. Just as the first encounters took place on the sea, they were outsiders who looked at our shorelines and developed a perspective of their own. The view of auckland’s harbour that presents itself today is hostile, aggressive and inimical. Our oceans will eventually become tones of grey.
A physical approach often involves discontinuity. It is often the case that an underdeveloped area is filled with new buildings, or existing buildings are replaced by something new. In creating more differentiated functions around the city, a discontinuity is also introduced. For example an elite neighbourhood. In a social approach, it is actually continuity that we try to seek by building uopn the opportunities of the existing social structures, qualities and opportunities. In doing this we set a process in motions towards a more vital society. Continuity exists in social life, and this cannot be changed fundamentally just by altering the built environment......it has to be profound.
Our oceans are vast and boundless. The Oceans are in us. We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth and together use it to overturn all hegemonic views that aim ultimately to confine us again, physically and psychologically, in the tiny spaces that we have resisted accepting as our sole appointed places, and from which we have recently liberated ourselves. We must not allow anyone to belittle us again, and take away our freedom. New Zealand is an island nation islands and though we are paradoxically separate to water, yet fluidly connected in all its immensity.
People, life and vitality are the biggest attractions in the city. it was argued that planning and design would start with people, and the quality of the urban envirnoment had to respond to the biological preconditions of humans. Human’s are ‘a walking animal’. E.g Garden offer shelter and a rich and complex range of deliberate motives that can make unexpected yet real connections between such disparate subjects as buildings, ecological cycles, indigenous flora, and urban life. The act of garden making creates an opening into these seemingly autonomous worlds, allowing them to percolate into each other. The results are strange, unprecedented and open.
boats
container parks
warehouses
powerstations
silos
truck parks
marinas
ferry terminals
oil containers
water facilities
sand piles
cranes
waste lands
housing
junkyards
road infrastructures
Old industrial buildings have always proved to be extremely well suited to cultural applications, galleries and temporary functions such as summer restaurants, recreational parks, concert halls and other types of events, etc. Our industrial waterfront- though a mono functional structure, has an astonishing wealth of typologies. The harbour’s catalogue of interesting and unpredictable buildings simply consists of industrial warehouses that fulfils some very specific demands under certain very specific circumstances. If, through analysis, we are able to uncover some qualities and equally specific needs, the potential for creating new and unpredictable urban typologies
Aucklands harbour is a grandiose meeting of the town and the sea, representing an interesting interface between local life and the big world. The waterfront could be a common gift for all citizens, a gateway for hopes for a better life and a meeting place between ‘tradition’ and the ‘new’. The waterfront could be a fantastic interface between nature and the manmade world. A possible outcome could mean to produce a series of public domains along the waterfront, including a variety in its future use, meeting places for all finally, room for architectural experiments
As a metaphor of the longing for a counter world untouched by the wearying hustle and bustle of the mainland, for a new beginning, the island has come to symbolize our idyllic, utopian vision of a better world. The aim here is thus to make Auckland a living city that is diverse and lively. The intention being to build a city for human beings. What makes us feel welcome into the harbours, to sit down, initate activities and set up meetings in a public space. We cannot DESIGN nor CREATE life, but it is possible to create the environments which invites urban life, and subsequently gives life, character and identity to a place such as Auckland.