29 The weekly review \ FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Docks are interesting places. Places where ships unload their catch, where fish markets flourish and passers-by add to a colourful sea of activity.

But contemporary waterfront redevelopments, with their emphasis on a pleasing view for office frontage, have tended to erase the very elements that attracted people in the first place.

“Melbourne’s Docklands is a fairly banal outcome because they erased all the history of that site before the development occurred,” Perry Lethlean says.

Lethlean is the director of Taylor Cullity Lethlean, which in September with Wraight + Associates won the prestigious Rosa Barba Landscape Prize in Barcelona for the Auckland waterfront development – a design that turned the conventional model on its head.

They triumphed in a field of 11 shortlisted projects, including the famous High Line (New York) and McGregor Coxall’s Point Park (Sydney), to take the prize.

The team was engaged to develop the first stage of the Auckland waterfront master plan on a five-hectare site that comprised roads, harbour, industrial sites and storage sites. The team’s brief was to create a public space that would attract people to the waterfront, hopefully followed by private sector investment.

Auckland’s waterfront, adjacent to the CBD, was land that had been reclaimed for port and industrial activities in the past century. “It wasn’t really accessible by the public so the Auckland community didn’t really know what was there,” Lethlean says.

The team’s idea was to build on the essential physical

qualities of the place – the wharves, silos and fish market – and to keep its existing uses, such as the fishing industry.

“We figured that’s why it’s fantastic and interesting, that’s why people will want to come,” he says.

“We thought, why don’t we construct a public space that is centred around the fishing experience? Why don’t we keep the boats unloading onto the wharf? The mess is good, the smells are great, the fish can go into the fish market then into the restaurants. All of that can be a public experience for this waterfront.

“We were entranced by the qualities of this gritty, gritty site and how we could build upon that. We thought, let’s get a little bit messy and retain the patina.”

The client was interested from the start to make sure the design was responsive to the site. “It was a very courageous client, in a way, to allow us to not to erase these potentially dangerous or interrupting uses to the public spaces, but to weave in public use spaces within the maritime and fishing functions,” Lethlean says.

The design drew on the ideas of German landscape architect Peter Latz, who is known for his work creating parklands in industrial settings.

Another influence was American urbanist Mario Gandelsonas, who works on mapping cities and graphic representations of their hidden, underlying patterns.

The team mapped the site in the manner of Gandelsonas and discovered patterns unique to the city of Auckland, Lethlean says. Insights gained from the mapping exercise were used to inform the waterfront design.

Did the project represent a shift in TCL’s thinking?

sea the sitesDeveloping our city \ Design connects communities with maritime history, writes Clare KenneDy

“In many projects, we have to invent a story” – a colourful narrative to help engage the public, he explains. For instance the National Arboretum was a burnt-out site, the Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne used to be a lake.

“There’s fun and creativity when you have to create a story for a design.”

But this time they didn’t have to unearth a story to find a hook. The elements were already there.

“It was a dream project,” Lethlean says. “Where else would you find a fishing maritime industry, fish market, wharf sheds, concrete silos, all there to be worked with? It was a fantastic palette.”

The project illustrates how the parameters of landscape architecture are shifting. Talking about the ambitions of the design, specifically its intent to allow the wider community to experience Auckland’s waterfront in a previously unknown way, Lethlean says: “I think landscape architecture is moving into more urban visions than previously. So therefore we are part of the story of the city much more.” And equal partners at the table with architects, urban planners and urban designers, he says.

The award follows TCL’s success at the World Architecture Awards, where it has now twice won Landscape of the Year – in 2013 for the Australian Garden and this year for creating the National Arboretum in Canberra, comprising the 100 forests of the world’s most endangered species. \

ckennedy@theweekly review.com.au

» www.tcl.net.au

“where else would you find a fishing maritime industry, fish market, wharf sheds, concrete silos, all there to be worked with?” – Perry leThleAN

Reinvigorated: Former cement silos, now known as Silo Park, on Auckland’s waterfront play host to public functions and are a backdrop to the promenade and wetland feature.(Jonney DAviS / Simon Devitt)