Dunn Place: soft-soaped aldermen

John Latham Debox Architectures debox@bigblue.net.au

To highlight concern for Dunn Place, I point to a lack of inspired activity on behalf of the Corporation of the City of Hobart staff and aldermen. The Council has or should have a huge wealth of understanding and passion as to Hobart’s character-of-place. But they sit formally self-retarded by fear of ‘conflict of interest’ (both in the public realm and intra-corporately). Fear of being judged as vested in planning applications. But no fear of being judged as negligent in not stridently pursuing a character-of-place program for its citizens and state. We are having either an architectural city or a haphazardly developed city ‘shaped’ by bright engineers and soft-soaped aldermen. The Waterfront authority is not hearing much from this key stakeholder.

THE PROGRESS of developments under Waterfront Authority has been queried via the press. Also proposals for Princes Wharf shed are drawing attention whilst a proposal pertinent to Dunn Place (between the museum and the big hotel) is being prepared for public appearance. It seems that reasonable due course is occurring on behalf of the Waterfront Authority but do we really know.

To highlight concern for Dunn Place, I point to a lack of inspired activity on behalf of the Corporation of the City of Hobart staff and aldermen. The Council has or should have a huge wealth of understanding and passion as to Hobart’s character-of-place. But they sit formally self-retarded by fear of ‘conflict of interest’ (both in the public realm and intra-corporately). Fear of being judged as vested in planning applications. But no fear of being judged as negligent in not stridently pursuing a character-of-place program for its citizens and state. We are having either an architectural city or a haphazardly developed city ‘shaped’ by bright engineers and soft-soaped aldermen. The Waterfront authority is not hearing much from this key stakeholder.

Well a key site is currently under design consideration and where’s the Council?

Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery is seeking some expansion with Dunn Place an obvious consideration. This is an area vital to pedestrian (and spirit of place) link between waterfront and main block and also, if carried by a rivulet walk, the mountain. Sure the Waterfront Authority has a vast data-base of public (be it professional, governmental or lay) feeling but when State building is proposed, is there ground for conflict of interest? There sure is (Pulp Mill). Does the Council have a viewpoint on the huge, huge, potential of Dunn Place in the City function and spirit? Perhaps they will call for a bow bend in Davey Street at Dunn Place. Why? Just because they can see it’s a precious moment in its own dramatic history to secure the hole in the wall of the cove to open a refreshing draught where sea and mountain breeze meet in the Mall.

A new bend in Davey St would be a powerful event in the Waterfront. Called the Davey Street Nape, it would be a bend into Dunn Place between the Customs House and across the Grand Chancellor frontage.

The Davey Street Nape should exist as a diffuser of traffic pressure and grid mindset and to enhance driver/passenger engagement. It would be multifunctional, giving a feng shui effect. Using wave-shaped sculptured lane dividers it would slow drivers and engage them with the docks whilst buffering traffic from pedestrian ear, eye and brain. The Nape takes eyes away from street grid toward the likes of native shoreline and water ripples, reducing the undesirable chainsaw effect of Davey Street. In this part the streets, including Campbell, would be concrete to blend with the docks and Dunn Place would be the same so the whole area could open as a flexi-plaza.

There may be a fantastic proposal on the way spawned by the interests of the Museum Art Gallery but is it going to acknowledge such important potentials when its initiating intent is to make room for itself?

The Davey Street Nape would be a very effective element in its own right but it also fits a broader scheme which picks up on the original shoreline and the mountain link via the rivulet a simple brook which lies buried and stifled waiting to be used to great social gain through its memory and its logical path. Its path has been highlighted as a main aspect of the City Hall Axis laid out by the Waterfront Authority.

The Buried Brook Promenade, a public walk from Mountain to Cove celebrating the world of Hobart Rivulet using arcades, words, architecture and art. Supported by the Nape effect the Promenade would open out at Dunn Place embracing the cove and inviting people to return to the city and mountain.

Tied with this is also opportunity for a nexus point in front of the City Hall, a street precinct engaging Macquarie Street motorists with waterfront, which would celebrate the landing, the natives, the anglophile, the ocean all meeting and the old causeway beginning.

There are other views but it is plain to many that in the interests of the City it is best not to clog such potential by building in the wrong place.

They care but this may be what the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) and other authorities are subconsciously pre-empting. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got even when you lose it. These public realm values may be registered in the Authority’s design intelligence, but are they noted by TMAG? In its search for more room, I hope the TMAG doesn’t conflict with this vital potential for a fully developed public realm celebration of the rivulet and its estuary as an obvious and perfect connection between mountain, CBD, and docks and between the built and the native land, the old and the new, and the academic and the romantic …..

And at least the stand-alone potential of the Davey Street Nape.

John Latham
Midway Point
Debox@bigblue.net.au
0447 651 420