While Dr Gruen’s substantial demolition of any economic case for a stadium at Macquarie Point has been broadly canvassed in the media of late, his review of the Visual Impact assessment process has received little press.

We are regularly afforded a set of images that have, so far, largely gone unchallenged. Images that have been heavily manipulated to disguise the visual imposition of a structure of this scale on its surroundings.

Some of these AI generated ‘photographs’ are taken from a vantage point, such as a worm’s eye view, that lessens the visual impact and the sense that the stadium, at 54m high, looms over the historic structures around it.

They’re often carefully cropped to delete any nearby structures whose heights are known and could be used for comparison. Furthermore, they’re coloured in such a way as to ‘fade’ the dome into the sky above.

Fig.1: In this rendering, the low viewing angle makes the lip of the dome at 25.5mtrs appear barely higher than the roofline of the six storey IXL Apartments at 22mtrs or the four storey Drunken Admiral building on Hunter Street. The low viewing angle creates a steeper perspective gradient, reducing the apparent height of the dome at rear.

Other views are taken from so high as to make any visual comparison with other known heights virtually impossible to perceive. The Gasworks chimney, for instance, stands at 38m asl, while the Port Tower stands at 36m. That’s 16 & 18mtrs lower respectively than the peak of the stadium dome, yet the bird’s-eye-view drone images obscure this fact. These structures are also cropped out of long-distance views across the harbour from Battery Point.

Fig. 2: Overview – a bird’s eye view from such an angle as to make the dome (at 54mtrs) seem of equal height or lower than the Gasworks Chimney (38.1mtrs) to its west.

In his analysis, Nicholas Gruen used some of these same photographs when he surveyed 20 urban design, planning and architecture professionals to gauge their reactions to the changes to the visual environment that would be wrought by shoehorning this massive, out-of-scale structure into the historic Macquarie Point precinct.

In presenting them with the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images from the SLR Consulting report, he asked them to rate the significance of the visual impacts. Because most of these urban designers had little prior knowledge of the stadium proposal, the survey elicited a relatively unbiased and unfiltered view of the design.

Those views deemed “highly significant” received overwhelmingly negative responses, most dramatically skewed towards “dislike” and “hate”, and a near complete absence of similarly strongly felt responses in the positive.

Even using these heavily manipulated images, then, there was a very strong negative reaction to the proposed changes to the visual environment.

Overall, these negative responses focussed on the scale of the stadium, dominating the background and seeming at odds with the scale and character of its surroundings.

That Dr Gruen felt obliged to conduct his own research is indicative of the lack of any definitive statement on the visual impact of a stadium at Mac Point in the MPDC’s commissioned report by SLR Consulting. We have no way of knowing what brief SLR Consulting were set, but even if it comprised strict instructions to only be positive, they still couldn’t bring themselves to do that unequivocally. Spurious analogies with the Sydney Opera House and their blithe dismissal of RSL concerns did not pass muster with Dr Gruen.

Many of these images need careful analysis. ‘Artistic licence’ often allows for leaps of logic and for some inconvenient truths to be ignored.

Fig.3: Single lane entrance to underground carpark (section of Overview image Fig.2.)

Take Fig.3, for instance, an excerpt from Fig.2 that focuses on the entrance to the underground carpark. Vehicles are shown as disappearing down and under the turning circle above, but it only seems to be one lane wide. Where do exiting vehicles go? Is this a Hotel California scenario? “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”?

Bear in mind too, that the somewhat benign flow of vehicles into this cul-de-sac is traffic from the Tasman Highway and, presumably, the eastern shore of Hobart. A couple of busses and ten cars is hardly going to deliver the marauding hordes of fans the promotional material is promising. Furthermore, none of this road network has been included in the $775M costings, and it’s hardly something that is likely to attract private funding.

Yet other AI generated images are so devoid of context that it’s impossible to determine their vantage point. Such is the case with the most recent release of images showing the various gate entrances. (Pulse Tasmania 10/2/25)

Fig. 4: Gate 3 NW entrance off the Tasman Highway can only be seen like this from a vantage point somewhere up the side of the escarpment, actually inside the cliff-face – very ‘middle earth’ but hardly realistic and in no way indicative of the experience for pedestrians entering the grounds from this direction. See Fig. 5 for more Gate images.

Fig 4 is one of the most recent set of renderings showing Entrance Gates 1, 2 & 3, published by Pulse Tasmania on 10 February 2025. Again, they’ve gone largely unchallenged despite their obvious misrepresentation of reality.

It’s important to note the only ‘reality’ to which we could refer comprises one drawing by Cox Architecture (#MPS-COX-DR-01-A20-0000) titled ‘Ground Plane External Concourse Plan’ submitted as part of Appendix A to the MPDC’s submission to the TPC in 2024. According to the list of drawings submitted by Cox, there was also a Site Plan which may be more comprehensive, but the MPDC neglected to include it in its submission to the PoSS process. (We note that a Site Plan has since been included in the most recent annexures to the updated submission, but the Ground Plane Plan has not been amended in any way that is relevant to this analysis.)

A comparison of these images with the Ground Plane Plan prompts similar concerns regarding their authentic depiction of how the stadium will appear to attendees as they enter the gates. Fig. 5 (below) shows that the images have been distorted to reduce the stadium’s bulk. The perspective renderings give the impression that the stadium façades are further away and therefore less imposing. They also serve to render the high parts of the dome further away again and therefore much smaller than would be experienced in reality.

For example, the image of the SW Gate 2 (Fig. 5 bottom left) from the pedestrian crossing at Davey and Evans Streets suggests that the stadium is approximately 100-150m away. The 25m high facade in this scene feels like the equivalent of a two or three storey building and the dome is not visible at all. In comparison, the plan clearly shows that when crossing Evans Street, the 25m high stadium facade is only 40-50m away and at 25M high the façade is the equivalent of an 8-storey building.

As a comparison, consider that a standard cricket pitch is 20m long. Place yourself in the scene and imagine standing the equivalent of two cricket pitch lengths away and looking up at an eight-storey building. This is the true comparison of the scale and distance that would be experienced based upon the current proposal, and this is what the perspective images, if accurate, should be illustrating.

A closer analysis of the images in Fig 5. (below) shows the relative distances as they appear in the renderings compared to the plan. The coloured arrows in each image demonstrate the distortion that occurs when perspective is manipulated in this way.

Fig. 5: Entrance Gates linked to their locations on the Ground Plane Plan (freehand green lines).  The coloured arrows show the apparent distance in the image compared with the actual distance on the plan. Pulse Tasmania imagery 10/2/25; Cox Architecture Plan & Image (Appendix A, September 2024)

Previous releases of imagery show similar manipulation in terms of vantage points, particularly in relation to the stadium’s impact on the Cenotaph, and especially the long view down from the arch of Remembrance Bridge. Even the view from the base of the Cenotaph itself is questionable.

Fig. 6: View (allegedly) from the base of the Cenotaph, looking south (SLR Consulting)

The effect of looking down and over the dome of the stadium reduces its impact. A man of average height would have a direct eyeline (at 23.5mtrs) to the vertical side of the stadium wall 2mtrs below the lip of the dome at 25.5mtrs. To get the view shown here, he’d have to shimmy halfway up the Cenotaph.

Compare the height of the dome in Fig. 6. which avoids showing the Gasworks Chimney, with its comparative height as shown in Fig.7 to see the difference. The Fig. 7 image was taken from the top of the escarpment looking over the stadium site on 20 October 2024. Note the difference in the amount of sky obscured by the dome in each image.

Fig.7: Using the Gasworks Chimney as a datum for height comparison (Photo taken 20/10/24).

The gasworks chimney affords a particularly useful comparison in that it aligns due west with the centre of the dome. Any view over the area that takes in the chimney allows for an estimation of the height of the stadium. The dome is 54mtrs and the top of the chimney is 38.1mtrs – a difference of almost 16mtrs, or the equivalent of 5 storeys – that’s on top of a 13-storey building.

The State of Play

Are we just expected to write off these manipulations as ‘tricks of the trade’ or are they deliberate attempts at obfuscation, designed to serve the proponents of the project while pulling the wool over the eyes of the public?

Is it acceptable to put lipstick on this pig?

“Trust us! It’s going to be beee-autiful!,” say the developers. Sadly, a lack of trust has permeated the whole planning process in Tasmania.

Those who’ve been successfully manipulated into conflating a team with a stadium at Macquarie Point don’t really care how ugly and out of scale it is.

They don’t care about its impacts on heritage, or the RSL, or the TSO, or the surrounding neighbourhood and natural environment, or indeed views from anywhere around the harbour-front. Nor do they care about its potential to plunge the state into decades of debt. They. Just. Want. Their. Team.

For those of us who do care, it’s about the scale, stupid!

It’s about a structure that will dwarf all those around it. It’s about a structure that will be the third highest in the CBD. It’s about a structure that will gobble up hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of unique waterfront land without any acknowledgement of its inherent value. It’s about a structure that will trample on our history and indigenous heritage. And it’s about a structure that will do all this to then lie idle, vacant and losing money for 96% of the year.

It is doubtful that these are the last set of images to which we’ll be subjected before this whole sorry, wasteful saga plays out.

One shudders to imagine what this lot has cost us so far! We need to arm ourselves so that we can truly ‘see’ what is being foisted upon us.

What, then, are some of the tricks to look out for when confronted with the next set of images (or the next application of ‘lipstick’)?

To summarise:

  • Long shots that crop out comparative structures

  • Short shots that are too close to the face of intermediate structures to see around or over them

  • Low angle, or worm’s eye views that reduce the looming effect of structures behind

  • High angle (really high as in bird’s eye views) that similarly reduce looming & comparison with known heights

  • Fade to sky effects that avoid acknowledging the true height of the roof by using pale blues and misty greys

  • Expansive views that ignore any nearby structures shown on the plan to enhance a feeling of spaciousness

  • Images with just enough people and cars to make it look lived-in, when in reality it will go from bedlam (4% of the time*) to tumbleweeds (the remaining 96%).

And while we’re at it, let’s decode some of the architect-speak that peppers this proposal.

  • Timber technology – there’s really nothing new or high tech about cladding.

  • Activated escarpment edge – is that like activated almonds? This is where designers completely lose face when spattering their drawings with jargon that may mean something to a very small in-crowd, but just sounds silly and self-serving to rest of us.

  • Culturally informed zone – aka, “We’ve told (informed) Aboriginal Tasmanians that this little pocket handkerchief is all we can spare and hope you don’t notice that the midden is buried under the relocated, somewhat truncated Goods Shed and practice wicket.”

Throughout these reports there are a lot of circular references, i.e. solutions to problems created by the proposal itself, lauded as clever ideas.

You don’t need a roof to solve your lighting and noise problems unless you’re trying to build a stadium in close proximity to your neighbours – residential, commercial, cultural and ecological.

This is problem solving after the fact. … the fact is that a stadium is the wrong development for this location.

Iconic? or should that be ironic?

SLR Consulting drew a tenuous comparison between the potential visual impact of the stadium and the Sydney Opera House, not one that Dr Gruen could embrace, and probably not one that most thinking individuals would consider anything but a stretch.

It might turn out to be prescient irony, however, if the one similarity between the Mac Point Stadium and the Sydney Opera House turned out to be an issue with its roof. This new technology, ‘never-before-tried-anywhere-else’ dome should alert anyone who remembers the Uproar House saga with architect Joern Utzon labouring for months over the ‘sails’ and eventually having a Newtonian apple moment with his segmented orange epiphany.

It should raise alarm bells that this experimental ‘new tech’ doesn’t carry with it a substantial financial margin in contingency costs to cover issues that will likely arise during its construction. This is yet another point Dr Gruen raised when he identified ‘structural optimism bias’ at work in the underestimation of contingency costs. [Nicholas Gruen (2025): Independent Review of Macquarie Point Stadium pp.70-74]

Analysing the latest ‘visualisations’.

SLR Consulting have updated their Visual Impact report with 3 more images, submitted as Annexure K-SLR Consulting Visualisations 31 January 2025.

The photos below show that they’re still disguising the visual impact that this behemoth will have on our waterfront using all the tricks of the trade to diminish its apparent size.

The depth of field and perspective in these images has been significantly distorted or ‘stretched’ to avoid true representations of the bulk of the stadium. The stretching of the perspective increases the horizontal depth in the image and reduces the vertical scale of each element. To put it simply “things appear further away and therefore smaller.”

This is particularly effective in reducing the bulk of the stadium in these images around the harbour because the stadium is located approx. 50-60m behind the heritage Hunter Street facades. By stretching the perspective, the renderer can significantly reduce the visual height and impact of stadium edge and even further reduce the height of the overall dome by making both these elements appear much further away than they actually are.

Including comparative contextual features in the image would give away this distortion – another reason for the reticence to do so.

From Franklin Wharf: A deliberately low vantage point from far away, a ‘long view’ designed to diminish the size by filling up the foreground with other buildings, especially the tallest one in the vicinity, and hiding structures that would allow a height comparison, like the Gasworks Chimney and the Port Tower (16 & 18 metres lower, respectively, than the peak of the dome.)

From Elizabeth Pier: Another long view from a low angle, with other structures in between. At least there is the opportunity for comparison with the Port Tower (right) and Gasworks Chimney (inside the green circle at left). The Gasworks Chimney is aligned due west of the centre of the dome – does it look 16ms lower? The Port Tower is closer so some allowance for perspective must be made, but consider a perspective line from the Grand Chancellor roof (42m) – where does that line intersect the dome? It doesn’t seem to be 12m lower than the peak.

From Wharf Road: Another low vantage point. When a flat road looks like a rise up a hill, that’s the giveaway. A low angle creates a steep perspective to the immediate façades, so structures behind seem less obtrusive. The roof of IXL Apartments is barely 22m, the gable of the Drunken Admiral is under 16m.

Despite the visual trickery, however, there’s not a lot to admire about this ugly imposition on our waterfront. It remains an issue of scale. A structure that is twice the height of most neighbouring buildings and at least 10 times larger in area is simply too big.

Macquarie Point is the wrong location for a stadium.

*This percentage is calculated using the optimistic scenario of 44 events per year, each assigned an 8-hour time period for visitation (also generous) which amounts to 352hrs, divided by 8,760 hrs in the year, resulting in 4.01%. The remaining 95.99% of the time, it sits vacant.

Our Place is a Hobart community group with an alternative vision for Macquarie Point as a genuine multi-use community space.