A fantastic Harbour in a vigourous climate and out of reach for people for many years, but now a really great series of different toned places. Urban and wild; industrial and recreational; gastronomic and cultural; contemporary and faithful to its past. A very real role model for Auckland as our more benign version is still nowhere near as accessible nor as integrated into the city as Wellington’s is now.
Just one small section, note how a commercial and retail building is right there surrounded by great and varied public realm improvements. Total and free access all around the commercial users. Proper mixed use, and indeed used by the full mix of society.
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I really do enjoy the Wellington Waterfront. During the Lux festival a few weeks ago the lighting displays along the waterfront became an attraction, the area was busy and bustling with activity. A real happy vibe around the area. Now if we could have more of these 😉
Great connection to the water. I was walking along the Wellington waterfront one day and saw a stingray lazily flapping past me. Choice.
I love Wellington’s waterfront. It happened because a dedicated group of vigilant citizens challenged and rebuffed every outrageous attempt by developers to dump their ugly high rises at the waters edge. Good luck to Auckland with their evolving waterfront. I like what I see so far.
And yet one of the successful aspects of it is that buildings are right there in the mix, like the Meridian building in the pic above.
Indeed. Waterfront Watch have fought bitterly against any kind of development, because they want large and empty spaces.
Come on George, you know as well as anyone that plenty of development has taken place.Take a look at the picture above. It’s about what suits the waterfront, scale and style among other things, not just what suits the developers pocket. The public vote with their feet and visit in droves. I guess you just stay away.
And yet it is funny how so many Aucklanders resent any mention of Wellington’s marvelous waterfront. I wonder if they have actually seen it. Of course the first thing that an Aucklander will mention is Wellington’s wind and yet Auckland is happily creating their own wind turbulance problems along the waterfront.
Auckland’s attempt to recreate the facility is really just a laugh and it will continue as long the developers keep jamming ugly buildings in, around and across the harbour views.
I am not a big fan and we can do far better. A lot of really dated 90s design aesthetics. Its cause also isn’t helped by the bulky, inwards-facing monoliths in Te Papa, the stadium, and the arena, none of which have any real reason to be where they are.
Not ‘bad’ but certainly not a model to follow. I’m not being petty or parochial – if we target mediocrity that is what we will end up with.
I think you’re just focussing on the worst bits! There’s plenty that really good about it. And certainly not Te Papa; wrong building in the wrong place.
The stadium is in the perfect place, right on top of the rail station, allowing lots of people to catch transit to get to events. What’s wrong with that?
I really love those hills and ranges in the far distance behind Eastbourne. They go purple in the last rays of the sun, in certain lights the depth and layering of the multiple ranges is clearly visible. They remind me of the lovely backdrop to Vancouver albeit without quite the scale.
I am on the board of Waterfront Auckland so am understandably very proud of what we have achieved over 4 years in starting a major transformation of Auckland’s central city waterfront. So with no apologies for that progress can I as a recent part-time Wellingtoniian state how much I am enjoying Wellington’s central city waterfront. I have spent many hours there walking and recreating. What I love about it is how organically it has been built over decades, and so yes some of it feels a bit underdone and outdated, and some of the architecture is either underdone or overdone, but in total it represents a great public example of human endeavour by many people and organisations. I am greatly enjoying intensive observation as well as use. It functions well on many productive and aesthetic levels, and is yet full of opportunity for further development and improvement. Observation #1 Wow those commuter cyclists are fast fast fast.
Thanks for dropping by Adrienne. As the City continues its move down to the water’s edge every decision taken by WA matters more and more.
Adrienne, thanks for stopping by. In Wellington’s case, the huge state highway cuts it from the city, remediated only by the overbridge. The volumes of aggressive traffic is one of the reasons cyclists use it rather than taking the roads.
Thank you Patrick for the recognition of the qualities of Wellington’s waterfront. Yep, it’s a pretty good spot, and has been carefully tweaked and tempered over the years by a mixture of architects and landscape architects – credit should go to Athfield Architects, Wraight Associates, and for this particular little corner of the world: Studio Pacific Architecture, isthmus, and Beca. All this has been achieved in spite of huge resistance from the “no-buildings” parade of Waterfront Watch. In a way, they’ve been a good tempering force – there is nothing there without a reason – so it is disappointing to read JamesS comments, which do seem petty and parochial. Of course there is going to be a 90s feel in some parts, given that some of it was designed in the 90s…. but the key thing is that the designs are strong enough to last, and not have to be rebuilt every year.
Adrienne – The key advantage that Wellington has, of course, is the natural shape of the harbour – the quickest route from the CBD to the many drinking establishments is along the waterfront, ensuring. It is always lively, day or night. By contrast, with Auckland’s fantastic waterfront regeneration, you need to make an active decision to go there, as it is not on the beaten track from anywhere to anywhere. But you Aucklanders are catching up fast. We’ll have to pull our fingers out so we don’t get overtaken…
That’s a very good point Guy. There’s great continuity too, so although there is that not inconsiderable barrier of Jervois Quay and its terrible pedestrian phases, once over there both directions are not only full of interest and diversions, but are clear and direct too. Yes it’s great to be inside the curve; its the shortest route.
I stayed for a week in a hotel in lower Willis St, and went for a walk along the waterfront every night (up to the ferry terminal or down to Oriental Parade). Always a few people jogging and strolling, and I discovered the quickest places to cross the main drag (the overbridges or quick-responding ped lights). We need to emulate the way it functions as a connector and mixed use space, but with a uniquely Pacific feel for Auckland. 🙂
I like what Waterfront Auckland have achieved so far.
The city end of the wellington waterfront has never been out of reach. Even when the wharves were operational, there was generally free access. We used to go there and fish for herrings. It was no doubt a nightmare for operators and wouldn’t get past modern occupation health and safety rules which is no doubt why the container terminal and beyond is now fenced. As for te Papa, it probably is in the wrong place, but with the pool and the trees, it actually works quite well.
Wellington waterfront is great but I find Te Papa externally a very ugly building – there you go – subjective I know……………………
Warren – we ALL do – no exceptions. Wellingtonians hate it with a vengeance. Designed by an Auckland architect too… (just saying)…. so don’t blame us for it’s looks. Actually, it’s worse on the inside…
What Wellington needs to do now is get rid of that dreadful highway which severs the waterfront from the rest of the CBD. And here is what should be done with it: Turn it into a covered-over rail-corridor for that much-needed heavy-rail extension. Landscape over it and create a linear park-cum-walkway at first-floor level. Combine all the features of the existing City-to-Sea bridge, Civic Square, Frank Kitts Park and a new lower-level station on the extended railway into the first of a series of wonderfully people-centred transport-hubs.
To those who question where the road-traffic will go, the answer is that some of it will shift to the present SH1 corridor, and some of it will simply dry up as the hugely-increased public transport connectivity brought about by extending rail renders many journeys much easier by PT than now.
It also removes the current thorny problem of trying to combine a high-density PT corridor with the CBD’s pedestrian-environment, with all the loss-of-ambience and frequent accidents that this creates. Unfortunately suggestions for light rail down the Golden Mile (if this is to remain the principal PT artery), while keeping the waterfront traffic-route as it is, will largely perpetuate the problems.
I presume you haven’t reviewed the cost-benefit analysis of Wellington rail.
It’s not pretty.
What cost-benefit analysis? If you mean that nonsense exercise, the Public Transport Spine Study then forget it. That was deliberately set up to make anything on rails look as unfeasible as possible. To my knowledge, no COBA of extending heavy rail has been done properly since the Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner study of 1970, and that only looked at a full underground, not a much-cheaper, covered-at-grade. No-one has looked into this as far as I know.
That would be fantastic dave b! In the interim i suggest turning a couple of those six waterfront traffic lanes into buslanes & diverting a number of buses from the golden mile along them offering a quick trip from one end of town to the other plus freeing up space along the golden mile for the remaining services.
Yes Dave B – a covered over rail corridor maybe just like I found in Hanover in Germany when I visited a couple of months ago and which pops up to the surface a little further out, say, when it gets around to Kent Terrace. Would have to cancel a few RoNs to pay for it but would be a superior option for the city! Don’t worry about the road traffic – it always just disappears as if it never existed c.f Embacadero Boulevard,San Francisco