Competing stadium images released
Opponents and proponents of the Macquarie Point stadium have released competing renders of what the build could look like from Hobart’s Hunter Street. See the comparison.
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Opponents and proponents of the proposed AFL stadium at Macquarie Point have released competing visions of the project.
The state government has pledged to build the $715m roofed stadium on the prime near-waterfront side as a condition of a licence for the Tasmanian AFL team.
Anti-stadium group Our Place produced an image showing the stadium from near Constitution Dock, saying the stadium “trashes the heart of the city”.
“You just can’t hide how huge and how utterly inappropriately sited this stadium will be,” spokesman Roland Browne said.
“The new design is even bigger and far, far worse in its impacts than even the original stadium promised by the Rockliff government.
“At 54 metres high, it is 25 per cent higher than the original proposal, three storeys higher than the Grand Chancellor and only six metres short of the height of the Tasman Bridge.
“Every Tasmanian who cares about our city’s unique beauty will be horrified.”
Mr Browne said the group had been prompted to produce the render because nothing showing the stadium’s true impact had been produced to date.
“The river of taxpayers money is already pouring out of Tasmania to pay for this stadium with mainland firm Cox Architects being paid $37.9m of Tasmanian taxpayers’ money — that’s $37.9m less jobs, healthcare and homes going to the biggest mainland companies — to produce a design that destroys the urban heritage of Hobart and the spiritual importance of the Cenotaph.”
Architect Shamus Mulcahy produced the Our Place image. He said it underlined the problems with the development.
“The issue with this proposition is that this is the wrong project in the wrong place,” he said.
No matter whether you’ve got the most skilled consultants doing the best work, a building that’s 54 meters high and 230 meters long on that site, next to that Cenotaph next to this beautiful little city.
“It is just the wrong place at the wrong time and nothing you can do will make it acceptable.
“Look at the scale of the city and look at the scale of the building. I mean, it’s completely out of scale for any kind of urban development.”
Cox Architecture director Stuart Harper said without access to the latest design drawings, it would be very difficult to accurately recreate a three deimensional image of the design.
“Anyone without access to that information will be making assumptions and not be able to provide an accurate render,” he said.
“Our process involves creating dimensionally accurate CAD drawings that account for all technical and operational aspects of the stadium; these are translated into a 3D model, from which we produce architectural renderings.
“Our renders represent the selected external materials and demonstrate where there is transparency, cladding, entries et cetera.
“Our design also takes account of, among other things, aspects including viewing criteria, safety, the operational requirements of tenants, the distribution of seats around the ground as well as the specific requirements of sporting codes.
“Without access to current design information, any renders produced will be purely speculative and imprecise.”
Mr Harper said the images released to date were a sneak peak only.
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