Floating wilderness resort plan for Recherche Bay

ONE of Tasmania’s most celebrated architects is proposing a floating eco-tourist resort in the South-East’s Recherche Bay.

South West Tasmania

ONE of Tasmania’s most celebrated architects has taken the first step in creating the project of his lifetime – a floating eco-tourist resort in the South-East’s Recherche Bay.

Robert Morris-Nunn, left, has drawn up preliminary plans for the luxury resort which would include 20 suites and a main central pontoon offering a dining area for 45 guests.

Professor Morris-Nunn, who designed the award-winning Saffire hotel at Freycinet, plans a “chain” of moored barges, each with a two-storey building above it, in a design inspired by traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal wood canoes.

ROBERT MORRIS-NUNN: FLOATING HISTORY IN THE WILDERNESS

EDITORIAL: DESIGNING THE FUTURE

The proposed resort will be considered by the State Government as part of its expressions of interest process for wilderness areas and is inspired by the French expeditions to the Recherche Bay area in the late 1700s.

“I’d like to think it could have a transformational effect on Tasmania. If I had to be specific, I’d like to think it could be the best thing I have ever done.”

The State Government is expected to today announce Prof Morris-Nunn’s project has proceeded through the first stage of its expressions of interest (EOI) process for National Parks and World Heritage Areas, after the decision was confirmed to the architect yesterday.

“This project is hugely important and very, very special to me,” Prof Morris-Nunn told the Mercury.

“I’d like to think it could have a transformational effect on Tasmania. If I had to be specific, I’d like to think it could be the best thing I have ever done.”

Despite the project being the boldest to so far come out of the EOI process, it is expected to face less opposition from environmentalists because of the unique nature of the hotel’s design and the fact Recherche Bay is outside of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

The only land needed to lease for the entire project is expected to be some coastal Crown Land. In a Talking Point column for the Mercury in November, environmental heavyweight, former Greens leader Bob Brown, talked up Recherche Bay as a more appropriate region to develop in a bid to showcase the state’s natural environment.

The luxury resort will only be accessible by seaplane, helicopter or boat.

But Prof Morris-Nunn also proposed on-land facilities including backpacker’s accommodation, a visitor’s centre with cafe and a market garden that would use the vegetables and herbs planted by French explorers on land near the site.

Mr Morris-Nunn said he wanted to remind Tasmanians about this unique part of the state’s history.

Robert Morris-Nunn is proposing an eco-resort at Recherche Bay. Picture NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

“Had circumstances turned out differently, the visits of the French, and the repercussions arising out of these historical events, could have created a vastly different future for Australia,” he said.

“We came very close indeed to having a different reality, with this land being a colony of France, not just one having a coastline dotted with French names.”

In1792 Recherche Bay was the site of the first scientific experiment on Australian soil when French explorers set up an observatory that proved geomagnetism varied with latitude.

The French also had pleasant contact with the local Tasmanian Aboriginal population.

“The history is fantastic and it is an amazingly positive history,” Prof Morris-Nunn said.

“As an architect I like telling stories. If you can tell wonderful stories that impact positively on a whole lot of people for a whole lot of different reasons then it is really empowering stuff.

“This is one of those projects. This project, because it an alternative history of Tasmania, could be profound in that respect.”

Former Tasmanian Heritage Council chairman and former Conservation Trust CEO Michael Lynch is working on the project with Prof Morris Nunn, who also has the Strahan Visitor Centre, the Scottsdale EcoCentre, the Forestry Headquarters in Hobart, and the IXL Development, the Brooke Street Pier and Macquarie Wharf No. 2 on Hobart’s waterfront on his project CV.

Prof Morris-Nunn said the Recherche Bay project could be his legacy.

“It can show innovation as far as construction go, it can show can show real enlightenment from a philosophical perspective.

“I really want French to be spoken at this resort, the English can be there as a second language, I would love to be greeted by someone that had an absolutely thick French accent.”

Although the project is likely to draw comparisons to the hut accommodation perched above crystal clear waters in the Maldives, Prof Morris-Nunn suggested his project was more like David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New Art than the tropical getaway.

“If I can go to a place where my mind is challenged in an intelligent way ... if I can be made to think differently about things then that is the nicest form of travel you can ever do,” he said.

“I think that would be a very significant drawcard – it is sort of what David Walsh does with his artworks.

“He challenges people and they love it and I think this could be the same.”

Mr Lynch said Tasmania had not done very well at showing off the state’s natural cultural values.

“We have allowed ourselves to get into these awful bunfights over the protection of wilderness and the use of public land, whether it is of high conservation value, or otherwise,” he said.

“When somebody of Robert’s calibre comes along with an idea that respects the land, but at the same time enable people to appreciate it, how could you not be involved?”

Prof Morris-Nunn said the resort could be fabricated in Hobart or in the Huon and be towed to the site like the Brooke Street Pier was moved to the Hobart Waterfront.