Hard News: Aiming for mediocrity. Again.
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This is embarrassing... how do you do the URLs?
According to the instructions on the side, it should be:
So....
Stuff link to Bob Clarkson story
Does that work?
Does now - RB
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No. Gack. Manual mode then:
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If I do it wiggly brackets instead of square ones it's clearer:
{{http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3862121a10,00.html|Bob Clarkson story}}
Like that, only with square brackets.
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Mallard: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
65-000 seat
Stadium!
What'd I say?
Clark: Stadium!
Mallard: What's it called?
Hubbard: Stadium!
Mallard: That's right! Stadium!
[crowd chants `Stadium' softly and rhythmically]
Herald reader: I hear those things are awfully loud...
Mallard: The glass is thick, you won't hear the crowd.
John Alexander: Is there a chance the wharf could break?
Mallard: Not on your life, my sidelined mate.
Brash: What if the job runs over budget?
Mallard: We'll raid the surplus, Cullen'll fudge it.
Confused Auckland resident: What if 2 weeks' not enough to choose?
Mallard: Jade's ready to go, you snooze, you lose.
Hide: The ring came off my pudding can.
Mallard: Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Auckland's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
All: Stadium!
Mallard: What's it called?
All: Stadium!
Mallard: Once again...
All: Stadium!
Half of Auckland: But the motorways still aren't finished, there's no decent public transport, the health system's poked, education needs more funding, we all deserve a tax cut and rates keep going up...
Other half: Sorry, guys, but it's the World Cup!
All: Stadium!
Stadium!
Stadium!
[big finish... all of Auckland marches out onto the Waterfront]
Stadium!
Tizard: Stadi... D'oh! -
Juha, the bit you're missing is in the middle. I'll streeeetch it-
url | text -
Superb, Gareth.
Do you think you could get the Pythons to do it as a huge musical number?
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It don't work eh? Russel's URL thingy didn't work either, but it seems if you post them as they are it's fine.
OK, I'll try again:
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Dammit.
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I'm no builder of... well anything more complex than a fence to keep my dog in really.
But I would have presumed that if there were concerns about a new stadium blocking views, you'd sink the whole thing down. Such a thing would be tremendously expensive if you had to dig out several thousand tonnes of dirt, but water displaces quite easily. Why not build the platform 5 metres below sea level rather than 5 metres above? If the platform needs to be strong enough to hold a whole stadium, then keeping out a whole heap of water shouldn't be too hard? It'd involve reclaiming the land around it and pumping the water out?
And, after looking at the waka stadium suggestion - now that at least has some vision. If the overgrown prow got shrunk so it just came out 40 or 50 metres above the top of the stadium, then I'd definitely vote for that. The rest of it really is just aesthetics, which is going to be done anyway. To me, that says 'Stadium NZ/Aotearoa' ten times more than Eden Park or anything else I've seen.
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I wasn't too impressed with the Waka idea, but it's going in the right direction.
What about a Rangitoto homage? A satdium that looks like a giant volcano rising from the seabed with maori designs all over it.
Oooo then you could have "rock" walls at ground level and how about a climbing wall on the harbour side of it. That's be cool. Anyone want to give me $700M to do it?
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satdium = stadium (darn it)
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So let me get this straight, Clarkson builds 20,000 seater for $21 mill and extrapolates that 60,000 seats will cost (puts on best Dr. Evil voice) one point eight billion dollars.
That is quite some cost multiplier Bob's working on.
Lets say, though, that 60,000 seats are three times the amount - the cost should be $63 million. Ok, no savings allowed for scale. Must be because bigger buildings and projects lose out due to increase complexity (as all readers of the "Mythical Man Month" will tell you).
So, instead of a linear scale, lets apply an exponential one to Bob's personal experience.
$21million times 9 equals $189 million dollars, still about 10 times less than Bob's $1.8billion estimate.
Personally, I am not a builder, I have no idea how much this stadium will cost. My experience with builders is that they are not always the best at estimating cost either and Clarkson's efforts have done nothing to change my mind on impression.
Last thing, if anyone has extended an old house they will tell you that the costs involved are invariably higher than building from scratch. There is also often more uncertainty as builders are good at uncovering problems with the old structure that appearently could not have been anticipated before work began. Something worth considering when people bang on about the certainty of Eden Park costings.
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But I would have presumed that if there were concerns about a new stadium blocking views, you'd sink the whole thing down
Putting a stadium below water level would have all sorts of issues. the stadium could leak, float, be flooded during storms etc etc. you'd have build a big sheetpile wall or bund around the whole site to keep it dry while you built the stadium. maintenance costs would be significantly higher. the britomart excavation spent quite a bit of time in hearings because of water ingress worries, and that had a some soil between it and the ocean.
sorry, i'm an engineer, i get carried away sometimes ;P but i think the transparent glass cladded design looks kinda pretty anyway!...
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Oh, boy, glass sides, under water, we get the Olympic Stadium and Sydney Aquarium for the price of one. If the ABs dare go out in the semi's again we just through them to the sharks in tank 3. Now that's the sort if Kiwi ingenuity I was talking about :-)
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gah s/ through / throw
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It's a nice thought about the Waka, but it really doesn't work for something like a stadium. Stadia are broad and roundish, while waka are long and thin, so you have to extend the prow a long way out into the water to make the proportions even vaguely right.
I'm not sure it would work given the constraints of the site, but otherwise the volcano idea is better. Stadia are sometimes compared to cauldrons, so let's make this one a caldera.
But I think there are plenty of ways to make it more dramatic and memorable without being too literal. Hmm, time for some doodling...
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Hmm some intelligent debate to read.
There are some questions that haven't been adequately answered by the proponents of the Waterfront Stadium in my opinion.
1. Safety considerations of having only one side as an exit point. What happens if this is blocked off by fire, damaged in an earthquake, or blown up in a terrorist act? Everyone just mills around the back end or jumps into the water?
2. Is exposing the piles holding up such a building really a good idea from the whole fraidy terrorists are coming point of view? I mean, how easy would it be to scuba under, strap some limpet mines, and crumble goes the stadium. Or just charge a small boat full of explosives at it. So now you're going to have to have police divers under there, and you're going to have to build a barricade around the edge of the platform. Are these costs factored?
3. What is going to happen to the money from the sale and redevelopment of Eden Park? Will this be recovered to pay for this stadium, and for that matter why not get rid of Mt Smart stadium as well and recoup money from redeveloping that site too? (Auckland does not need so many stadiums.) It doesn't seem right that this money should flow into other things around Auckland and the rest of the country is paying for the waterfront stadium.
4. It has such a large footprint, this could be reduced a bit. Rotate the stadium so its long side is facing Quay St, and shuffle it Eastwards a little and are you telling me the Port can't give up that little bit of land that is pretty much vacant in every aerial photo I can find? This would allow at least half of the stadium to be built on land, reducing the risks immensly. And so what, give the Port 20 million or 40 million, it beats the 75 million or more that half of the platform would likely end up costing.
5. Why wasn't there better consultation on other sites? I personally favour west of the Viaduct. I think it has much better potential in longer terms for flow on developments, and kick starting the (re)juvination of this area. It wouldn't be any further away from the transport hub that Wellington's stadium. It would be linked by a new iconic bridge and promenade linking Quay St to the western side in a long boulevard. (see really rough location sketch at http://www.punk.co.nz/viaductsite2.jpg) It has all the governments wonder of touching the water, and the city as the backdrop etc. The only problem appears to be the small business operating there, but again, surely this is available for far under the $150+ million cost of a risky platform? You could buy all the land and businesses outright, and probably pay out all the employees $100,000 dollars for less than half that.
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While stuck in my usual 5 minute crawl along Quay street this morning, I had plenty of time to contemplate the view-blockage of the waterfront proposal. If you travel west to east along Quay street from The Strand, here's what you see, and what might be spoiled by the stadium:
- I cruise past the strip mall, with the big Mobil, KFC, Macdonalds, and the hobby shop with the worst customer service in Auckland. On my right is a busy container terminal. I can't see the sea because of the wall of containers and port buildings.
- Stopping at the Tinley Street lights, the memories of teenaged Friday nights, cruising in my Carolla with its 18" subwoofer bring tears to my eyes. The view towards the stadium location is blocked by a huge glass wall thing. I presume it's a windbreak for the port?.
- I drive off from the lights, barely able to contain my sense of architectural pleasure as I drive between a big-block Foodtown store and the 'wall'.
- Coming to the end of the 'wall', I gaze to my right (checking first that the woman in the car in front has finished with her mascara, and has her attention back on the traffic). I see acres of Japanese cars, and behind that I can just make out the cliffs of Belmont, topped by 70's apartment buildings and partially obsured by a nice grey and blue container crane.
- Cruising up to the next set of lights, I crane my neck and can just make out Devonport and North Head, again only if I peer through the legs of container cranes.I think about how life might be, stuck in traffic on my way in to work on a Friday morning, tickets to that night's game in my glovebox. Will I be disappointed at the lack of view while I talk to friends on my cellphone arranging a post-game meatfest at Wildfire on Princess wharf? Or will I be gazing at the cliffs of Belmont while I desperately arrange how the fuck I'm going to get to Eden park and home again before midnight?
Waterfront please. Waterfront.
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The crap buildings that block views that you see on your way to work are the results of years of no planning on account of the planners!
Adding a big stadium to the mix is another example of short sighted vision.
Day after day more crap building go up down there and it's looking like a pile of melted lego (with poo on it).
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The problem with this whole thing (and I think a lot of people might agree) is that Ben and Tomorrowpeople are right - if we had been talking about and planning a waterfront stadium for the last year it would probably have a massive amount of support behind it.
I'm starting to swing for the waterfront - just because this whole thing is going to be rushed either way and f-it - I'm a gambler.
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Texas Hold 'em?
We could play a lot of hands with $800 mill.
;)
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Side78:
What terrorists? The French? That is only a vague possibility and only if we beat them to get into the finals.Eden Park is owned by a trust isn't it so all the money will go back to them.
The "iconic bridge" you point out would be in the way of all of those very tall yachts that like to park at the viaduct.
Still, Ports of Auckland are going to merge with Ports of Tauranga meaning that it is possible that PoA could send some of their business to PoT while the construction is going on. Which might help the deal.
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do we really worry about terrorists these days? i thought the "war on terror" was a passing fad.
as long as we don't piss off the french we should be ok...ps - nice ideas there side78
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It's a nice thought about the Waka, but it really doesn't work for something like a stadium. Stadia are broad and roundish, while waka are long and thin, so you have to extend the prow a long way out into the water to make the proportions even vaguely right.
Well of course. Nothing that you build around a stadium is going to make it not a stadium. The caketin doesn't really look like a caketin. I suspect that if the 'waka stadium' were built people would call it a dinghy with a phallus.
But I still think it looks nice, and it picks up and promotes 'our' national identity, or at least part of it. A waka is entirely appropriate as a metaphor for the activity, and entirely appropriate for the waterfront. Much better than the images of the future Eden Park, which looks like... a thousand other stadia anywhere in the world.
Except it still needs a roof. 500 million or more, and the world cup final (and the world cup cricket semifinal we're getting a few years later) is going to be a downpour, you watch.
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I know it's not much use harping on about ideas that have been discounted by the govt, but I'm curious as to why the North Harbour stadium wasn't on the table as an option. At first glance it appears to have space to expand, isn't blocking anyone's view of anything (except maybe that gigantic mega store shocker) and isn't in a space people think they'd rather use for something else.
Is it because it's not in Akl City? Or is it because it's believed that there'd be traffic hell on the bridge to and from games?
If it's the traffic issue, using that site could kill two birds with one stone - you'd get a big 'ol sports ground, and someone might have to do something about Auckland's roads or (heaven forbid), public transport system...
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