On the first day of their masters in planning course, students at the University of Technology, Sydney, are sent to Darling Harbour to decide what works and what doesn’t.
Some conclude it is the city’s ”little green lung”, car-free and graced with plants and water. Others find it forbidding, with its windswept plazas and ”uninviting” convention centre, says the UTS course director, Heather MacDonald.
Dr MacDonald believes Darling Harbour ”works very well for its purpose, but its purpose is too narrow”. For conventions, tourists and big events, it does the job. If only it was interspersed with homes and workplaces, it would be all the more lively.
Darling Harbour is among several Sydney sites which the Roads Minister, David Borger, appeared to lump together as ”dead and lifeless” and ”urban failures” at a forum last week. Others were Sydney Olympic Park, the Church Street Mall in Parramatta and - ”potentially” - his government’s coming prized development at harbourside Barangaroo.
Mr Borger chose more diplomatic language yesterday. Barangaroo would be ”fantastic” while Darling Harbour and Sydney Olympic Park were ”vibrant places”.
A shame, perhaps, for the Institute of Architects, which was very impressed with his original warning against urban developments lacking ”natural movement corridors”. The minister had urged caution when considering street closures.
Stephen Buzacott, from the institute’s NSW chapter, says: ”You only have to go to Newcastle, where they closed off the traffic. The CBD in Newcastle died.”
Mr Buzacott believes Mr Borger rightly cited Barangaroo. Its original, award-winning design had included a grid of north-south and east-west streets. Now it would be a singular ”retail destination” and the headland park would be a separate destination, ”not on the way to anywhere”.
Dr MacDonald stresses: ”Pedestrian malls are not all equal.” She names car-free Florence, Las Ramblas in Barcelona and Circular Quay as successes - because they have a critical mass of pedestrians who fill them day and night. She believes the closure of George Street around Town Hall would work.
But Karen Grega, chief executive of the Sydney Olympic Park Business Association, rejects the ”urban failure” tag. Aside from the park’s 10 million visitors a year, in the past three years its workforce has grown from 4000 to 10,000, businesses have gone from 65 to 125 and cafes and restaurants from five to more than 25.
