Ocean Beach plan troubles expert

JONATHAN DOW
The initial design for the Ocean Beach development is a "Platinum City by the Sea", design historian Douglas Lloyd Jenkins said last night.
He also argued it was an American/Australian-style suburb relocated to the beach front,
"It troubled me. More than that, it stopped me in my tracks," he said.
The concept plans produced by consultants, after the initial phase of the design process, seriously misrepresented the traditions of Hawke's Bay and the wider experience of the New Zealand coast, Mr Lloyd Jenkins told a packed house at the Hastings Exhibition Centre for a forum on "The Role of Design in Development".
He had planned to encourage the audience - which he anticipated to be largely against the proposed development - "to look beyond the 'no architecture is good architecture' stance that dominated discussions of the built environment in New Zealand".
The concept plans were produced by consultants DPZ for Ocean Beach and were very similar to designs - tree-lined squares, wide boulevards and spacious cul de sacs - to the company's design for Platinum City, India and other developments in China and the Philippines, Mr Lloyd Jenkins said.
He had planned to argue the case for good architecture, as he had in a July Listener article on pop star Shania Twain's battles to try and build a house in the South Island.
"Because (as New Zealanders) we are going to keep on building, we need to think about building better; about how new structures might enhance the rural landscape, while protecting natural environments."
A design historian and associate professor at the UNITEC School of Design in Auckland, Mr Lloyd Jenkins admitted as a "fair-skinned Celt" he was not a beach or a nature person. "I am in many ways pro-development because I believe in the inspiration of the built world as much if not more so than the natural."