WALKING ON WATER - DOWNTOWN RETROSPECTIVE

problem

many aucklanders seem to be oblivious to the rich history of our city. we would like to introduce the public to this narrative in an interactive, new way.

concept

for this project we have decided to create an interactive screen which showcases the history of our surrounding area of auckland city.

after some research we chose the freemans bay/viaduct/victoria park market area. this location has had an interesting, sordid past, with many acres of land reclaimed from the ocean , beginning in the 1840's.

this survey map from 1841 shows the plans to reclaim all of freemans bay, the tank farm, the viaduct and downtown auckland. i was amazed at how accurately this resembles what is there today, 170 years later;

originally taken from googlemaps.com, 2009

we are going to use a screen in some way to present a new slant on the geographic history of the auckland waterfront.

the screen and display must be aesthetically and contextually relevant to the setting we choose. also, it should be inviting, easy to use and be obvious enough so as not to confuse the viewers.

microfilm and archive research - background

we visited the auckland library, searching through old newspapers, articles and microfilm archives.

we found old photographs and drawings that provide visual insight into the metamorphosis of this area;

1840's...

...1904...

...1938...

...today.

these images suggest that freemans bay had a round, shelly shoreline that tapered up towards the ridge which is now known as ponsonby.

the bay was filled in as it was deemed by early surveyors to be an excellent location for a harbour - with its long, deep, easily defendable channel.

before european occupation local maori of tamaki makau rau used the area to gather sea food such as cockles and were obviously already wise to the potential and importance of this area. the original names for the bay and beach that are now victoria park, were waiatarau (or 'reflecting waters) and wai kōtota ('the place where the cockles are harvested');

during the first half of the 1900's this area of freemans bays' reclaimed, flat basin became an empoverished and notorious slum village. this is not surprising as the european settlers named freemans bay after captain hobson's secretary, James Stuart Freeman, who was famously described as "the most disgustingly immoral swindling scoundrel in town".

ad for contentious redevelopment launch in freemans bay. ICN 1978-1980

altogether, a rather colourful chronicle is that of freemans bay...

exploring the physical environment and contextual links

we spent many hours walking around the whole expanse of reclaimed land in downtown auckland and found the topography is still very suggestive of the original shape and layout of the bay.

we were searching for a location to display our screen which would help us establish a physical, contextual link to this history...

our original idea developed from our first walk around. we proposed setting up an interactive, history kiosk with reimagined images of the area immediately around it. we were going to make a cowling that physically and aesthetically reflected elements we saw during the research thus far. e.g. a kiosk placed near, and made to resemble, victoria park markets red brick construction.

we noticed many historical features still remain in this area and chose to display somewhere in the victoria park region. however, we wanted to make more of an original comment about the fact that victoria parks surroundings used to be occupied by the ocean/waitemata harbour and that we have changed the landscape so drastically to serve our purpose.

concept development

we proposed to create a stand-alone kiosk (displaying as stated above). a screen set into a transparent plastic tank with fish. this was proposed as a comment on the land reclaim, by imposing a body of water on land that used to be sea.

after much deliberation we decided the idea to make a stand-alone kiosk would not be feasible because materials such as tansparent acrylic are entirely too expensive for our budget, an internal power source would be tricky to create, and there are too many safety issues involved with mixing water and electricity.

also, we made the choice to persue a display which involved passive interaction of passers by and not a suggestively housed information box/screen, which still focussed on the land reclaim.

our concept thus far was undeveloped if not cool and aesthetic. we set about to find something more....