The temporary Westside container village on Lake Burley Griffin's foreshore throws a hard-edged shadow over central Canberra's open landscape and the ACT government's plans for future lakeside development. To invigorate the lake's west basin, an elevated rooftop bar overlooks food stalls and sports areas on the ground, including a BMX pump track. Its location on the former futsal slab means it is controversy built on controversy.
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The village didn't open on schedule, has cost taxpayers about $1 million and, according to Chief Minister Andrew Barr, needs more time to attract public patronage. The delays in its construction mean that instead of opening over the summer, it is trying to draw patrons during Canberra's coldest months. As a result, it is probably more a curiosity to passers-by than a destination.
The reviews haven't been all favourable. Western Australia Labor senator Glenn Sterle says the container village looks like the beginnings of a detention centre, or a driving range for a golf course. In a Senate estimates meeting, he asked what it was doing in such a prominent location.
The National Capital Authority, which has national planning oversight in the central areas, chose not to defend the "pop-up" venue. Chief executive Malcolm Snow, who brings much experience on waterside developments to the city, after overseeing Brisbane River and Melbourne Docklands projects, described Westside as a "damp squib".
The ACT government and Barr as a former planning minister have chalked up solid achievements in revitalising inner areas, such as Braddon's transition from car yards to a popular, mixed-use, medium-density residential precinct. A willingness to nurture new attractions and take risks has paid off, too, as shown by the Enlighten festival, which features architectural projections and a bustling noodle market. This year's Enlighten attracted 287,000 people, more than double the 2014 attendance figure.
Barr says as a city, Canberra needs to grow up. This is a consistent theme of his, evident at the height of conflict over redevelopment in the inner suburbs in 2010, when he reminded people the national capital's first architect, Walter Burley Griffin, was long dead. Barr said Griffin's ideals should not be reinterpreted, nor should people be casting back a century for answers to Canberra's contemporary challenges, because Griffin could never have foreseen the changes in lifestyles that technology had delivered and that climate change would require. He has his supporters in this attitude.
Yet, there are those who still care deeply about the way the city was set out by Griffin and who question if bringing more people into the city is best done by adding clutter to the lake's edge and breaking up the long stretches of ornamental water.
Griffin's planning era has gone and has been compromised, but many elements remain that give the landscape prominence over the built form. Critics of the container village have a right to ask whether the troubled execution of this temporary project forewarns of how longer-term development will be handled around the jewel in a timeless, winning design.
