Today Tommy Honey on Radio NZ’s Nine-to-Noon talked about (criticises) the apparent quest to create “iconic” buildings. He was particularly referring to Auckland’s Queen’s Wharf competition and the comments that entrants failed to put forward iconic designs.

But really what are the qualities of iconic buildings, who is to say that a early stage design will eventually attain iconic status, and how exactly do you build this quest into a competition or design brief. If there is a formula for creating “iconic” buildings what is it? If there are people out there with the ability to divine public sentiment 20, 50, or 100 years into the future – please point them out.

Last week in Australia the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed introducing national criteria for the future planning of Australia’s major cities – effectively, centralising many city planning functions.

Naturally, the reception from state and territorial government was mixed. However, the Australian PM’s argument is pretty clear – our funds, our rules.

“If the Commonwealth is to foot any significant part of the urban infrastructure bill in the future, the Commonwealth legitimately will expect to have confidence in the integrity of the strategic planning systems of our major cities,” he said.

He’s proposed setting up a new planning strategy with the goal of making Australian cities productive, liveable and sustainable. The plan is partly to alleviate the risk that significant infrastructure investment may effectively be lost if they don’t get the shape of their cities right.

The plan would regulate land releases for housing, encourage good design, ensure adequate transport infrastructure and take into account the expected impact of climate change.

Is there any need for such measures in New Zealand?

The current controversy surrounding the running of Auckland’s Queen’s Wharf design competition is a real shame. The volume of negative attention received before a design has even been picked and construction commenced can only hurt the project.

It’s a shame because these kinds of design competitions offer the chance to pull in a wide range of stakeholders, and to generate community interest and pride in the eventual public asset.

The UK’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) offers some useful advice on the experience of people who have run successful competitions to help understand what is involved.

CABE says successful design competitions:

• create a robust vision that can be used to focus the project, secure funding and set standards.
• take place at the moment of a project when experimentation is most fruitful
• allow scoping and testing ideas in a brief
• help clients to champion quality from the start
• help focus on the big issues of a project rather than barriers or premature detail
• allow access to underused talent often locked up in big architectural practices
• attract keen design teams.

NZIA has been pushing hard for a Government Architect. In this situation the Government Architect could provide specialist advice on the running of such a competition, assisting in the development of the brief, setting the rules and process, and handling the public engagement element. Above all else the Government Architect would provide the important perception of an unbiased and impartial process.