NZ Visual Diary - entry 261

night pose - Silo Park

Against the backdrop of Wynyard Quarter in daylight, hours that attract hundreds of tourists, large numbers of families and lend to the district a celebratory hubbub, I am also drawn to night walks through the quarter when light and shadow, colour and form, take to the stage.

It is to the enduring credit of the landscape design team that the visual imprint of Silo Park, the epicentre of Wynyard Quarter, incorporates an array of retired storage silos. Those silos make manifest the industrial history of the district and especially at night create a stunning streetscape aesthetic.

And yet, left to stand on their own, the assemblage of industrial structures would have cast a dystopian pall on the neighbourhood. The park works so well because the silos, as spectral remnants of a bygone era, are embedded within a landscape of trees, grasses and art, all of which are softened and artistically accented by LED lighting.

If urban spaces work at all, they do mostly when natural and built elements are invited to dance together — less in competition or exclusion, more in concert and caress.