Adelaide City Council’s deputy lord mayor, Michael Henningsen, has lambasted architectural firm HASSELL over its latest submission for development approval.
HASSELL’s proposal for a $50 million office building behind St Francis Xavier Cathedral was “schizoid”, in that it fell short when compared to previous proposals from the firm, Henningsen said. Up to this point, the practice had submitted “laudable” and “exemplarily” proposals on behalf of the Catholic Church Endowment Society, he said.
The plan included the demolition of an existing three-storey office building and adjoining two-storey commercial building to develop a nine-storey office building with basement car parking.
?The councilor, who sits on the Development Assessment Panel, said the firm’s previous work had been “beautiful”, enhanced the public realm and presentations had been thorough to the point of being anally retentive.
However, the proposal for offices on Wakefield Street had a scale and bulk completely out of character with the area and ruined sightlines, Henningsen said.
“[The Wakefield proposal] was a very ad hoc, skanky and poor presentation. Not at all becoming of a development of that significance and size, nor a company of that stature,” Henningsen told Architecture & Design.
“On one side they’re doing a wonderful job, and the other side, you think what’s happening here? … The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.”
The panel knocked back the proposal on 16 November, saying it “did not present a high quality architectural design” and was not sympathetically scaled and sited.
The proposed design, while representing a modern form of commercial development, did not provide the detail of architectural detailing, modeling or composition required, minutes from the DAC meeting record.
