Commenting on the story: Bold concert hall vision for Festival Plaza

Guy Maron’s bold vision is a brilliant design, clever in concept while respecting adjacent arts buildings and the open space abutting the Torrens Lake.

What a contrast to the imposing, tall Walker Corporation tower that is being squeezed inappropriately onto the Festival Plaza. – Diana Laidlaw

Build it! This is brilliant. – Ennio Mercuri 

A brilliant conceptual design and it complements the adjacent Festival Centre. Thank you Guy, you continue to contribute what is exactly right for Adelaide. – Helen Davis

Any concert goer will tell you that a circular design would be a disaster.

See the Royal Albert Hall which has a notoriously bad acoustic – to the extent that shortly after the Second World War a German conductor working there was heard to remark that is was a shame that it was missed during the Blitz.

The best form acoustically is a ‘shoe-box’ design such as the Adelaide Town Hall (which unfortunately has other faults such as its capacity and seating) and places as the UK’s famed Wigmore Hall.

Guy Maron is a great architect and aesthetically his proposal is magnificent – but for something other than a concert hall. We have been waiting for this for a long time and we need to get it right and not have another disappointment such as the Festival Theatre. – Robert Fletcher

So love this proposal, it fits in with the precinct in ethos and asthetics. Would love to see it built, it could put Adelaide on the world music map. – Julia Montgomery

Why do we need a concert hall next to a concert hall?  I think we need a riverbank more. – Sharon Mosler

Love this concept. It’s dynamic, beautiful and the sort of architecture that will be a stand out in that position. – Diana Motteram

Fabulous concept. Hope that it is taken up. We are so short of decent concert and theatre spaces in Adelaide despite touting ourselves as the artistic and festival state. – Johanna Churchill

This design has legs. It’s on the right side of Morphett Street and looks spectacular. – Jeremy Bryce

I admire Mr Maron’s dedication to continuing the debate about a concert hall for Adelaide, and to keeping that debate in the public eye.

Do I love this particular concept and its location? Not really, but that’s neither here nor there. What I feel most strongly is that the state government and Adelaide City Council missed a trick when they failed to seize the North Adelaide Le Cornu site for such a venue.

Surely that, of all possible developments, would have resonated (pun intended) with locals. – Peri Strathearn

Great imaginative idea which apparently would have minimal impact on the riverbank.

Adelaide does need a new concert hall and this has all the panache of Guy Maron’s Adelaide  park lands masterpiece the Bicentennial Conservatory. I hope it gets wide community support.

This is the sort of architecture that impresses rather than shocks, as do the current rash of poorly designed, low quality tower blocks that are pepper-potting the CBD and ruining the appearance and amenity of our heritage low-rise city. – George Mackenzie

Umm … is it April 1st? – Ben Taylor

Commenting on the story: Adelaide Uni Council votes for faculty mergers

This is the result of our universities being outsourced and made financially dependent on overseas students and industry.

Our universities have been reduced to being a ‘cost effective‘ model for business instead of institutions providing higher education, potential for students to expand their minds through acquiring knowledge and enhanced creativity thus producing graduates with a strong foundation to build further knowledge and ability to  contribute to advancement of society and the wellbeing of people through the sciences and arts.

To reduce and amalgamate  traditional degrees into an alternative,  serving economic needs, vocational requirements and vocational skills is to diminish higher education, the reputation and acceptability of Australian degrees outside of Australia.

The government needs to properly fund TAFE for vocational education and training, and take responsibility for properly funding higher education and supporting the potential for graduates capable of new ideas, creative thought and high level knowledge, if it doesn’t want to downgrade our nations reputation and place in advanced societies. – Marilyn Kingston

Commenting on the story: Senior mental health nurse quits SA Health

This resignation and probably many others is of no surprise. It can only be a matter of time before senior nursing staff and doctors in our emergency departments and additionally paramedics and ambulance officers from SAAS follow suit (and are probably already doing so).

Our public health system in SA is an absolute shameful shambles and it clearly reflects Government ignorance, complete indifference, lack of visionary planning and incompetency. This government are highly unlikely to be reinstated in future elections because of this continual ongoing mismanagement. – Ian Harrison

I guess he gave up because it will take forever to fix the massive blunder caused by “Transforming Health” where Labor closed down or reduced capacity at almost all mental health facilities. – Fred Driver