An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 10 May 2013 entitled, "Taking a detour....".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 8 January 2013 entitled, "Venturing into the central city....".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 27 May 2013 entitled, "The Hottie Project 2013".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 21 June 2013 entitled, "Buying New Zealand Made...".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 11 July 2013 entitled, "Do you ever feel like you are walking through deep sand?".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 16 November 2013 entitled, "Tidying up odds and ends...".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 6 October 2013 entitled, "Earthquake Repairs Day is here!!!".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 19 October 2013 entitled, "discombobulated".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 27 September 2013 entitled, "Just so you know....".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 11 November 2013 entitled, "Keeping it real...".
The connections between walls of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings and flexible timber diaphragms are critical building components that must perform adequately before desirable earthquake response of URM buildings may be achieved. Field observations made during the initial reconnaissance and the subsequent damage surveys of clay brick URM buildings following the 2010/2011 Canterbury, New Zealand earthquakes revealed numerous cases where anchor connections joining masonry walls or parapets with roof or floor diaphragms appeared to have failed prematurely. These observations were more frequent for the case of adhesive anchor connections than for the case of through-bolt connections (i.e. anchorages having plates on the exterior façade of the masonry walls). Subsequently, an in-field test program was undertaken in an attempt to evaluate the performance of adhesive anchor connections between unreinforced clay brick URM walls and roof or floor diaphragm. The study consisted of a total of almost 400 anchor tests conducted in eleven existing URM buildings located in Christchurch, Whanganui and Auckland. Specific objectives of the study included the identification of failure modes of adhesive anchors in existing URM walls and the influence of the following variables on anchor load-displacement response: adhesive type, strength of the masonry materials (brick and mortar), anchor embedment depth, anchor rod diameter, overburden level, anchor rod type, quality of installation and the use of metal foil sleeve. In addition, the comparative performance of bent anchors (installed at an angle of minimum 22.5o to the perpendicular projection from the wall surface) and anchors positioned horizontally was investigated. Observations on the performance of wall-to-diaphragm connections in the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes and a snapshot of the performed experimental program and the test results are presented herein. http://hdl.handle.net/2292/21050
The city of Christchurch has experienced over 10,000 aftershocks since the 4th of September 2010 earthquake of which approximately 50 have been greater than magnitude 5. The damage caused to URM buildings in Christchurch over this sequence of earthquakes has been well documented. Due to the similarity in age and construction of URM buildings in Adelaide, South Australia and Christchurch (they are sister cities, of similar age and heritage), an investigation was conducted to learn lessons for Adelaide based on the Christchurch experience. To this end, the number of URM buildings in the central business districts of both cities, the extent of seismic strengthening that exists in both cities, and the relative earthquake hazards for both cities were considered. This paper will report on these findings and recommend strategies that the city of Adelaide could consider to significantly reduce the seismic risk posed by URM buildings in future earthquake.
A tribute left on the cordon fence around the CTV Building site. The card shows a photograph of rescuers working on the CTV site, and reads, "Some of the guys who found you!! Thank you!".
Based on a qualitative study of four organisations involving 47 respondents following the extensive 2010 – 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, this paper presents some guidance for human resource practitioners dealing with post-disaster recovery. A key issue is the need for the human resource function to reframe its practices in a post-disaster context, developing a specific focus on understanding and addressing changing employee needs, and monitoring the leadership behaviour of supervisors. This article highlights the importance of flexible organisational responses based around a set of key principles concerning communication and employee perceptions of company support.
Disasters are rare events with major consequences; yet comparatively little is known about managing employee needs in disaster situations. Based on case studies of four organisations following the devastating earthquakes of 2010 - 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand, this paper presents a framework using redefined notions of employee needs and expectations, and charting the ways in which these influence organisational recovery and performance. Analysis of in-depth interview data from 47 respondents in four organisations highlighted the evolving nature of employee needs and the crucial role of middle management leadership in mitigating the effects of disasters. The findings have counterintuitive implications for human resource functions in a disaster, suggesting that organisational justice forms a central framework for managing organisational responses to support and engage employees for promoting business recovery.
The University of Canterbury is known internationally for the Origins of New Zealand English (ONZE) corpus (see Gordon et al 2004). ONZE is a large collection of recordings from people born between 1851 and 1984, and it has been widely utilised for linguistic and sociolinguistic research on New Zealand English. The ONZE data is varied. The recordings from the Mobile Unit (MU) are interviews and were collected by members of the NZ Broadcasting service shortly after the Second World War, with the aim of recording stories from New Zealanders outside the main city centres. These were supplemented by interview recordings carried out mainly in the 1990s and now contained in the Intermediate Archive (IA). The final ONZE collection, the Canterbury Corpus, is a set of interviews and word-list recordings carried out by students at the University of Canterbury. Across the ONZE corpora, there are different interviewers, different interview styles and a myriad of different topics discussed. In this paper, we introduce a new corpus – the QuakeBox – where these contexts are much more consistent and comparable across speakers. The QuakeBox is a corpus which consists largely of audio and video recordings of monologues about the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. As such, it represents Canterbury speakers’ very recent ‘danger of death’ experiences (see Labov 2013). In this paper, we outline the creation and structure of the corpus, including the practical issues involved in storing the data and gaining speakers’ informed consent for their audio and video data to be included.
Wednesday 6 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-06IMG_2942 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_4022 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Wednesday 6 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-06IMG_2943 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_3992 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_3951 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Wednesday 6 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-06IMG_2944 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_3980 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_3954 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Wednesday 6 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-06IMG_2949 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_3958 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_4017 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Peter Majende, artist. Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_4001 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Peter Majende, artist. Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_3999 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Wednesday 6 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-06IMG_2945 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.