On a walk around the city to catch up on what is happening May 29, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. Demolition work on Christchurch's "distinctive" former civic building is under way. The category-2 heritage building was designed by G A J Hart and opened in 1939 as the Miller's department store. It featured the South Island's first escalator, w...
The earthquake re-pair work has started on the Knox Church on Bealey Avenue, August 14, 2013 Christchurch New Zealand. While building after building is torn down in Christchurch, plans are in place to ensure as much of a 131-year-old church is retained as possible. Knox Church on Bealey Avenue suffered major damage in the February 22 earthquak...
What I found on a walk around the city Christchurch November 20, 2013 New Zealand. www.isaactheatreroyal.co.nz/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake
Demolition of the old Millers building is just about complemented. On my walk around the city in the rain.. thought it may have stopped.. but didn't so I just kept walking! June 12, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand.
Knox Church earthquake repair/rebuild on a walk around Christchurch December 11, 2013 New Zealand. www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-20... All about our ear...
Earthquake damaged building on a Walk around the city, May 1, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. Demolition work on Christchurch's "distinctive" former civic building is under way. The category-2 heritage building was designed by G A J Hart and opened in 1939 as the Miller's department store. It featured the South Island's first escalator, which...
Demolition underway on a walk around the city to catch up on events happening June 25, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand.
The former Government Life building in Christchurch's Cathedral Square will be demolished. On my walk around the city May 21, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christch...
Christchurch "New Zealand" architecture building "Demolition of old Millers building" demolition detail rubbleDemolition started on the old Millers building on a walk around Christchurch May 6, 2013 New Zealand. The building was originally designed in 1935 by G. A. Hart for the retail store, factory and warehouse Millers and was completed in 19...
Demolition work on Christchurch's "distinctive" former civic building and the Front Runner store. On a walk around Christchurch May 9, 2013 New Zealand. Demolition work on Christchurch's "distinctive" former civic building is under way. The category-2 heritage building was designed by G A J Hart and opened in 1939 as the Miller's department s...
The centennial pool demolition is under way. On a walk around the city to catch up on events happening June 18, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. Swimsuits have been hung on the fence around the Centennial Pool by campaigners against the complex's demolition. The Armagh St facility is being pulled down to make way for the new Margaret Mahy Fami...
I am going away for a short time for a holiday and well get back to you all when I get home. Demotion of the Victoria Sq apartments on a walk around the city Feb 26, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. www...
The centennial pool demolition is under way. On a walk around the city to catch up on events happening June 18, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. Swimsuits have been hung on the fence around the Centennial Pool by campaigners against the complex's demolition. The Armagh St facility is being pulled down to make way for the new Margaret Mahy Fami...
Earthquake damaged building on a Walk around the city, May 1, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. Demolition work on Christchurch's "distinctive" former civic building is under way. The category-2 heritage building was designed by G A J Hart and opened in 1939 as the Miller's department store. It featured the South Island's first escalator, which...
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A natural disaster will inevitably strike New Zealand in the coming years, damaging educational facilities. Delays in building quality replacement facilities will lead to short-term disruption of education, risking long-term inequalities for the affected students. The Christchurch earthquake demonstrated the issues arising from a lack of school planning and support. This research proposes a system that can effectively provide rapid, prefabricated, primary schools in post-disaster environments. The aim is to continue education for children in the short term, while using construction that is suitable until the total replacement of the given school is completed. The expandable prefabricated architecture meets the strength, time, and transport requirements to deliver a robust, rapid relief temporary construction. It is also adaptable to any area within New Zealand. This design solution supports personal well-being and mitigates the risk of educational gaps, PTSD linked with anxiety and depression, and many other mental health disorders that can impact students and teachers after a natural disaster.
On the 22nd of February, 2011 the city of Christchurch, New Zealand was crippled by a colossal earthquake. 185 people were killed, thousands injured and what remained was a city left in destruction and ruin. Thousands of Christchurch properties and buildings were left damaged beyond repair and the rich historical architecture of the Canterbury region had suffered irreparably. This research will conduct an investigation into whether the use of mixed reality can aid in liberating Christchurch’s rich architectural heritage when applied to the context of destructed buildings within Christchurch. The aim of this thesis is to formulate a narrative around the embodiment of mixed reality when subjected to the fragmentary historical architecture of Christchurch. Mixed reality will aspire to act as the defining ligature that holds the past, present and future of Christchurch’s architectural heritage intact as if it is all part of the same continuum. This thesis will focus on the design of a memorial museum within a heavily damaged historical trust registered building due to the Christchurch earthquake. It is important and relevant to conceive the idea of such a design as history is what makes everything we know. The memories of the past, the being of the now and the projection of the future is the basis and fundamental imperative in honouring the city and people of Christchurch. Using the technologies of Mixed Reality and the realm of its counter parts the memorial museum will be a definitive proposition of desire in providing a psychological and physical understanding towards a better Christchurch, for the people of Christchurch. This thesis serves to explore the renovation possibilities of the Canterbury provincial council building in its destructed state to produce a memorial museum for the Christchurch earthquake. The design seeks to mummify the building in its raw state that sets and develops the narrative through the spaces. The design intervention is kept at a required minimum and in doing so manifests a concentrated eloquence to the derelict space. The interior architecture unlocks the expression of history and time encompassed within a destructive and industrialised architectural dialogue. History is the inhabitant of the building, and using the physical and virtual worlds it can be set free. This thesis informs a design for a museum in central Christchurch that celebrates and informs the public on past, present and future heritage aspects of Christchurch city. Using mixed reality technologies the spatial layout inside will be a direct effect of the mixed reality used and the exploration of the physical and digital heritage aspects of Christchurch. The use of technology in today’s world is so prevalent that incorporating it into a memorial museum for Christchurch would not only be interesting and exploratory but also offer a sense of pushing forward and striving beyond for a newer, fresher Christchurch. The memorial museum will showcase a range of different exhibitions that formulate around the devastating Christchurch earthquake. Using mixed reality technologies these exhibitions will dictate the spaces inside dependant on their various applications of mixed reality as a technology for architecture. Research will include; what the people of Canterbury are most dear to in regards to Christchurch’s historical environment; the use of mixed reality to visualise digital heritage, and the combination of the physical and digital to serve as an architectural mediation between what was, what is and what there could be.
The suburb of New Brighton in Christchurch Aotearoa was once a booming retail sector until the end of its exclusivity to Saturday shopping in 1980 and the aftermath of the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The suburb of New Brighton was hit particularly hard and fell into economic collapse, partly brought on by the nature of its economic structure. This implosion created an urban crisis where people and businesses abandoned the suburb and its once-booming commercial economy. As a result, New Brighton has been left with the residue of abandoned infrastructure and commercial propaganda such as billboards, ATM machines, commercial facades, and shopping trolleys that as abandoned fragments, no longer contribute to culture, society and the economy. This design-led research investigation proposes to repurpose the broken objects that were left behind. By strategically selecting objects that are symbols of the root cause of the economic devastation, the repurposed and re-contextualised fragments will seek to allegorically expose the city’s destructive economic narrative, while providing a renewed sense of place identity for the people. This design-led thesis investigation argues that the seemingly innocuous icons of commercial industry, such as billboards, ATM machines, commercial facades, and shopping trolleys, are intended to act as lures to encourage people to spend money; ultimately, these urban and architectural lures can contribute to economic devastation. The aim of this investigation is to repurpose abandoned fragments of capitalist infrastructure in ways that can help to unveil new possibilities for a disrupted community and enhance their awareness of what led to the urban disruption. The thesis proposes to achieve this research aim by exploring three principal research objectives: 1) to assimilate and re-contextualise disconnected urban fragments into new architectural interventions; 2) to anthropomorphise these new interventions so that they are recognisable as architectural ‘inhabitants’, the storytellers of the urban context; and 3) to curate these new architectural interventions in ways that enable a community-scale allegorical and didactic experience to be recognised.
Tree mortality is a fundamental process governing forest dynamics, but understanding tree mortality patterns is challenging because large, long-term datasets are required. Describing size-specific mortality patterns can be especially difficult, due to few trees in larger size classes. We used permanent plot data from Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides (mountain beech) forest on the eastern slopes of the Southern Alps, New Zealand, where the fates of trees on 250 plots of 0.04 ha were followed, to examine: (1) patterns of size-specific mortality over three consecutive periods spanning 30 years, each characterised by different disturbance, and (2) the strength and direction of neighbourhood crowding effects on sizespecific mortality rates. We found that the size-specific mortality function was U-shaped over the 30-year period as well as within two shorter periods characterised by small-scale pinhole beetle and windthrow disturbance. During a third period, characterised by earthquake disturbance, tree mortality was less size dependent. Small trees (,20 cm in diameter) were more likely to die, in all three periods, if surrounded by a high basal area of larger neighbours, suggesting that sizeasymmetric competition for light was a major cause of mortality. In contrast, large trees ($20 cm in diameter) were more likely to die in the first period if they had few neighbours, indicating that positive crowding effects were sometimes important for survival of large trees. Overall our results suggest that temporal variability in size-specific mortality patterns, and positive interactions between large trees, may sometimes need to be incorporated into models of forest dynamics.
Numerous studies have shown that urban soils can contain elevated concentrations of heavy metals (HMs). Christchurch, New Zealand, is a relatively young city (150 years old) with a population of 390,000. Most soils in Christchurch are sub-urban, with food production in residential gardens a popular activity. Earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 have resulted in the re-zoning of 630 ha of Christchurch, with suggestions that some of this land could be used for community gardens. We aimed to determine the HM concentrations in a selection of suburban gardens in Christchurch as well as in soils identified as being at risk of HM contamination due to hazardous former land uses or nearby activities. Heavy metal concentrations in suburban Christchurch garden soils were higher than normal background soil concentrations. Some 46% of the urban garden samples had Pb concentrations higher than the residential land use national standard of 210 mg kg⁻¹, with the most contaminated soil containing 2615 mg kg⁻¹ Pb. Concentrations of As and Zn exceeded the residential land use national standards (20 mg kg⁻¹ As and 400 mg kg⁻¹ Zn) in 20% of the soils. Older neighbourhoods had significantly higher soil HM concentrations than younger neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods developed pre-1950s had a mean Pb concentration of 282 mg kg⁻¹ in their garden soils. Soil HM concentrations should be key criteria when determining the future land use of former residential areas that have been demolished because of the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. Redeveloping these areas as parklands or forests would result in less human HM exposure than agriculture or community gardens where food is produced and bare soil is exposed.
Natural hazards continue to have adverse effects on communities and households worldwide, accelerating research on proactively identifying and enhancing characteristics associated with resilience. Although resilience is often characterized as a return to normal, recent studies of postdisaster recovery have highlighted the ways in which new opportunities can emerge following disruption, challenging the status quo. Conversely, recovery and reconstruction may serve to reinforce preexisting social, institutional, and development pathways. Our understanding of these dynamics is limited however by the small number of practice examples, particularly for rural communities in developed nations. This study uses a social–ecological inventory to document the drivers, pathways, and mechanisms of resilience following a large-magnitude earthquake in Kaikōura, a coastal community in Aotearoa New Zealand. As part of the planning and implementation phase of a multiyear project, we used the tool as the basis for indepth and contextually sensitive analysis of rural resilience. Moreover, the deliberate application of social–ecological inventory was the first step in the research team reengaging with the community following the event. The inventory process provided an opportunity for research partners to share their stories and experiences and develop a shared understanding of changes that had taken place in the community. Results provide empirical insight into reactions to disruptive change associated with disasters. The inventory also informed the design of targeted research collaborations, established a platform for longer-term community engagement, and provides a baseline for assessing longitudinal changes in key resilience-related characteristics and community capacities. Findings suggest the utility of social–ecological inventory goes beyond natural resource management, and that it may be appropriate in a range of contexts where institutional, social, and economic restructuring have developed out of necessity in response to felt or anticipated external stressors.
On 14 November 2016, a magnitude (Mw) 7.8 earthquake struck the small coastal settlement of Kaikōura, Aotearoa-New Zealand. With an economy based on tourism, agriculture, and fishing, Kaikōura was immediately faced with significant logistical, economic, and social challenges caused by damage to critical infrastructure and lifelines, essential to its main industries. Massive landslips cut offroad and rail access, stranding hundreds of tourists, and halting the collection, processing and distribution of agricultural products. At the coast, the seabed rose two metres, limiting harbour-access to high tide, with implications for whale watching tours and commercial fisheries. Throughout the region there was significant damage to homes, businesses, and farmland, leaving owners and residents facing an uncertain future. This paper uses qualitative case study analysis to explore post-quake transformations in a rural context. The aim is to gain insight into the distinctive dynamics of disaster response mechanisms, focusing on two initiatives that have emerged in direct response to the disaster. The first examines the ways in which agriculture, food harvesting, production and distribution are being reimagined with the potential to enhance regional food security. The second examines the rescaling of power in decision-making processes following the disaster, specifically examining the ways in which rural actors are leveraging networks to meet their needs and the consequences of that repositioning on rural (and national) governance arrangements. In these and other ways, the local economy is being revitalised, and regional resilience enhanced through diversification, capitalising not on the disaster but the region's natural, social, and cultural capital. Drawing on insights and experience of local stakeholders, policy- and decision-makers, and community representatives we highlight the diverse ways in which these endeavours are an attempt to create something new, revealing also the barriers which needed to be overcome to reshape local livelihoods. Results reveal that the process of transformation as part of rural recovery must be grounded in the lived reality of local residents and their understanding of place, incorporating and building on regional social, environmental, and economic characteristics. In this, the need to respond rapidly to realise opportunities must be balanced with the community-centric approach, with greater recognition given to the contested nature of the decisions to be made. Insights from the case examples can inform preparedness and recovery planning elsewhere, and provide a rich, real-time example of the ways in which disasters can create opportunities for reimagining resilient futures.
Creativity that is driven by a need for physical or economic survival, which disasters are likely to inspire, raises the question of whether such creativity fits with conventional theories and perspectives of creativity. In this paper we use the opportunity afforded by the 2010-2013 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes to follow and assess the creative practices and responses of a number of groups and individuals. We use in-depth interviews to tease out motivations and read these against a range of theoretical propositions about creativity. In particular, we focus on the construct of “elite panic” and the degree to which this appeared to be evident in the Christchurch earthquakes context. Bureaucratic attempts to control or limit creativity were present but they did not produce a completely blanket dampening effect. Certain individuals and groups seemed to be pre-equipped to navigate or ignore potential blocks to creativity. We argue, using Geir Kaufmann’s novelty-creativity matrix and aspects of Teresa Amabile’s and Michael G. Pratt’s revised componential theory of creativity that a special form of disaster creativity does exist.
A city’s planted trees, the great majority of which are in private gardens, play a fundamental role in shaping a city’s wild ecology, ecosystem functioning, and ecosystem services. However, studying tree diversity across a city’s many thousands of separate private gardens is logistically challenging. After the disastrous 2010–2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, over 7,000 homes were abandoned and a botanical survey of these gardens was contracted by the Government’s Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) prior to buildings being demolished. This unprecedented access to private gardens across the 443.9 hectares ‘Residential Red Zone’ area of eastern Christchurch is a unique opportunity to explore the composition of trees in private gardens across a large area of a New Zealand city. We analysed these survey data to describe the effects of housing age, socio-economics, human population density, and general soil quality, on tree abundance, species richness, and the proportion of indigenous and exotic species. We found that while most of the tree species were exotic, about half of the individual trees were local native species. There is an increasing realisation of the native tree species values among Christchurch citizens and gardens in more recent areas of housing had a higher proportion of smaller/younger native trees. However, the same sites had proportionately more exotic trees, by species and individuals, amongst their larger planted trees than older areas of housing. The majority of the species, and individuals, of the larger (≥10 cm DBH) trees planted in gardens still tend to be exotic species. In newer suburbs, gardens in wealthy areas had more native trees than gardens from poorer areas, while in older suburbs, poorer areas had more native big trees than wealthy areas. In combination, these describe, in detail unparalleled for at least in New Zealand, how the tree infrastructure of the city varies in space and time. This lays the groundwork for better understanding of how wildlife distribution and abundance, wild plant regeneration, and ecosystem services, are affected by the city’s trees.