CityUps Photograph 2014:10:25 19:50:35

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of Coralie Winn (Gap Filler) leading an aerobics session at CityUps. CityUps was a 'city of the future for one night only', and the main event of FESTA 2014.

CityUps Photograph 2014:10:25 19:51:50

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of Coralie Winn (Gap Filler) leading an aerobics session at CityUps. CityUps was a 'city of the future for one night only', and the main event of FESTA 2014.

St Luke's Labyrinth Photograph 4

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a sign describing St Luke's Labyrinth.

Fulton Hogan BMX Pump Track Photograph 4

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a sign describing the Fulton Hogan BMX Pump Track.

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2012 photograph 119

Images, UC QuakeStudies

The Gap Filler headquarters on a vacant lot on Colombo Street in Sydenham. Wheelbarrows full of new plants decorate the outside area. In the background is a mural with a poem reading, "The things which I have seen I now can see no more".

Christchurch: A Board Game Photograph 2

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a mural depicting ChristChurch Cathedral. The mural is attached to the fence on the site of Christchurch: A Board Game.

Street Football Photograph 1

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a street football arena built by Student Volunteer Army volunteers. The walls of the arena are built from recycled timber.

Fulton Hogan BMX Pump Track Photograph 5

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the Fulton Hogan BMX Pump Track. A mural on the wall reads, 'Pump it!'.

St Luke's Labyrinth Photograph 5

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a labyrinth laid out in bricks on the former site of St Luke's church.

Street Football Photograph 2

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of the wall of a street football arena built by Student Volunteer Army volunteers. The wall has a sign attached acknowledging the support of Resene, and is painted with the words, 'Red zone timber'.

Play, politics and the production of space: DIY urbanism in post-earthquak…

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010-2011 wrought ruptures in not only the physical landscape of Canterbury and Christchurch’s material form, but also in its social, economic, and political fabrics and the lives of Christchurch inhabitants. In the years that followed, the widespread demolition of the CBD that followed the earthquakes produced a bleak landscape of grey rubble punctuated by damaged, abandoned buildings. It was into this post-earthquake landscape that Gap Filler and other ‘transitional’ organisations inserted playful, creative, experimental projects to bring life and energy back into the CBD. This thesis examines those interventions and the development of the ‘Transitional Movement’ between July 2013 and June 2015 via the methods of walking interviews and participant observation. This critical period in Christchurch’s recovery serves as an example of what happens when do-it-yourself (DIY) urbanism is done at scale across the CBD and what urban experimentation can offer city-making. Through an understanding of space as produced, informed by Lefebvre’s thinking, I explore how these creative urban interventions manifested a different temporality to orthodox planning and demonstrate how the ‘soft’ politics of these interventions contain the potential for gentrification and also a more radical politics of the city, by creating an opening space for difference.