Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Forsyth Barr Building on the corner of Colombo and Armagh Streets with PricewaterhouseCoopers Building to the left and Marque Hotel in the distance".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The reverse side of the facade of the New Excelsior Backpackers. The facade will be retained - you can see how it is tied to the containers".
A photograph of a labyrinth laid out in bricks on the former site of St Luke's church.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Government Life Building in Cathedral Square, with the Grant Thornton and Clarendon Tower buildings visible behind. All of these buildings are expected to be demolished".
A black and white historic photograph of the Clarendon Hotel on the corner of Oxford Terrace and Worcester Street. In the foreground is the Scott Memorial statue made by Scott's wife Kathleen Scott and unveiled in 1917.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman towards the Heritage Hotel in Cathedral Square with Hotel Grand Chancellor (left background)".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking down Tattersalls Lane from Hereford Street with a concrete truck and pump delivering concrete to the 1st floor of the Hotel Grand Chancellor".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "207-211 Manchester Street demolished. The man on the roof (centre, slightly right) is throwing bricks off the collapsed roof of the old church hall".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "It's not easy to spot, but look at the floor level in this picture. By the bar, it's about half a metre higher than in the foreground. Pressure under the floor pushed the whole floor up".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Demolition site of the Allan McLean building, on the corner of Colombo Street and Oxford Terrace. The PricewaterhouseCoopers building is behind. The green digger is feeding the yellow concrete muncher while the red digger redistributes the munched up concrete".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking south along Tramway Lane and Tattersalls Lane with the Hotel Grand Chancellor at the end (note the concrete truck delivering concrete being pumped into the ground floor of the hotel)".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view from Cambridge Terrace across the Avon River to Victoria Square. The demolition of the Plunket House and the Oxford on Avon on Oxford Terrace has opened up this view so that Victoria Square can be seen".
A poster created by Empowered Christchurch to advertise their submission to the CERA Draft Transition Recovery Plan on social media.The poster reads, "Submission. CERA Draft Transition Recovery Plan. 5. In your opinion, is there a better way to report on these recovery issues? We believe that, as regards residential recovery, monitoring should extend to code compliance certificates. According to figures published in 2014, only factions of repairs/rebuilds are completed with the issue of a code compliance certificate. To conclude the work to the required standard, someone must pay for the code compliance. Leaving things as they are could have serious negative consequences for the recovery and for the city as a whole. We suggest an investigation of number of outstanding code compliance certificates and that responsible parties are made to address this outstanding work. We need a city that is driven by the people that live in it, and enabled by a bureaucracy that accepts and mitigates risks, rather than transferring them to the most vulnerable residents."
The seismic tremor that shook Christchurch on February 22, 2011, not only shattered buildings but also the spirit of the city’s residents. Amidst the ruins, this design-focused thesis unravels two intertwining narratives, each essential to the city’s resurrection. At its core, this thesis probes the preservation of Christchurch’s memory and character, meticulously chronicling the lost heritage architecture and the subsequent urban metamorphosis. Beyond bricks and mortar, it also confronts the silent aftershocks - the pervasive mental health challenges stemming from personal losses and the disfigured cityscape. As a native of Christchurch, intimately connected to its fabric, my lens reflects not just on the architectural reconstruction but also on the emotional reconstruction. My experience as an autistic individual, a recently discovered facet of my identity, infuses this design journey with a distinct prism through which I perceive and interact with the world. The colourful sketches that drive the design process aren’t mere illustrations but manifestations of my interpretation of spaces and concepts, evoking joy and vitality—a testament to embracing diversity in design. Drawing parallels between healing my own traumas with my colourful and joyful neurodivergent worldview, I’ve woven this concept into proposals aimed at healing the city through whimsy, joy, and vibrant colours. Personal experiences during and post-earthquakes profoundly shape my design proposals. Having navigated the labyrinth of my own mental health amid the altered cityscape, I seek avenues for reconciliation, both personal and communal. The vibrant sketches and designs presented in this thesis encapsulate this vision—a fusion of vivid, unconventional interpretations and a dedication to preserving the essence of the original cityscape while still encouraging movement into the future.
Prior to the devastating 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, parts of the CBD of Christchurch, New Zealand were undergoing revitalisation incorporating aspects of adaptive reuse and gentrification. Such areas were often characterised by a variety of bars, restaurants, and retail outlets of an “alternative” or “bohemian” style. These early 20th century buildings also exhibited relatively low rents and a somewhat chaotic and loosely planned property development approach by small scale developers. Almost all of these buildings were demolished following the earthquakes and a cordon placed around the CBD for several years. A paper presented at the ERES conference in 2013 presented preliminary results, from observation of post-earthquake public meetings and interviews with displaced CBD retailers. This paper highlighted a strongly held fear that the rebuild of the central city, then about to begin, would result in a very different style and cost structure from that which previously existed. As a result, permanent exclusion from the CBD of the types of businesses that previously characterised the successfully revitalised areas would occur. Five years further on, new CBD retail and office buildings have been constructed, but large areas of land between them remain vacant and the new buildings completed are often having difficulty attracting tenants. This paper reports on the further development of this long-term Christchurch case study and examines if the earlier predictions of the displaced retailers are coming true, in that a new CBD that largely mimics a suburban mall in style and tenancy mix, inherently loses some of its competitive advantage?
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view of SOL Square from the top of the Alice in Videoland building on the corner of High Street and Tuam Street".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman and Canterbury Times (Christchurch Star?) buildings with Heritage Hotel on the left and Novotel in the centre".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman and Canterbury Times (Christchurch Star?) buildings with Heritage Hotel on the left and Novotel in the centre".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "View from Cashel Mall looking over the Whitcoulls site and the demolition of Wendy's in Hereford Street to the back of the ANZ bank in Cathedral Square".
A photograph of a sign describing the earthquake memorial created on the former site of St Luke's church. The memorial is in the form of 185 pieces of stone recovered from the church.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman and Canterbury Times (Christchurch Star?) buildings with Heritage Hotel on the left and Novotel in the centre".
Background Liquefaction induced land damage has been identified in more than 13 notable New Zealand earthquakes within the past 150 years, as presented on the timeline below. Following the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), the consequences of liquefaction were witnessed first-hand in the city of Christchurch and as a result the demand for understanding this phenomenon was heightened. Government, local councils, insurers and many other stakeholders are now looking to research and understand their exposure to this natural hazard.
The term resilience‘’is increasingly being used in a multitude of contexts. Seemingly the latest buzz‘’word, it can mean many things to many people, in many different situations. In a natural hazard context, the terms sustainable planning‘’, and resilience‘planning are now’being used, often interchangeably. This poster provides an overview of resilience and sustainability within a land use planning and natural hazard context, and discusses how they are interrelated in the situation of the earthquake impacted city of Christchurch, New Zealand.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Site of the old Press Building in Cathedral Square and from left to right, Novatel Hotel, Price Waterhouse Coopers Building, Isaac Theatre Royal (behind the crane), new Press Building, Tramway Junction with the Rendevous Hotel showing above".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The basement of the Louis Vuitton Building on the corner of Colombo Street and Cathedral Square, exposed now the building has been demolished. The Christ Church Cathedral can be seen in the background".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Demolition site of Warners Hotel, taken from Gloucester Street with a view through to the Heritage Hotel and Millennium Hotel. The Hotel Grand Chancellor is behind".
An aerial photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Colombo Street beginning at the Copthorne on the left and ending just past the Christchurch Cathedral".
The intersection of Colombo and High Streets with Hereford Street to the left. The 'Flour Power' statue stands in the centre of the intersection with wire fencing placed around it. Three cranes can be seen in the distance.
An aerial photograph of High Street. The photograph has been captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A detail of High Street between the Lichfield and Manchester Street intersection and the Tuam and Poplar Street intersection".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Octagon Live Restaurant, formerly Trinity Congregational Church, on the corner of Manchester and Worcester Street. This was further damaged in the 23 December 2011 earthquake when a big piece of the rose window fell out".