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A photograph of the intersection of Hereford and Madras Streets, looking towards the former site of St John the Baptist Church.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A worker tossing material out the window of Charles Luney House, into a skip on Armagh Street below".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "This stack of containers protect the facade of New Excelsior Backpackers. Corner of Manchester and Lichfield Streets".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "New Excelsior Backpackers, 120 Manchester Street, with the saved facade supported by shipping containers".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Detail of Christ's College".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view looking north up Colombo Street, from Gloucester Street".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking in through a broken window of the Oxford On Avon, Colombo Street. It's really hard to see here in a 2 dimensional photo, but the floor has been pushed up into a huge mound about 60cm high".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The plan for this building in Lichfield Street (as relayed to Ross by the contractors) is to remove the roof and open as a bar within 3 weeks".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking north east along High Street in the centre, looking east along Lichfield on the left and north along Manchester Street on the right".
A photograph taken from the top of the BNZ building. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Finally, the mess outside Coffee Culture on High Street has been cleared and demolition work will complete what the earthquake began. The red containers in the background are Fletchers containers, servicing the Hotel Grand Chancellor deconstruction".
A photograph taken from the top of the BNZ building. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The MFL Building has reached a very ugly stage of demolition. It is the last building standing on the corner of Gloucester and Colombo Streets".
A photograph taken from the top of the BNZ building. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Lunchtime in the Square - high-vis jackets, hard hats and boots are mandatory for everyone inside the cordon".
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. Cathedral Square can be seen in the background".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Retour Restaurant in Edmonds Band Rotunda on Cambridge Terrace. This was added to the CERA demo list on 5 March 2012".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view from Armagh Street looking south down New Regent Street. The partially-demolished Hotel Grand Chancellor can be seen in the distance".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view from Cambridge Terrace towards Cathedral Square. The partially deconstructed Hotel Grand Chancellor no longer dominates the sky line. Here it appears between the PricewaterhouseCoopers building on the left and the Novotel Hotel on the right".
A photograph taken from the top of the BNZ building. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti School, on the corner of High and Cashel Streets".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The intersection of High, Manchester, and Lichfield Streets. South-east view. This shows how many buildings have been demolished in Lichfield Street, including Bar Beleza".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Retour Restaurant in Edmonds Band Rotunda on Cambridge Terrace. This was added to the CERA demo list on 5 March 2012".
A photograph taken from the top of the BNZ building. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "There are workers suspended from a cage about a third of the way up the Pacific Tower as well as a couple of workers on the top penthouse floor. It's hard to see where they are suspended from".
In the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake, a state of polycentric urbanity was thrust upon New Zealand’s second largest city. As the city-centre lay in disrepair, smaller centres started to materialise elsewhere, out of necessity. Transforming former urban peripheries and within existing suburbs into a collective, dispersed alternative to the city centre, these sub-centres prompted a range of morphological, socio-cultural and political transformations, and begged multiple questions: how to imbue these new sub-centres with gravity? How to render them a genuine alternative to the CBD? How do they operate within the wider city? How to cope with the physical and cultural transformations of this shifting urbanscape and prevent them occurring ad lib? Indeed, the success and functioning of the larger urban structure hinges upon a critical, informed response to these sub-centre urban contexts. Yet, with an unrelenting focus on the CBD rebuild - effectively a polycentric denial - little such attention has been granted. Taking this urban condition as its premise and its provocation, this thesis investigates architecture’s role in the emergent sub-centre. It asks: what can architecture do in these urban contexts; how can architecture act upon the emergent sub-centre in a critical, catalytic fashion? Identifying this volatile condition as both an opportunity for architectural experimentation and a need for critical architectural engagement, this thesis seeks to explore the sub-centre (as an idea and actual urban context) as architecture’s project: its raison d’etre, impetus and aspiration. These inquiries are tested through design-led research: an initial design question provoking further, broader discursive research (and indeed, seeking broader implications). The first section is a site-specific, design for Sumner, Christchurch. Titled ‘An Agora Anew’; this project - both in conception and outcome - is a speculative response to a specific sub-centre condition. The second section ‘The Sub-centre as Architecture’s Project’ explores the ideas provoked by the design project within a discursive framework. Firstly it identifies the sub-centre as a context in desperate need of architectural attention (why architecture?); secondly, it negotiates a possible agenda for architecture in this context through terms of engagement that are formal, critical and opportunistic (how architecture?): enabling it to take a position on and in the sub-centre. Lastly, a critical exegesis positions the design in regards to the broader discursive debate: critiquing it an architectural project predicated upon the idea of the sub-centre. The implications of this design-led thesis are twofold: firstly, for architecture’s role in the sub-centre (especially to Christchurch); secondly for the possibilities of architecture’s productive engagement with the city (largely through architectural form), more generally. In a century where radical, new urban contexts (of which the sub-centre is just one) are commonplace, this type of thinking – what can architecture do in the city? - is imperative.
The region in and around Christchurch, encompassing Christchurch city and the Selwyn and Waimakariri districts, contains more than 800 road, rail, and pedestrian bridges. Most of these bridges are reinforced concrete, symmetric, and have small to moderate spans (15–25 m). The 22 February 2011 moment magnitude (Mw) 6.2 Christchurch earthquake induced high levels of localized ground shaking (Bradley and Cubrinovski 2011, page 853 of this issue; Guidotti et al. 2011, page 767 of this issue; Smyrou et al. 2011, page 882 of this issue), with damage to bridges mainly confined to the central and eastern parts of Christchurch. Liquefaction was evident over much of this part of the city, with lateral spreading affecting bridges spanning both the Avon and Heathcote rivers.
A photograph of All Right? flags in road cones on Deans Avenue. The flags include simple messages beginning with, "It's All Right if..." or "It's All Right to...", which sought to normalise Cantabrians' various emotional responses to the earthquakes. The flags were distributed at various locations around the city, enabling a 'flag hunt' for Cantabrians.
A photograph of a large All Right? banner on a temporary hoarding around the McKenzie and Willis building in the central city. The photograph was used as a cover photo on the All Right? Facebook page. All Right? posted the photograph on their Facebook page on 21 April 2014 at 10:18pm.
A photograph of two large signs at Re:START Mall that are part of Signs of Things to Come. This was a wayfinding project by Generation Zero and Diadem, for FESTA 2014. The signage gives directions to key central city and FESTA locations, and compares the current and future potential of transport in Christchurch.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The intersection of Colombo and Gloucester Streets, looking south down Colombo Street towards Cathedral Square. The soldiers are staffing the cordon as this is the main way through from one half of the central city red zone to the other half, which is now bisected by Gloucester Street".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Central Library Peterborough was opened to provide a place for library services in the central city. It is stocked with the books that were on circulation when the earthquake happened, as the majority of the Central Library book stock is still inaccessible in the Gloucester Street building".
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...
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...
A copy of a letter from Hugo Kristinsson which was sent to Helen Beaumont, Manager of the Natural Environment and Heritage Unit at the Christchurch City Council, on 17 June 2014. The letter was sent on behalf of Empowered Christchurch. It is about legislation which, according to Kristinsson, determines land below the mean high water spring to be public land. Kristinsson is concerned that this legislation will cause 'hundred or even thousands' of people to lose their assets. He urges the Council to 'have the land surveyed and to redefine the CMA [Crown Minerals Act] before land claims are settled'.