Helicopter Flight over Christchurch New Zealand
Helicopter Flight over Christchurch New Zealand
Helicopter Flight over Christchurch New Zealand
Helicopter Flight over Christchurch New Zealand
Helicopter Flight over Christchurch New Zealand
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Robbie and Nicola watch Laura and a helpful neighbour remove the broken chimney.
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Roof lost. This was not that uncommon a site around the neighbourhood.
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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.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Cotter & Co. Building on High Street which has survived the earthquakes even though all the buildings around it have been demolished.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Poplar Lane, looking rather the worse for the wear. It's not clear whether this is from demolition activity or earthquake damage".
A photograph of campervans parked in Hagley Park. The campervans served as temporary accommodation for emergency management personnel who travelled to Christchurch after the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Jeremy Stewart of Alice in Videoland holding 'When a City Falls', the film recently released about the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes".