BeckerFraserPhotos April 2011 photograph 135

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Heavy steel bracing holding up the front facade of the Our City O-Tautahi Building on Worcester Street near Oxford Terrace.

BeckerFraserPhotos July 2011 photograph 034

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a building on Manchester Street.

Storm on the Way

Images, eqnz.chch.2010

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...

Road Closed

Images, eqnz.chch.2010

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...

Just a Shell of Its Self

Images, eqnz.chch.2010

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...

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2011 photograph 132

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A tent on Worcester Street set up for the soldiers stationed around the cordon. In the background, the damaged Our City O-Tautahi Building can be seen with steel bracing holding up the front.

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2011 photograph 137

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A view of the Worcester Street bridge from across the Avon River. In the background, the Our City O-Tautahi building is surrounded by scaffolding and bracing, the Rydges building behind.

BeckerFraserPhotos December 2011 photograph 0276

Images, UC QuakeStudies

An aerial photograph of the Christchurch City Council Civic Offices and surrounding buildings. The photograph has been captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The River Avon runs through this photograph and marks the western edge of the red zone".

Greening the rubble in Christchurch: Civic ecological reclamation efforts …

Research Papers, Lincoln University

Within four weeks of the September 4 2010 Canterbury Earthquake a new, loosely-knit community group appeared in Christchurch under the banner of “Greening the Rubble.” The general aim of those who attended the first few meetings was to do something to help plug the holes that had already appeared or were likely to appear over the coming weeks in the city fabric with some temporary landscaping and planting projects. This article charts the first eighteen months of Greening the Rubble and places the initiative in a broader context to argue that although seismic events in Christchurch acted as a “call to palms,” so to speak, the city was already in need of some remedial greening. It concludes with a reflection on lessons learned to date by GTR and commentary on the likely issues ahead for this new mini-social-environmental movement in the context of a quake-affected and still quake-prone major New Zealand city. One of the key lessons for GTR and all of those involved in Christchurch recovery activities to date is that the city is still very much in the middle of the event and is to some extent a laboratory for seismic and agency management studies alike.

BeckerFraserPhotos October 2011 photograph 614

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Aerial view of the centre of the city, with the cathedral in the centre, and the art gallery in the foreground".

Empowered Christchurch Letter to Prince William

Articles, UC QuakeStudies

A copy of a letter from Hugo Kristinsson which was sent to Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, on 2 March 2014 . The letter was sent on behalf of Empowered Christchurch, as a response to the letter read by the Prince at the official Civic Memorial Service on the 22 February 2014. Kristinsson thanks the Prince for his letter and updates him on the progress of the rebuild. He expresses his respect for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for their compassion in the early 1940s to the victims of bombing raids during the war and acknowledge's Prince William and Prince Harry's philanthropy through The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry and The Princes' Charities Forum. Lastly he implores the Prince and the Duchess of Cambridge to visit residents from the 'low-lying seaside side of the city' who 'feel that their plight has been trivialised by the authorities in favour of prestigious big-budget projects'.