2015 - Engineering Bridge Challenge Photograph 33

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of eight students standing in the Avon River outside the UCSA building, having just fallen through a bridge they had constructed. The photograph was taken in 2015 during the annual Civil Engineering Bridge Challenge event.

2015 - Engineering Bridge Challenge Photograph 2

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a student walking on a bridge across the Avon River, outside the UCSA building. The photograph was taken in 2015 during the annual Civil Engineering Bridge Challenge event.

2015 - Engineering Bridge Challenge Photograph 25

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of seven students on a bridge they have constructed across the Avon River, outside the UCSA building. The photograph was taken in 2015 during the annual Civil Engineering Bridge Challenge event.

2015 - Engineering Bridge Challenge Photograph 30

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of eight students falling through a bridge they have constructed across the Avon River, outside the UCSA building. The photograph was taken in 2015 during the annual Civil Engineering Bridge Challenge event.

2015 - Engineering Bridge Challenge Photograph 7

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of two students walking on a bridge across the Avon River, outside the UCSA building. The photograph was taken in 2015 during the annual Civil Engineering Bridge Challenge event.

2015 - Engineering Bridge Challenge Photograph 10

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of a crowd of students sitting on the bank of the Avon River outside the UCSA building in 2015. The students are gathered to watch the annual Engineering Bridge Challenge event.

Fragments, Lyotard, and Earthquakes: a mosaic of memory and broken pieces

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This paper explores the responses by a group of children to an art project that was undertaken by a small school in New Zealand after the September 2010 and February 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. Undertaken over a period of two years, the project aimed to find a suitable form of memorialising this significant event in a way that was appropriate and meaningful to the community. Alongside images that related directly to the event of the earthquakes, the art form of a mosaic was chosen, and consisted of images and symbols that clearly drew on the hopes and dreams of a school community who were refusing to be defined by the disaster. The paper 'writes' the mosaic by placing fragments of speech spoken by the children involved in relation to ideas about memory, affect, and the 'sublime', through the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard. The paper explores the mosaic as constituted by the literal and metaphorical 'broken pieces' of the city of Christchurch in ways that confer pedagogic value inscribed through the creation of a public art space by children. AM - Accepted Manuscript

The Ruins of Eloquence

Research papers, Victoria University of Wellington

On the 22nd of February, 2011 the city of Christchurch, New Zealand was crippled by a colossal earthquake. 185 people were killed, thousands injured and what remained was a city left in destruction and ruin. Thousands of Christchurch properties and buildings were left damaged beyond repair and the rich historical architecture of the Canterbury region had suffered irreparably.  This research will conduct an investigation into whether the use of mixed reality can aid in liberating Christchurch’s rich architectural heritage when applied to the context of destructed buildings within Christchurch.  The aim of this thesis is to formulate a narrative around the embodiment of mixed reality when subjected to the fragmentary historical architecture of Christchurch. Mixed reality will aspire to act as the defining ligature that holds the past, present and future of Christchurch’s architectural heritage intact as if it is all part of the same continuum.  This thesis will focus on the design of a memorial museum within a heavily damaged historical trust registered building due to the Christchurch earthquake. It is important and relevant to conceive the idea of such a design as history is what makes everything we know. The memories of the past, the being of the now and the projection of the future is the basis and fundamental imperative in honouring the city and people of Christchurch. Using the technologies of Mixed Reality and the realm of its counter parts the memorial museum will be a definitive proposition of desire in providing a psychological and physical understanding towards a better Christchurch, for the people of Christchurch.  This thesis serves to explore the renovation possibilities of the Canterbury provincial council building in its destructed state to produce a memorial museum for the Christchurch earthquake. The design seeks to mummify the building in its raw state that sets and develops the narrative through the spaces. The design intervention is kept at a required minimum and in doing so manifests a concentrated eloquence to the derelict space. The interior architecture unlocks the expression of history and time encompassed within a destructive and industrialised architectural dialogue. History is the inhabitant of the building, and using the physical and virtual worlds it can be set free.  This thesis informs a design for a museum in central Christchurch that celebrates and informs the public on past, present and future heritage aspects of Christchurch city. Using mixed reality technologies the spatial layout inside will be a direct effect of the mixed reality used and the exploration of the physical and digital heritage aspects of Christchurch. The use of technology in today’s world is so prevalent that incorporating it into a memorial museum for Christchurch would not only be interesting and exploratory but also offer a sense of pushing forward and striving beyond for a newer, fresher Christchurch. The memorial museum will showcase a range of different exhibitions that formulate around the devastating Christchurch earthquake. Using mixed reality technologies these exhibitions will dictate the spaces inside dependant on their various applications of mixed reality as a technology for architecture. Research will include; what the people of Canterbury are most dear to in regards to Christchurch’s historical environment; the use of mixed reality to visualise digital heritage, and the combination of the physical and digital to serve as an architectural mediation between what was, what is and what there could be.