Following the devastating 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, buildings in Napier and surrounding areas in the Hawke's Bay region were rebuilt in a comparatively homogenous structural and architectural style comprising the region's famous Art Deco stock. These interwar buildings are most often composed of reinforced concrete two-way space frames, and although they have comparatively ductile detailing for their date of construction, are often expected to be brittle, earthquake-prone buildings in preliminary seismic assessments. Furthermore, the likelihood of global collapse of an RC building during a design-level earthquake became an issue warranting particular attention following the collapse of multiple RC buildings in the February 22, 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Those who value the architectural heritage and future use of these iconic Art Deco buildings - including building owners, tenants, and city officials, among others - must consider how they can be best preserved and utilized functionally given the especially pressing implications of relevant safety, regulatory, and economic factors. This study was intended to provide information on the seismic hazard, geometric weaknesses, collapse hazards, material properties, structural detailing, empirically based vulnerability, and recommended analysis approaches particular to Art Deco buildings in Hawke's Bay as a resource for professional structural engineers tasked with seismic assessments and retrofit designs for these buildings. The observed satisfactory performance of similar low-rise, ostensibly brittle RC buildings in other earthquakes and the examination of the structural redundancy and expected column drift capacities in these buildings, led to the conclusion that the seismic capacity of these buildings is generally underrated in simple, force-based assessments.
A video showing engineers removing the latticework from the top of the Press Building in Cathedral Square. The latticework is being removed after engineers discovered it was being held onto the building by only two bolts. The bolts are no bigger than a little finger.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 30 June 2012.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 13 December 2012.
Page 2 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 8 September 2012.
Page 3 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 17 July 2012.
Building Record Form for former Canterbury Public Library, 1900s and 1920s section, 109 Cambridge Terrace, Christchurch
A photograph of the Austral Building on Colombo Street with scaffolding up the side. A sign on a side door reads, "No admittance. Goods entrance only".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The new Press building on Gloucester Street".
Water supply building, Palmers Road, New Brighton
"Training and Education of Engineers and Organisation of Engineering Profession and Building Assessment after Earthquakes", a report submitted by the then New Zealand Historic Places Trust on the Royal Commission Discussion Papers.
A pile of crushed cars near the site of the CTV Building.
A digger clearing rubble from a demolished building in the central city.
A video of a tour through the Christchurch central city Red Zone in July 2011. The video includes footage of Colombo Street, Gloucester Street, the ChristChurch Cathedral, Worcester Street, the Press Building, the Whitcoulls Building, Cashel Mall, and High Street. It also includes an interview with Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee.
New Zealand’s first skyscraper was built on the corner of Manchester and Hereford Streets between 1905 – 06 for the New Zealand Express Company. This state of the art seven storey buil…
New Zealand Fire Service personnel conferring on Cashel Street in the aftermath of the 22 February 2011 earthquake. In the background, the ruins of the Canterbury Television Building can be seen.
The M7.1 Darfield earthquake shook the town of Christchurch (New Zealand) in the early morning on Saturday 4th September 2010 and caused damage to a number of heritage unreinforced masonry buildings. No fatalities were reported directly linked to the earthquake, but the damage to important heritage buildings was the most extensive to have occurred since the 1931 Hawke‟s Bay earthquake. In general, the nature of damage was consistent with observations previously made on the seismic performance of unreinforced masonry buildings in large earthquakes, with aspects such as toppled chimneys and parapets, failure of gables and poorly secured face-loaded walls, and in-plane damage to masonry frames all being extensively documented. This report on the performance of the unreinforced masonry buildings in the 2010 Darfield earthquake provides details on typical building characteristics, a review of damage statistics obtained by interrogating the building assessment database that was compiled in association with post-earthquake building inspections, and a review of the characteristic failure modes that were observed.
Damage to the British Hotel on Oxford Street. The top of the building has crumbled bringing the roof down with it. Bricks lay along the footpath where they landed. Wire fencing has used to create a cordon around the building.
Damage to a building on the corner of Manchester and Gloucester Streets. The facade of the top storey has crumbled, the bricks falling into the street. Rubble from damaged buildings can be seen along the street in the distance.
There's good news of sorts on the building-inspection front in Auckland. After nearly seven days of fanning out across the city inspecting damaged buildings - the biggest such deployment of building inspectors since the Christchurch earthquake emergency - the operation will be scaled back this weekend. There are currently around 95 inspectors in the field who have checked 3,500 buildings. As of 6pm last night 190 buildings were red stickered, and a further 790 yellow stickered. The most red stickered areas are Mount Albert/Mt Eden with 54 and the North Shore with 32. Auckland Council general manager building consents Ian McCormick spoke to Corin Dann.
A photograph of the Whitcoulls Building.
A photograph of the Whitcoulls Building.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Historic building owner John Phillips wants the red tape to go so he can pull his very badly damaged heritage building down and start again so the businesses in the premises can start again. Phillips owns the former Nurse Maude building on Madras Street".
Page 4 of Section C of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 30 June 2012.
Page 3 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 6 September 2012.
Three diggers clearing rubble from the demolished Winnie Bagoes building on Manchester Street.
Instead of concentrating on the buildings destroyed in and after the earthquakes in Christchurch's CBD, a new event is enticing people back to explore the heritage buildings that have survived. A new organisation, Te Putahi, is behind the Open Christchurch programme that celebrates the city's surviving architecture, starting with inner-city schools throwing open their doors to the public. Architectural historian and co-founder of Te Putahi, Dr Jessica Halliday tells Lynn Freeman they hope to encourage discussion around well-designed spaces and their impacts on peoples' lives. Open Christchurch starts next Sunday with a tour of The Cathedral Grammar Junior School.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Christchurch earthquake aftermath. Building inspector Rebecca Sanders photographing the Wilson Parking building on Kilmore Street".
A page banner promoting articles titled, "Antique find: artefacts under building" and, "CBD fire: McKenzie & Willis building ablaze".
Scaffolding supporting the McKenzie and Willis building. A New Zealand flag still flies from the flagpole above the damaged building.