Workers constructing a deck between the temporary classrooms on the Ilam Oval.
A worker helps construct a temporary classroom at the College of Education.
Workers constructing a deck between the temporary classrooms on the Ilam Oval.
A worker helps construct a temporary classroom at the College of Education.
A worker helps construct a temporary classroom at the College of Education.
International Student Support in their new temporary office upstairs in the UCSA.
International Student Support in their new temporary office upstairs in the UCSA.
Workers constructing a deck between the temporary classrooms on the Ilam Oval.
A sign on the Kaiapoi Public Library and District Council Centre explaining that the temporary library and service centre has relocated. The sign reads "We have moved. The temporary library has moved to the Swim Club rooms beside the Kaiapoi Aquatic Centre corner of Cass and Davie Streets opposite Danley Square. The Kaiapoi Service Centre has move to the Kaiapoi Community Centre, 24 Sewell Street. Waiamakariri District Council.
Government initiative providing temporary accommodation service to people displaced by the Christchurch earthquake. Contains information about the service, and registration forms for property owners and applicants.
Tools used during the contruction of temporary classrooms at the College of Education.
A worker constructing the wall of a temporary classroom on the Ilam Oval.
The inside of a temporary classroom in the Kirkwood Oval, ready for students.
The inside of one the temporary classrooms, still being constructed, in the Oval Village.
Workers photographed infront of one of temporary buildings being built on the Ilam Oval.
Workers building the floor of one of the temporary classrooms on the Ilam Oval.
Workers laying the floor on one of the temporary classrooms in the Ilam Oval.
Workers pouring concrete into the foundations for the temporary classrooms on the Ilam Oval.
Workers pouring concrete into the foundations for the temporary classrooms on the Ilam Oval.
A crane lifting the roof of one of the temporary buildings off the ground.
The inside of a temporary classroom on the Ilam Oval, almost ready for students.
Staff at work in temporary office space in the Central Library after the earthquake.
Staff at work in temporary office space in the Central Library after the earthquake.
Staff at work in temporary office space in the Central Library after the earthquake.
Staff at work in temporary office space in the Central Library after the earthquake.
The inside of one of the temporary classrooms in the Oval Village, almost finished.
KG 6 and KG 7, temporary classrooms in the Kirkwood Oval, ready for students.
The study contributes to a better understanding of utilisation and interaction patterns in post-disaster temporary urban open spaces. A series of devastating earthquakes caused large scale damage to Christchurch’s central city and many suburbs in 2010 and 2011. Various temporary uses have emerged on vacant post-earthquake sites including community gardens, urban agriculture, art installations, event venues, eateries and cafés, and pocket parks. Drawing on empirical data obtained from a spatial qualities survey and a Public Life Study, the report analyses how people used and interacted with three exemplary transitional community-initiated open spaces (CIOS) in relation to particular physical spatial qualities in central Christchurch over a period of three weeks. The report provides evidence that users of post-disaster transitional community-initiated open spaces show similar utilisation and interaction patterns in relation to specific spatial qualities as observed in other urban environments. The temporary status of CIOS did apparently not influence ‘typical’ utilisation and interaction patterns.
In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.
In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.