Prime Minister John Key drives a tractor to which is attached a crane and a huge demolition ball in the shape of MP Gerry Brownlee's head; the ball smashes against a historic building bringing stone pediments down. Context - Gerry Brownlee, who is Earthquake Recovery Minister, has caused a stir by suggesting that if he had his way some of Christchurch's older buildings would be "down tomorrow". He also said the price of saving some historic buildings badly damaged in the February 22 earthquake was too high. People had died in the quake because of attempts to save historic buildings badly damaged in the September 4 quake. Brownlee said he had no regrets despite the stir his comments caused - but he was annoyed by suggestions the Cathedral and Riccarton House were among buildings he thought should be bowled. He believed those buildings should be saved, and they would be. "I'm not a philistine; I was chairman of the trust that actually saved Riccarton House from the bulldozers in 1990. "I understand conservation architecture very well and I do have an appreciation of heritage buildings." Original cartoon held at A-474-048 Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
A Christchurch businessman has told the Earthquake Royal Commission the city council was a nightmare to deal with when he was trying to strengthen his building before the September quake.
The man whose firm designed the CTV building has apologised for the first time to the families of the 115 people killed when the building collapsed in the Christchurch earthquake.
A structural engineer who ordered a building green stickered though he'd failed to do another thorough check on it has defended his inspections at the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission.
The Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission says it will not re-open its inquiry into the CTV building collapse, despite fresh allegations against the building's construction manager.
The family of a young man who died while protecting his sister during February's earthquake in Christchurch says the building they were in wasn't safe.
Witnesses before the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission have been questioned about why a building known to be earthquake prone was allowed to reopen, despite several red flags.
The man in charge of the construction of the Canterbury Television Building is continuing to refuse to give evidence at the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission
The head of the structural engineering firm that supervised the design of the Canterbury Television building appeared yesterday at the Royal Commission into the Canterbury Earthquakes.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Aftermath of the earthquake in Christchurch where the cleanup has begun. Teams of building inspectors gathered at the Linwood Service Centre before heading into the eastern suburbs en masse. Gary Marshall, left, building inspector from Napier, and Kent Wilson, City Council planner work at a property on Dallington Terrace".
Page 2 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Friday 7 December 2012.
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 19 January 2013 entitled, "New Home".
An infographic giving the status of Canterbury District Health Board mental health service buildings.
A time-lapse video of the demolition of the Farmers Building on Gloucester Street.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Barriers around earthquake-damaged buildings, corner Armagh and Barbadoes Streets".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Damage to Christchurch CBD buildings after the 4 September earthquake".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. A building inspector on Lichfield Street".
Chaplain Tom Innes in the Kirkwood Village, come to perform a blessing on the new buildings.
Chaplain Tom Innes in the Kirkwood Village, come to perform a blessing on the new buildings.
Chaplain Tom Innes in the Kirkwood Village, come to perform a blessing on the new buildings.
A photograph of a window of the former Woolston Post Office. The building has been braced with cable ties.
A photograph of the former Sydenham Post Office. Wire fencing has been placed around the building as a cordon.
A seismic engineer says many of the Christchurch buildings destroyed in Tuesday's quake weren't designed to cope with such intense forces - and it's possible damage from the September 4th earthquake went undetected.
The first of Christchurch's high-rise buildings to close after the February earthquake has reopened. All the tenants of the12-storey HSBC Tower are now back in the building which has been extensively checked by engineering experts.
The Christchurch City Council has voted to fast track the demolition of two heritage buildings that it says were severely damaged in September's earthquake and pose an immediate danger to people's safety.
Two separate chances to inspect the Canterbury Television building were missed before the February earthquake saw it pancake to the ground last year, killing 115 people.
A video of a tour of the Christchurch central city Red Zone. The video includes footage of Cambridge Terrace, Kilmore Street, Colombo Street, the Grant Thornton building in Cathedral Square, Worcester Street, ChristChurch Cathedral, the Westende Jewellers Building, and Hereford Street.
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 2 August 2011 entitled, "New Light".
Low Damage Seismic Design (LDSD) guidance material being developed by Engineering NZ is considering a design drift limit for multi-storey buildings of 0.5% at a new damage control limit state (DCLS). The impact of this new design requirement on the expected annual loss due to repair costs is investigated for a four-storey office building with reinforced concrete walls located in Christchurch. The LDSD guidance material aims to reduce the expected annual loss of complying buildings to below 0.1% of building replacement cost. The research tested this expectation. Losses were estimated in accordance with FEMA P58, using building responses from non-linear time history analyses (performed with OpenSees using lumped plasticity models). The equivalent static method, in line with NZS 1170.5 and NZS 3101, was used to design the building to LDSD specifications, representing a future state-of-practice design. The building designed to low-damage specification returned an expected annual loss of 0.10%, and the building designed conventionally returned an expected annual loss of 0.13%. Limitations with the NZS 3101 method for determining wall stiffness were identified, and a different method acknowledging the relationship between strength and stiffness was used to redesign the building. Along with improving this design assumption, the study finds that LDSD design criteria could be an effective way of limiting damage and losses.
An infographic giving the status of buildings designed by architects Peter Beaven and Miles Warren.