An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 17 July 2013 entitled, "ps, I love you too".
An entry from Deb Robertson's blog for 24 September 2015 entitled, "Sociology of the City {Part 4(4) Sociology 355}".The entry was downloaded on 2 November 2016.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 1 April 2014.
Stonemason Mark Whyte puts sculpting commissions aside in order to respond to the Christchurch earthquakes and save classic street facades from the 1870s. Across the Red Zone and 3 generations of the Aires family- Bob, Rob and Suzie are at work on the Heritage Hotel which were the old government buildings.
Page 3 of Section A of the South Island edition of the Christchurch Press, published on Friday 12 August 2011.
Page 1 of Section A of the South Island edition of the Christchurch Press, published on Monday 18 July 2011.
Cupcake Parlour on Kilmore St :(
Barbadoes St
Barbadoes St
Fitzgerald Ave
Fitzgerald Panorama
Our Garage
Our front door.
Fitzgerald Ave
Cupcake Parlour on Kilmore St :(
Avon River
Fitzgerald Ave
Barbadoes St
Fitzgerald Ave
Fitzgerald Ave
Fitzgerald Ave
A common scene around Christchurch, following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the city on Saturday September 4, 2010 at around 4:33am. The shake left many roads cracked, buildings demolished, and flooding in the streets.
Christchurch Ōtautahi, New Zealand, is a city of myriad waterways and springs. Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, have water quality at the core of their cultural values. The city’s rivers include the Avon/Ōtākaro, central to the city centre’s aesthetic appeal since early settlement, and the Heathcote/Ōpāwaho. Both have been degraded with increasing urbanisation. The destructive earthquake sequence that occurred during 2010/11 presented an opportunity to rebuild significant areas of the city. Public consultation identified enthusiasm to rebuild a sustainable city. A sustainable water sensitive city is one where development is constructed with the water environment in mind. Water sensitive urban design applies at all scales and is a holistic concept. In Christchurch larger-scale multi-value stormwater management solutions were incorporated into rapidly developed greenfield sites on the city’s outskirts and in satellite towns, as they had been pre-earthquake. Individual properties on greenfield sites and within the city, however, continued to be constructed without water sensitive features such as rainwater tanks or living roofs. This research uses semi-structured interviews, policy analysis, and findings from local and international studies to investigate the benefits of building-scale WSUD and the barriers that have resulted in their absence. Although several inter-related barriers became apparent, cost, commonly cited as a barrier to sustainable development in general, was strongly represented. However, it is argued that the issue is one of mindset rather than cost. Solutions are proposed, based on international and national experience, that will demonstrate the benefits of adopting water sensitive urban design principles including at the building scale, and thereby build public and political support. The research is timely - there is still much development to occur, and increasing pressures from urban densification, population growth and climate change to mitigate.
Disaster recovery involves the restoration, repair and rejuvenation of both hard and soft infrastructure. In this report we present observationsfrom seven case studies of collaborative planning from post-earthquake Canterbury, each of which was selected as a means of better understanding ‘soft infrastructure for hard times’. Though our investigation is located within a disaster recovery context, we argue that the lessons learned are widely applicable. Our seven case studies highlighted that the nature of the planning process or journey is as important as the planning objective or destination. A focus on the journey can promote positive outcomes in and of itself through building enduring relationships, fostering diverse leaders, developing new skills and capabilities, and supporting translation and navigation. Collaborative planning depends as much upon emotional intelligence as it does technical competence, and we argue that having a collaborative attitude is more important than following prescriptive collaborative planning formulae. Being present and allowing plenty of time are also key. Although deliberation is often seen as an improvement on technocratic and expertdominated decision-making models, we suggest that the focus in the academic literature on communicative rationality and discursive democracy has led us to overlook other more active forms of planning that occur in various sites and settings. Instead, we offer an expanded understanding of what planning is, where it happens and who is involved. We also suggest more attention be given to values, particularly in terms of their role as a compass for navigating the terrain of decision-making in the collaborative planning process. We conclude with a revised model of a (collaborative) decision-making cycle that we suggest may be more appropriate when (re)building better homes, towns and cities.
Disaster recovery involves the restoration, repair and rejuvenation of both hard and soft infrastructure. In this report we present observations from seven case studies of collaborative planning from post-earthquake Canterbury, each of which was selected as a means of better understanding ‘soft infrastructure for hard times’. Though our investigation is located within a disaster recovery context, we argue that the lessons learned are widely applicable. Our seven case studies highlighted that the nature of the planning process or journey is as important as the planning objective or destination. A focus on the journey can promote positive outcomes in and of itself through building enduring relationships, fostering diverse leaders, developing new skills and capabilities, and supporting translation and navigation. Collaborative planning depends as much upon emotional intelligence as it does technical competence, and we argue that having a collaborative attitude is more important than following prescriptive collaborative planning formulae. Being present and allowing plenty of time are also key. Although deliberation is often seen as an improvement on technocratic and expert dominated decision-making models, we suggest that the focus in the academic literature on communicative rationality and discursive democracy has led us to overlook other more active forms of planning that occur in various sites and settings. Instead, we offer an expanded understanding of what planning is, where it happens and who is involved. We also suggest more attention be given to values, particularly in terms of their role as a compass for navigating the terrain of decision-making in the collaborative planning process. We conclude with a revised model of a (collaborative) decision-making cycle that we suggest may be more appropriate when (re)building better homes, towns and cities.
A photograph of spotlights shining on the empty Government Life building on the corner of Cathedral Square, during the Canterbury Tales event. Canterbury Tales was created by Free Theatre Christchurch, and was the main event of FESTA 2013.
A photograph taken from the top of the BNZ building. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A group of people on top of the Millennium Hotel with the Pacific tower to the left of the photo".
A video of a tour of the inside of the Radio Network House on Worcester Street. Maurice Gibbens, demolition supervisor from CERES, and Craig Stracey, operations manger, explain how the building has been prepared for demolition by implosion.
A video of an address by Ian Simpson, CEO of the NZ Earthquake Commission, at the 2014 Seismics and the City forum. This talk was part of the Breakfast Presentations section, the theme of which was Building Momentum.
A video of an address by Roger Sutton, CEO of Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, at the 2014 Seismics and the City forum. This talk was part of the Breakfast Presentations section, the theme of which was Building Momentum.