A photograph of tagging on a building in New Brighton, seen from Hawke Street.
The old Bank of New Zealand building in Kaiapoi, cordoned off with warning tape.
The old Bank of New Zealand building in Kaiapoi, cordoned off with warning tape.
The old Bank of New Zealand building in Kaiapoi, cordoned off with warning tape.
The brick facade has fallen from the former Princess Cinema in New Brighton, exposing the rooms inside, and crushing a car parked below. The photographer comments, "The front of the old Princess Cinema in New Brighton after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 February. Under the pile of bricks is a luckily unoccupied blue car. The word CLEAR on the broken facade is to show that there is no one in the car. This building has now been knocked down as it was so dangerous".
Shaking table testing of a full-scale three storey resilient and reparable complete composite steel framed building system is being conducted. The building incorporates a number of interchangeable seismic resisting systems of New Zealand and Chinese origin. The building has a steel frame and cold formed steel-concrete composite deck. Energy is dissipated by means of friction connections. These connections are arranged in a number of structural configurations. Typical building nonskeletal elements (NSEs) are also included. Testing is performed on the Jiading Campus shaking table at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. This RObust BUilding SysTem (ROBUST) project is a collaborative China-New Zealand project sponsored by the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE), Tongji University, and a number of agencies and universities within New Zealand including BRANZ, Comflor, Earthquake Commission, HERA, QuakeCoRE, QuakeCentre, University of Auckland, and the University of Canterbury. This paper provides a general overview of the project describing a number of issues encountered in the planning of this programme including issues related to international collaboration, the test plan, and technical issues.
This report is the output of a longitudinal study that was established between the University of Auckland and Resilient Organisations, in conjunction with the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ), to evaluate the ongoing resource availability and capacity for post-earthquake reconstruction in Christchurch.
A black and white historic photograph of the interior of the 1866 Bank of New Zealand Building, photographed in 1911 by Steffano Webb.
Base isolation is arguably the most reliable method for providing enhanced protection of buildings against earthquake-induced actions, by virtue of a physical separation between the structure and the ground through elements/devices with controlled force capacity, significant lateral deformation capacity and (often) enhanced energy dissipation. Such a design solution has shown its effectiveness in protecting both structural and non-structural components, hence preserving their functionality even in the aftermath of a major seismic event. Despite lead rubber bearings being invented in New Zealand almost forty years ago, the Christchurch Women's hospital was the only isolated building in Christchurch when the Canterbury earthquake sequence struck in 2010/11. Furthermore, a reference code for designing base-isolated buildings in New Zealand is still missing. The absence of a design standard or at least of a consensus on design guidelines is a potential source for a lack of uniformity in terms of performance criteria and compliance design approaches. It may also limit more widespread use of the technology in New Zealand. The present paper provides an overview of the major international codes (American, Japanese and European) for the design of base-isolated buildings. The design performance requirements, the analysis procedures, the design review process and approval/quality control of devices outlined in each code are discussed and their respective pros and cons are compared through a design application on a benchmark building in New Zealand. The results gathered from this comparison are intended to set the basis for the development of guidelines specific for the New Zealand environment.
A photograph of street art on the Work and Income New Zealand building in New Brighton. The artwork depicts a musician.
Following the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes, a renewed focus has been directed across New Zealand to the hazard posed by the country‘s earthquake-vulnerable buildings, namely unreinforced masonry (URM) and reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with potentially nonductile components that have historically performed poorly in large earthquakes. The research reported herein was pursued with the intention of addressing several recommendations made by the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission of Inquiry which were classified into the following general categories: Identification and provisional vulnerability assessment of URM and RC buildings and building components; Testing, assessment, and retrofitting of URM walls loaded out-of-plane, with a particular focus on highly vulnerable URM cavity walls; Testing and assessment of RC frame components, especially those with presumably non-ductile reinforcement detailing; Portfolio management considering risks, regulations, and potential costs for a portfolio that includes several potentially earthquake-vulnerable buildings; and Ongoing investigations and proposed research needs. While the findings from the reported research have implications for seismic assessments of buildings across New Zealand and elsewhere, an emphasis was placed on Auckland given this research program‘s partnership with the Auckland Council, the Auckland region accounting for about a third each of the country‘s population and economic production, and the number and variety of buildings within the Auckland building stock. An additional evaluation of a historic building stock was carried out for select buildings located in Hawke‘s Bay, and additional experimental testing was carried out for select buildings located in Hawke‘s Bay and Christchurch.
On a walk around the city to catch up on what is happening May 29, 2014 Christchurch New Zealand. Demolition work on Christchurch's "distinctive" former civic building is under way. The category-2 heritage building was designed by G A J Hart and opened in 1939 as the Miller's department store. It featured the South Island's first escalator, w...
An infographic explaining a possible scenario for the collapse of CTV building.
A map showing the location of major building consents issued in Christchurch.
An infographic giving statistics about building remediations at the University of Canterbury.
A map showing the location of red-stickered buildings in the CBD.
A infographic giving the status of large buildings in the central city.
A map showing the location of buildings given urgent status by CERA.
A map showing the status of heritage buildings in Christchurch and Lyttelton.
A map showing the location of buildings given urgent status by CERA.
A partially-completed map showing the locations of demolished and condemned buildings.
An incomplete infographic listing multi-storey buildings of concern in the CBD.
A map showing the drop zones of critical buildings in the CBD.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Police examine a damaged building following Canterbury's earthquake".
A map showing the locations of red-stickered buildings in central Christchurch.
A property manager has been questioned at the Royal Commission investigating the Canterbury earthquakes about why he didn't tell tenants the building they worked in was unsafe.
An American engineer has told the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission he was shocked at the failure of builders to properly fix the floors of the PGC building to its walls.
The owner of a building that collapsed in last February's Christchurch earthquake - killing four people - has faced questioning about why he did not get recommended strengthening work done.
The Christchurch City Council has faced tough questioning at the Royal Commission into the Canterbury earthquakes over its role in ensuring buildings are earthquake strengthened.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "New Regent Street".