Maddie Leach and Jem Noble, collaborators on I was using six watts when you Received me... The broadcast of sounds that are special to the city but were lost after the earthquakes are part of the SCAPE Public Art Biennial which starts in Christchurch this Friday.
Today we’re going back to Christchurch’s hinterland, this time to Kura Tāwhiti/Castle Hill, a place that’s still an important and valued part of the city’s surrounds. But in the interests of full disclosure, I feel like I should let you … Continue reading →
A video of a media a preview of the CERA Red Zone bus tour. The Red Zone bus tours have been created by CERA to allow the public to view the Christchurch central city which has been closed for eight months since the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
As life-changing experiences go, the earthquake on 22 February 2011 was fairly significant. On the one hand, our house was red-zoned (but still liveable), friends lost their lives and the city lost many of the old buildings that, for me, … Continue reading →
A video of a tour through the Christchurch central city Red Zone. The video includes footage of Victoria Square, the Town Hall, Oxford Terrace, Armagh Street, New Regent Street, Gloucester Street, Colombo Street, and Cathedral Square. It also includes footage of excavators demolishing the ChristChurch Cathedral.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Prime Minister John Key, centre, visited Christchurch after its 7.1 magnitude earthquake at 04:35 Saturday morning. Mayor Bob Parker, took him on a tour of the city which was punctuated by a fire breaking out in a building on Worcester Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "The Canterbury Earthquake Business Benefit Dinner hosted by the Prime Minister, was held tonight at Sky City in Auckland. Shown at the dinner is former all Black Grant Fox (right) with Fairfax Sundays GM Mitchell Murphy (left) and Fairfax NZ CEO Allen Williams".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Prime Minister John Key visited Christchurch after its 7.1 magnitude earthquake at 0435 Saturday morning". Mayor Bob Parker, at left, took him on a tour of the city which was punctuated by a fire breaking out in a building on Worcester Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Christchurch Earthquake. A massive 7.4 magnitude earthquake has hit Christchurch and the wider South Island, causing widespread damage, two serious injuries and power cuts to most of the city. Fissures in the road at the Belfast/Marshlands main north motorway on ramp".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "New Zealand's Governor-General Anand Satyanand and his wife Susan Satyanand visited sites around earthquake stricken Canterbury today. (L-R) Selwyn District mayor Kelvin Coe, Christchurch city councillor Bob Shearing, Lady Susan and Governor-General Anand Satyanand visit badly affected Halswell Primary School".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "New Zealand's Governor-General Anand Satyanand and his wife Susan Satyanand visited sites around earthquake stricken Canterbury today. (L-R) Selwyn District mayor Kelvin Coe, Christchurch city councillor Bob Shearing, Lady Susan and Governor-General Anand Satyanand visit badly affected Halswell Primary School".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "New Zealand's Governor-General Anand Satyanand and his wife Susan Satyanand visited sites around earthquake stricken Canterbury today. (L-R) Selwyn District mayor Kelvin Coe, Christchurch city councillor Bob Shearing, Lady Susan and Governor-General Anand Satyanand visit badly affected Halswell Primary School".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "New Zealand's Governor-General Anand Satyanand and his wife Susan Satyanand visited sites around earthquake stricken Canterbury today. (L-R) Selwyn District mayor Kelvin Coe, Christchurch city councillor Bob Shearing, Lady Susan and Governor-General Anand Satyanand visit badly affected Halswell Primary School".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "New Zealand's Governor-General Anand Satyanand and his wife Susan Satyanand visited sites around earthquake stricken Canterbury today. (L-R) Selwyn District mayor Kelvin Coe, Christchurch city councillor Bob Shearing, Lady Susan and Governor-General Anand Satyanand visit badly affected Halswell Primary School".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Garden City Helicopters flown by Mark Read uses a 700 litre monsoon bucket to dump water on loose boulders and rocks on the cliff face above Redcliffs School to dislodge them. Daniel Currie, ground support crew, steadies the monsoon bucket on takeoff".
A view down High Street from the corner of Colombo and Hereford Streets. In the distance, the Holiday Inn City Centre is being demolished. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
Christchurch’s new $92m central city library opened today – replacing the former library which was damaged in the Canterbury earthquakes. But as Logan Church discovers, with sewing suites, a TV wall and a music studio, this library is home to more than rows and rows of books.
In 1861, the city of Christchurch would have been virtually unrecognisable to a 21st century resident. Buildings were scattered sparsely throughout what is now the central business district and dirt roads and low fences traversed a landscape that was more grassland … Continue reading →
A video of a tour of the Christchurch central city Red Zone. The video shows footage of the Edmond's Band Rotunda, Gloucester Street, the CTV building site, Poplar Lane, the McKenzie & Willis building, High Street, Lichfield Street, Colombo Street, Cathedral Square, and ChristChurch Cathedral.
A graphic showing the costs of proposed new libraries.
A photograph of a meeting being held in the Central Library Peterborough.
Page 3 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 26 February 2011.
A video of soldiers from Delta Company from 2/1 Battalion Royal NZ Infantry Regiment using the Environment Canterbury (ECan) building on Kilmore Street for a training exercise.
The cartoon shows a part of Christchurch with a great earthquake fissure running through it. In the fissure are dozens of eyes shining in the dark and people struggle to clamber out. A sign reads 'The Orange Zone. No fun - no parties - Come in and wait for nothing to happen!' Context: The 'Orange Zone' makes a wordplay on 'fanzone' the play spaces for Rugby World Cup revellers. The Orange Zone in Christchurch is the area where as yet decisions still have not been made about the fate of the houses in it. These people feel as though they are in limbo, unable to make decisions about their lives and homes. Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
“One of the most basic and fundamental questions in urban master planning and building regulations is ‘how to secure common access to sun, light and fresh air?” (Stromann-Andersen & Sattrup, 2011). Daylighting and natural ventilation can have significant benefits in office buildings. Both of these ‘passive’ strategies have been found to reduce artificial lighting and air-conditioning energy consumption by as much as 80% (Ministry for the Environment, 2008); (Brager, et al., 2007). Access to daylight and fresh air can also be credited with improved occupant comfort and health, which can lead to a reduction of employee absenteeism and an increase of productivity (Sustainability Victoria, 2008). In the rebuild of Christchurch central city, following the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, Cantabrians have expressed a desire for a low-rise, sustainable city, with open spaces and high performance buildings (Christchurch City Council, 2011). With over 80% of the central city being demolished, a unique opportunity to readdress urban form and create a city that provides all buildings with access to daylight and fresh air exists. But a major barrier to wide-spread adoption of passive buildings in New Zealand is their dependence on void space to deliver daylight and fresh air – void space which could otherwise be valuable built floor space. Currently, urban planning regulations in Christchurch prioritize density, allowing and even encouraging low performance compact buildings. Considering this issue of density, this thesis aimed to determine which urban form and building design changes would have the greatest effect on building performance in Central City Christchurch. The research proposed and parametrically tested modifications of the current compact urban form model, as well as passive building design elements. Proposed changes were assessed in three areas: energy consumption, indoor comfort and density. Three computer programs were used: EnergyPlus was the primary tool, simulating energy consumption and thermal comfort. Radiance/Daysim was used to provide robust daylighting calculations and analysis. UrbaWind enabled detailed consideration of the urban wind environment for reliable natural ventilation predictions. Results found that, through a porous urban form and utilization of daylight and fresh air via simple windows, energy consumption could be reduced as much as 50% in buildings. With automatic modulation of windows and lighting, thermal and visual comfort could be maintained naturally for the majority of the occupied year. Separation of buildings by as little as 2m enabled significant energy improvements while having only minimal impact on individual property and city densities. Findings indicated that with minor alterations to current urban planning laws, all buildings could have common access to daylight and fresh air, enabling them to operate naturally, increasing energy efficiency and resilience.
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The Christchurch Art Gallery is on track to reopen late next year, almost five years after the most devastating of the city's earthquakes put it out of commission. One of the key players in this important next step is Dr Lara Strongman who is the gallery's new senior curator.
Six years after Christchurch's destructive 6.3 magnitude earthquake the rebuild programme is now being used to provide training for workers from the Pacific. Twenty-four workers from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa are helping rebuild the city while learning new skills and earning money they can send home.
Construction delays and cost over-runs are prolonging the earthquake risks facing patients and staff at Christchurch hospital. Six major hospital buildings at the central city site have been listed as earthquake prone since May, but there is no safer space to shift patients into. Phil Pennington reports.
Some central Christchurch businesses are having to close their doors, blaming a tough economic climate. Retail spending in the central city is only 80 percent of what it was before the devastating 2011 earthquakes, while the number of people living in the area has shrunk by a third.