A photograph an Wellington Emergency Management Office Emergency Response Team pretending to break into a car inside a building in the Christchurch city centre. The car is a 1968 Plymouth Road Runner Super Bee.
For the first time in November 2011, Christchurch residents finally had the opportunity to see the earthquake-damaged city centre on the Red Zone bus tours organised by CERA. Looking down the new Re:Start Mall as the bus goes down Colombo Street.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Cashel Mall looking towards the Whitcoulls site and the BNZ in the distance behind the centre tree".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The food caravans that used to operate in the Arts Centre, now travel to several places in the city. Here they are in the quad at Canterbury University with the lunchtime queues".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Image taken from Armagh Street with the Marque Hotel on Gloucester Street in the centre rear (with the flag flying)".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "On the footpath in Worcester Street near Radio Network House. Pacific Tower (Marque Hotel) is at centre rear".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Gloucester - Madras Street intersection (south-west view). The large AMI building in the centre is to be demolished".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "CBD looking east along Cashel Streets. Brightly coloured containers in the new Cashel Mall at centre left".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Intersection of Gloucester and Manchester Streets (south-west view)".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Detail of Christ's College".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The church of St Michaels and All Angels is undamaged after the two earthquakes. The pipe organ suffered significant but reparable damage. This church is now the only operational church within the city centre".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Colombo Street - centre rear is the Pacific Tower (Marque Hotel) in Gloucester Street. PricewaterhouseCoopers (left) and Forsyth Barr (right)".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking north east along High Street in the centre, looking east along Lichfield on the left and north along Manchester Street on the right".
A photograph of the site of a demolished building in the city centre. Remnants of the building can be seen on the side of the building to the left. A Wilson Parking sign indicates that the space is going to be used for parking.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "CBD looking east along Hereford and Cashel Streets. Brightly coloured containers in the new Cashel Mall at centre left".
A photograph of the exterior of the Lions Transitional Facility. A wooden ramp leads up to the entrance to the facility.
For the first time in November 2011, Christchurch residents finally had the opportunity to see the earthquake-damaged city centre on the Red Zone bus tours organised by CERA. The podium which formerly held the Godley statue. Behind is the Regent Theatre dome which has been removed from the building.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman and Canterbury Times (Christchurch Star?) buildings with Heritage Hotel on the left and Novotel in the centre".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman and Canterbury Times (Christchurch Star?) buildings with Heritage Hotel on the left and Novotel in the centre".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking from Gloucester Street across the demolition site of the Coachman and Canterbury Times (Christchurch Star?) buildings with Heritage Hotel on the left and Novotel in the centre".
An aerial photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Victoria Square is at the centre of this picture with its green lawns and trees. The bare patch of earth in front s the demolition sites of the Allan McLean building, the Oxford on Avon, and Plunket House. The contract to demolish the Crowne Plaza Hotel has been let, while the fate of the Town Hall is still undecided. The Convention Centre is coming down. On the very bottom, slightly to the right is the Medlab building which is also to be demolished. In the bottom left corner is the PWC building which is also to be demolished".
The intersection of Colombo and High Streets with Hereford Street to the left. The 'Flour Power' statue stands in the centre of the intersection with wire fencing placed around it. Three cranes can be seen in the distance.
Introduction In 2011 Christchurch city centre was partially destroyed by an earthquake. Government-led anchor projects were tasked with bringing Christchurch back from rubble. After a period of 7 years out of 16 proposed projects, 10 are already over time for their initial completion dates and the ones completed, are under scrutiny for failing to deliver their expected outcome.
Looking south west across Cathedral Square showing the eastern side of Christchurch Cathedral (left), the Godley statue (centre left) with the (from left to right) Chief Post Office, the Regent Theatre Building (directly behind the statue on the corner of Worcester Street), the AMP Building, the Government Life Building and the Grand Theatre.
An aerial photograph of the IRD Building in the Christchurch central city and the surrounding area. The photograph has been captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "There are many empty sites in this part of the CBD. The street running up the photograph from the left to the right is Cashel Street. The empty site left of centre with the trees is where St John's Church has been demolished. To the left of the IRD building, is the site of the CTV Building".
An aerial photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Gloucester Street looking west towards Latimer Square. The new Press Building and the Marque/Pacific Towers buildings are at the centre of the photo with the Cathedral in the lower right".
Successful urban regeneration projects generate benefits that are realised over a much longer timeframe than normal market developments and benefits well beyond those that can be uplifted by a market developer. Consequently there is substantial evidence in the literature that successful place-making and urban regeneration projects are usually public-private partnerships and involve a funder, usually local or central government, willing to contribute ‘patient’ capital. Following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes that devastated the centre of Christchurch, there was an urgent need to rebuild and revitalise the heart of the city, and increasing the number of people living in or near the city centre was seen as a key ingredient of that. In October 2010, an international competition was launched to design and build an Urban Village, a project intended to stimulate renewed residential development in the city. The competition attracted 58 entrants from around world, and in October 2013 the winning team was chosen from four finalists. However the team failed to secure sufficient finance, and in November 2015 the Government announced that the development would not proceed. The Government was unwilling or unable to recognise that an insistence on a pure market approach would not deliver the innovative sustainable village asked for in the competition brief, and failed to factor in the opportunity cost to government, local government, local businesses and the wider Christchurch community of delaying by many years the residential development of the eastern side of the city. As a result, the early vision of the vitality that a thriving residential neighbourhood would bring to the city has not yet been realised.
This thesis revisits the topic of earthquake recovery in Christchurch City more than a decade after the Canterbury earthquakes. Despite promising visions of a community reconnected and a sustainable and liveable city, significant portions of the city’s core – the Red Zone – remain dilapidated and “eerily empty”. At the same time, new developments in other areas have proven to be alienated or underutilised. Currently, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s plans for the rebuilding highlight the delivery of more residential housing to re-populate the city centre. However, prevalent approaches to housing development in Christchurch are ineffective for building an inclusive and active community. Hence, the central inquiry of the thesis is how the development of housing complexes can revitalise the Red Zone within the Christchurch city centre. The inquiry has been carried out through a research-through-design methodology, recognising the importance of an in-depth investigation that is contextualised and combined with the intuition and embodied knowledge of the designer. The investigation focuses on a neglected site in the Red Zone in the heart of Christchurch city, with significant Victorian and Edwardian Baroque heritage buildings, including Odeon Theatre, Lawrie & Wilson Auctioneers, and Sol Square, owned by The Regional Council Environment Canterbury. The design inquiry argues, develops, and is carried through a place-assemblage lens to housing development for city recovery, which recognizes the significance of socially responsive architecture that explores urban renewal by forging connections within the social network. Therefore, place-assemblage criteria and methods for developing socially active and meaningful housing developments are identified. Firstly, this thesis argues that co-living housing models are more focused on people relations and collective identity than the dominant developer-driven housing rebuilds, as they prioritise conduits for interaction and shared social meaning and practices. Secondly, the adaptive reuse of derelict heritage structures is proposed to reinvigorate the urban fabric, as heritage is seen to be conceived as and from a social assemblage of people. The design is realised by the principles outlined in the ICOMOS charter, which involves incorporating the material histories of existing structures and preserving the intangible heritage of the site by ensuring the continuity of cultural practices. Lastly, design processes and methods are also vital for place-sensitive results, which pay attention to the site’s unique characteristics to engage with local stakeholders and communities. The research explores place-assemblage methods of photographic extraction, the drawing of story maps, precedent studies, assemblage maps, bricolages, and paper models, which show an assembly of layers that piece together the existing heritage, social conduits, urban commons and housing to conceptualise the social network within its place.
An aerial photograph of the Christchurch CBD. The photograph has been captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "This photograph shows the many tall CBD buildings, with the Hotel Grand Chancellor under demolition in the centre of the photograph. The street in the foreground running up the photograph from left to right is Lichfield Street with the old Bus Exchange clearly visible".
We present ground motion simulations of the Porters Pass (PP) fault in the Canterbury region of New Zealand; a major active source near Christchurch city. The active segment of the PP fault has an inferred length of 82 km and a mostly strike-slip sense of movement. The PP fault slip makes up approximately 10% of the total 37 mm/yr margin-parallel plate motion and also comprises a significant proportion of the total strain budget in regional tectonics. Given that the closest segment of the fault is less than 45 km from Christchurch city, the PP fault is crucial for accurate earthquake hazard assessment for this major population centre. We have employed the hybrid simulation methodology of Graves and Pitarka (2010, 2015), which combines low (f<1 Hz) and high (f>1 Hz) frequencies into a broadband spectrum. We have used validations from three moderate magnitude events (𝑀𝑤4.6 Sept 04, 2010; 𝑀𝑤4.6 Nov 06, 2010; 𝑀𝑤4.9 Apr 29, 2011) to build confidence for the 𝑀𝑤 > 7 PP simulations. Thus far, our simulations include multiple rupture scenarios which test the impacts of hypocentre location and the finite-fault stochastic rupture representation of the source itself. In particular, we have identified the need to use location-specific 1D 𝑉𝑠/𝑉𝑝 models for the high frequency part of the simulations to better match observations.