A view of Cashel Street from the High Street intersection. An empty demolition site where a building once stood has been cordoned off with security fencing.
Record fines for two companies and a director who illegally dumped contaminated demolition material has highlighted problems with the costs of dumping earthquake rubble from Christchurch.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Loading the remains of 107 Manchester Street into a demolition truck. The water is to keep the dust down.".
People gathering at the cordon fence on Worcester Boulevard during the Rally for the Cathedral. The rally protested the proposed demolition of the ChristChurch Cathedral.
A photograph of the demolition site of Forbe's Store in Lyttelton. A section of the remaining floor has the words, "Robert Forbes" inlaid in the tiles.
A photograph of the ceiling of the City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The room has been exposed by the partial demolition of the building.
The back of the facade of the Excelsior Hotel, preserved after the demolition of the hotel. It is being supported by wooden bracing and shipping containers.
Empty demolition sites on Tuam Street. The Alice in Videoland building can be seen on left with the Wespac building and Holiday Inn in the background.
A photograph of the partially-demolished City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The rooms inside have been exposed by the partial demolition of the building.
A photograph of the partially-demolished City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The rooms inside have been exposed by the partial demolition of the building.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking along Chester St West - there are already a number of empty sites and several more buildings due for demolition".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Gloucester Street. Demolition rubble and a shop window mural reflected in a mirror on the back wall of a shop".
Intersection of Colombo and St Asaph Street, where road cones have been placed on the road to divert traffic from a demolition site in the background.
The back of the facade of the Excelsior Hotel, preserved after the demolition of the hotel. It is being supported by wooden bracing and shipping containers.
A digitally manipulated photograph of twisted reinforcing rods amongst the rubble from the demolition of QEII. The photographer comments, "These rarely seen worms live in the pressurised earth under the foundations of buildings. They need a damp soil and be under at least 100 pounds of pressure per square inch. After the destructive force of an earthquake they swiftly rise to the surface through gaps in the rubble. Unfortunately they quickly die and then crystallise as hard as iron in the dry low pressure air".
8 Velsheda Street, Bexley, Christchurch, across the road from my house was demolished a week or so ago, just one of many demolitions of Red Zone properties at the moment. This house was about ten years old and suffered land damage during the 4th September 2010 and 22nd February 2011 earthquakes. The same fate awaits my house later in the year o...
Designing a structure for higher- than-code seismic performance can result in significant economic and environmental benefits. This higher performance can be achieved using the principles of Performance-Based Design, in which engineers design structures to minimize the probabilistic lifecycle seismic impacts on a building. Although the concept of Performance-Based Design is not particularly new, the initial capital costs associated with designing structures for higher performance have historically hindered the widespread adoption of performance-based design practices. To overcome this roadblock, this research is focused on providing policy makers and stakeholders with evidence-based environmental incentives for designing structures in New Zealand for higher seismic performance. In the first phase of the research, the environmental impacts of demolitions in Christchurch following the Canterbury Earthquakes were quantified to demonstrate the environmental consequences of demolitions following seismic events. That is the focus here. A building data set consisting of 142 concrete buildings that were demolished following the earthquake was used to quantify the environmental impacts of the demolitions in terms of the embodied carbon and energy in the building materials. A reduced set of buildings was used to develop a material takeoff model to estimate material quantities in the entire building set, and a lifecycle assessment tool was used to calculate the embodied carbon and energy in the materials. The results revealed staggering impacts in terms of the embodied carbon and energy in the materials in the demolished buildings. Ongoing work is focused developing an environmental impact framework that incorporates all the complex factors (e.g. construction methodologies, repair methodologies (if applicable), demolition methodologies (if applicable), and waste management) that contribute to the environmental impacts of building repair and demolition following earthquakes.
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 29 August 2014 entitled, "Day off".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The former convent on Exeter Street, Lyttelton".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The site of Manchester Courts, 158-160 Manchester Street".
A tangle of metal pipes and a roof beam on the footpath outside the Durham Street Methodist Church.
Diggers on the corner of Worcester and Manchester Streets taking a rest from demolishing this building on Sunday.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "All that remains of the front doorway of Durham Street Methodist Church".
A digger and a crane with a wrecking ball demolishing the St Elmo Courts building on Hereford Street.
Damaged buildings and empty demolition sites. The building on the left has had tarpaulins placed on it to prevent weather damage to the inside of the building.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Strategy House, now leaning and in danger of collapse after another aftershock".
As for the demolition of the building, The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority deconstruction manager, Warwick Isaacs, says while it will be managed carefully, it is still risky.
A photograph submitted by Matt Pickering to the QuakeStories website. The description reads, "The army on hand, helping prepare for the demolition of the Strategy Building".
A photograph submitted by Bettina Evans to the QuakeStories website. The description reads, "Demolition of old Fire Station/Library in Lyttelton, corner London Street/Oxford Street".
A cordon check point on Durham Street. The demolition site was a building that housed Laycock Collision Repairs. The Christchurch Casino can be seen in the background.