A story submitted by Helen to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Aaron Schulz to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Hamish to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Berwyn to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by H.B. to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Irene to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Scott to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Mike Williams to the QuakeStories website.
A story submitted by Malcolm to the QuakeStories website.
A photograph of the installation 'Upon the Upland Road' on the former site of the Harbour Light in Lyttelton. The installation shows the last three lines of James K Baxter's poem, 'High Country Weather', written in the nautical flag alphabet.
A photograph of Crack'd for Christchurch's armchair and ottoman artworks in the Green Room garden on Colombo Street.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "Flora and Otto in their lovely garden, made up of plants and materials salvaged from the Christchurch Red Zone."
A photograph of Crack'd for Christchurch's armchair and ottoman artworks in the Green Room garden on Colombo Street.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "Flora and Otto in their lovely garden, made up of plants and materials salvaged from the Christchurch Red Zone."
A photograph of the steel frame of Crack'd for Christchurch's armchair artwork. The frame is on a pallet in the Greening the Rubble workshop. Two cast-iron bath feet have been attached to the front legs. The bottom half of the frame has been covered with mesh, wood, polystyrene, and concrete by Jonathan Hall.
A video of a play produced and performed by students from Avonside Girls' High School. The play was created for the Theater Federation One Act Play Festival, on the topic of the Christchurch rebuild. The students modeled the play on the epic theatre style, aiming to emotionally affect and enact change in their audience.
A photograph of Crack'd for Christchurch's partially-constructed armchair artwork. The armchair is on a pallet in Greening the Rubble's workshop. Jonathan Hall has moulded polystyrene, wood, mesh, and concrete over the steel frame to construct the armchair. Two cast-iron bath feet have attached to the front legs.
A photograph of a camera operator filming members of Crack'd for Christchurch as they work on their armchair artwork.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "August 2014. Mike Thorpe and camera man filming Flora for Seven Sharp in anticipation of the launch. Only 4 weeks to go. No grout on the chair yet. From left: Sharon Wilson, Marie Hudson, and Jennie Cooper."
A photograph of a camera operator filming members of Crack'd for Christchurch as they work on their armchair artwork.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "August 2014. Mike Thorpe and camera man filming Flora for Seven Sharp in anticipation of the launch. Only 4 weeks to go. No grout on the chair yet. From left: Helen Campbell, Jennie Cooper, and Marie Hudson."
A photograph of a camera operator filming Marie Hudson as she works on Crack'd for Christchurch's armchair mosaic.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "August 2014. Mike Thorpe and camera man filming Flora for Seven Sharp in anticipation of the launch. Only 4 weeks to go. No grout on the chair yet."
A photograph of a camera operator filming Sharon Wilson and Jennie Cooper as they work on Crack'd for Christchurch's armchair artwork.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "August 2014. Mike Thorpe and camera man filming Flora for Seven Sharp in anticipation of the launch. Only 4 weeks to go. No grout on the chair yet."
A photograph of the front of Crack'd for Christchurch's partially-completed armchair artwork.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "We took quotes from some of the letters sent to us and a local ceramicist, Cecelia Freire De Mance, donated her time and wonderful skills to turn these into ceramic tiles to be broken up for the chair. This one reads, 'treasures in our everyday living...'."
A photograph of Crack'd for Christchurch's partially-constructed armchair artwork. The armchair is on a pallet in Greening the Rubble's workshop. Jonathan Hall has moulded polystyrene, wood, mesh, and concrete over the steel frame to construct the armchair. Two cast-iron bath feet have been attached to the front legs.
A photograph of Crack'd for Christchurch's partially-constructed armchair artwork. The armchair is on a pallet in Greening the Rubble's workshop. Jonathan Hall has moulded polystyrene, wood, mesh, and concrete over the steel frame to construct the armchair. Two cast-iron bath feet have been attached to the front legs.
A photograph of Crack'd for Christchurch's partially-constructed armchair artwork. The armchair is on a pallet in Greening the Rubble's workshop. Jonathan Hall has moulded polystyrene, wood, mesh, and concrete over the steel frame to construct the armchair. Two cast-iron bath feet have been attached to the front legs.
A photograph of a TVNZ camera operator filming the members of Crack'd for Christchurch during the launch of the Green Room garden. The members have gathered around their armchair and ottoman artwork. The armchair and ottoman are covered in white sheets and tied with a blue bow. They will be unveiled for the first time during the launch.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "The whole team together."
The urban environment influences the way people live and shape their everyday lives, and microclimate sensitive design can enhance the use of urban streets and public spaces. Innovative approaches to urban microclimate design will become more important as the world’s population becomes ever more urban, and climate change generates more variability and extremes in urban microclimatic conditions. However, established methods of investigation based upon conventions drawn from building services research and framed by physiological concepts of thermal comfort may fail to capture the social dynamics of urban activity and their interrelationship with microclimate. This research investigates the relationship between microclimate and urban culture in Christchurch, New Zealand, based upon the concept of urban comfort. Urban comfort is defined as the socio-cultural (therefore collective) adaptation to microclimate due to satisfaction with the urban environment. It involves consideration of a combination of human thermal comfort requirements and adaptive comfort circumstances, preferences and strategies. A main methodological challenge was to investigate urban comfort in a city undergoing rapid physical change following a series of major earthquakes (2010-2011), and that also has a strongly seasonal climate which accentuates microclimatic variability. The field investigation had to be suitable for rapidly changing settings as buildings were demolished and rebuilt, and be able to capture data relevant to a cycle of seasons. These local circumstances meant that Christchurch was valuable as an example of a city facing rapid and unpredictable change. An interpretive, integrative, and adaptive research strategy that combined qualitative social science methods with biophysical measures was adopted. The results are based upon participant observation, 86 in-depth interviews with Christchurch residents, and microclimate data measurements. The interviews were carried out in a variety of urban settings including established urban settings (places sustaining relatively little damage) and emerging urban settings (those requiring rebuilding) during 2011-2013. Results of this research show that urban comfort depends on adaptive strategies which in turn depend on culture. Adaptive strategies identified through the data analysis show a strong connection between natural and built landscapes, combined with the regional outdoor culture, the Garden City identity and the connections between rural and urban landscapes. The results also highlight that thermal comfort is an important but insufficient indicator of good microclimate design, as social and cultural values are important influences on climate experience and adaptation. Interpretive research is needed to fully understand urban comfort and to provide urban microclimate design solutions to enhance the use of public open spaces in cities undergoing change.
A photograph of members of the public examining Crack'd for Christchurch's armchair mosaic. The armchair and ottoman artworks have just been unveiled during the launch of the Green Room garden on Colombo Street. In the foreground are several members of Crack'd for Christchurch. A camera operator from One News is also filming the event.
A photograph of Sarah Campagnolo, Project Co-ordinator for Greening the Rubble, speaking at the opening of the Green Room garden. In the background, members of Crack'd for Christchurch have gathered around their armchair and ottoman artworks. The artworks are wrapped in white sheets and tied with a bow. They will be unveiled for the first time during the launch. To the right, a camera operator from One News is filming the speech.
A photograph of the location of the Green Room garden on Colombo Street. White picket fences have been placed around the edges of the site and a platform has been constructed in the back-right corner. Two garden plots have been sectioned off using bricks to the right and front of the site. The front plot has been planted with shrubs and grass. A path leading between the gardens up to the platform has been filled with gravel. Wire fences have been placed around the entire section as a cordon.Crack'd for Christchurch comments, "The Green Room was built by Jonathan Hall and planted by Gina Payne."
A PDF copy of signage for the Places of Tranquillity initiative. Healthy Christchurch lead the collaborative project to create six gardens of beauty and peace to fill in some of the grey demolition sites across Christchurch. The signage promotes the initiative and invites people to register to create tranquil gardens at healthychristchurch.org.nz. From healthychristchurch.org.nz: "Healthy Christchurch is leading this innovative collaboration creating six gardens of beauty and peace to fill in some of the grey demolition sites across Christchurch.These gardens are for peace and tranquillity as well as family and community use with spaces designed for both." "This is a Healthy Christchurch collaboration in partnership with the city's ethnic communities to include their traditions, cultures and spiritual beliefs. This ensures that these communities' voices and presence is more visible in the rebuild of our city. There are three key partners in this collaborative project. Greening the Rubble are providing expertise in temporary site development and project managing the creation. Lincoln University School of Landscape Architecture provided the student competition and are supporting the winning students and their designs into fruition. Community and Public Health (CDHB) provide the overall project management, networks and promotion." "In 2012 Lincoln University School of Landscape Architecture students created 40 beautiful designs for the Places of Tranquillity. Six winning designs were chosen from the 995 votes made online or at the displays at Community and Public Health and the Migrant Centre. The six winners were announced at the Healthy Christchurch Hui on the 31st May 2012. Each winning student received a Certificate and a $50 Scorpio Book Voucher. The awards were presented by Michelle Mitchell, General Manager of the CERA Wellbeing Team."
A video of a presentation by Associate Professor John Vargo during the fifth plenary of the 2016 People in Disasters Conference. Vargo is a senior researcher and co-leader of the Resilient Organisations Research Programme at the University of Canterbury. The presentation is titled, "Organisational Resilience is more than just Business Continuity".The abstract for this presentation reads as follows: Business Continuity Management is well-established process in many larger organisations and a key element in their emergency planning. Research carried out by resilient organisations follow the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury Earthquakes show that most small organisations did not have a business continuity plan (BCP), yet many of these organisations did survive the massive disruptions following the earthquakes. They were resilient to these catastrophic events, but in the absence of a BCP. This research also found that many of the organisations with BCP's, struggled to use them effectively when facing real events that did not align with the BCP. Although the BCPs did a good job of preparing organisations to deal with technology and operational disruptions, there was virtually no coverage for the continuity of people. Issues surrounding staff welfare and engagement were amongst the most crucial issues faced by Canterbury organisations, yet impacts of societal and personal disruption did not feature in BCPs. Resilience is a systematic way of looking at how an organization can survive a crisis and thrive in an uncertain world. Business continuity is an important aspect for surviving the crisis, but it is only part of the bigger picture addressed by organisational resilience. This presentation will show how organizational experiences in the Canterbury earthquakes support the need to move to a 'Business Continuity' for the '21st Century', one that incorporates more aspects of resilience, especially the 'people' areas of leadership, culture, staff welfare, and engagement.