As Auckland and Northland brace for more atrocious weather, city leaders are calling for funding to repair the city's broken infrastructure to be along the lines of the help given to Christchurch after the quakes. Auckland deputy mayor Desley Simpson says that the damage so far is equivalent to the biggest non earthquake event the country has ever had and should be treated accordingly. The Opportunities Party says the "alliance" model established after the earthquakes, was effective and would work for Auckland's rebuild, because it provides a structure that the Central Government can fund directly. ToP leader Raf Manji was a Christchurch councillor after the quakes and closely involved in the rebuild. He tells Kathryn Ryan it is vital to ensure water and transport infrastructure is repaired quickly and efficiently, especially with a view to future extreme weather events - and there is much to learn from the post-quake rebuild.
The government's looking overseas to get more hands on deck to help with the rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle.
A new short-term Recovery Visa will bring in specialist foreign workers through a similar pathway used after the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes.
The visas will be fast-tracked with officials aiming to get applications through within seven days.
Corn Dann spoke with immigration minister Michael Wood.
The city of Christchurch, New Zealand, incurred significant damage due to a series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The city had, by the late 2010s, regained economic and social normalcy after a sustained period of rebuilding and economic recovery. Through the concerted rebuilding effort, a modern central business district (CBD) with redesigned infrastructure and amenities was developed. The Christchurch rebuild was underpinned by a commitment of urban planners to an open and connected city, including the use of innovative technologies to gather, use and share data. As was the case elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant disruptions to social and economic life in Christchurch. Border closures, lockdowns, trading limitations and other restrictions on movement led to changes in traditional consumer behaviors and affected the retail sector’s resilience. In this study, we used CBD pedestrian traffic data gathered from various locations to predict changes in retail spending and identify recovery implications through the lens of retail resilience. We found that the COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdowns have driven a substantive change in the behavioral patterns of city users. The implications for resilient retail, sustainable policy and further research are explored.
The government is crowdsourcing the cyclone recovery bill. It has launched an international fundraising effort, modelled on the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal - which raised almost $100 million.
A separate special Lotto draw will also be held on March 18 with all proceeds going to affected communities.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has urged New Zealanders to get behind the effort.
He defended asking people to chip in when the cost-of-living is so high.
As Chief Executive of Te Runanga o Ngāi Tahu, Arihia Bennett leads a whanau of more than 78,000 iwi members, including their near-$2b worth of assets. She's been in the role for 11 years, overseeing all of Ngāi Tahu's operations, including farming, seafood, tourism and investment. She has also served as Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Commissioner, been on the board of Barnardos NZ and the Christchurch Women's Refuge (now known as Aviva). She is a current member of the Global Women's Network and the Tuahiwi Maori Women's Welfare League. In 2008, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Maori and the community. Arihia Bennett is a social worker by profession, from a whanau steeped in community service. She talks to Susie Ferguson about her leadership style, her vision for Ngāi Tahu and her love of vintage clothes.
High demolition rates were observed in New Zealand after the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence despite the success of modern seismic design standards to achieve required performance objectives such as life safety and collapse prevention. Approximately 60% of the multi-storey reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in the Christchurch Central Business District were demolished after these earthquakes, even when only minor structural damage was present. Several factors influenced the decision of demolition instead of repair, one of them being the uncertainty of the seismic capacity of a damaged structure. To provide more insight into this topic, the investigation conducted in this thesis evaluated the residual capacity of moderately damaged RC walls and the effectiveness of repair techniques to restore the seismic performance of heavily damaged RC walls. The research outcome provided insights for developing guidelines for post-earthquake assessment of earthquake-damaged RC structures. The methodology used to conduct the investigation was through an experimental program divided into two phases. During the first phase, two walls were subjected to different types of pre-cyclic loading to represent the damaged condition from a prior earthquake, and a third wall represented a repair scenario with the damaged wall being repaired using epoxy injection and repair mortar after the pre-cyclic loading. Comparisons of these test walls to a control undamaged wall identified significant reductions in the stiffness of the damaged walls and a partial recovery in the wall stiffness achieved following epoxy injection. Visual damage that included distributed horizontal and diagonal cracks and spalling of the cover concrete did not affect the residual strength or displacement capacity of the walls. However, evidence of buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement during the pre-cyclic loading resulted in a slight reduction in strength recovery and a significant reduction in the displacement capacity of the damaged walls. Additional experimental programs from the literature were used to provide recommendations for modelling the response of moderately damaged RC walls and to identify a threshold that represented a potential reduction in the residual strength and displacement capacity of damaged RC walls in future earthquakes. The second phase of the experimental program conducted in this thesis addressed the replacement of concrete and reinforcing steel as repair techniques for heavily damaged RC walls. Two walls were repaired by replacing the damaged concrete and using welded connections to connect new reinforcing bars with existing bars. Different locations of the welded connections were investigated in the repaired walls to study the impact of these discontinuities at the critical section. No significant changes were observed in the stiffness, strength, and displacement capacity of the repaired walls compared to the benchmark undamaged wall. Differences in the local behaviour at the critical section were observed in one of the walls but did not impact the global response. The results of these two repaired walls were combined with other experimental programs found in the literature to assemble a database of repaired RC walls. Qualitative and quantitative analyses identified trends across various parameters, including wall types, damage before repair, and repair techniques implemented. The primary outcome of the database analysis was recommendations for concrete and reinforcing steel replacement to restore the strength and displacement capacity of heavily damaged RC walls.
This project looks at how destroyed architecture, although physically lost, fundamentally continues to exist within human memories as a non-physical entity. The site chosen is Avonside Girls’ High School in Christchurch, New Zealand, a school heavily damaged during the February 22nd earthquake in 2011. The project focuses on the Main Block, a 1930s masonry building which had always been a symbol for the school and its alumni. The key theories relevant to this are studies on non-material architecture and memory as these subjects investigate the relationship between conceptual idea and the triggering of it. This research aims to study how to fortify a thought-based architecture against neglect, similar to the retrofitting of physical structures. In doing so, the importance of the emotive realm of architecture and the idea behind a building (as opposed to the built component itself) is further validated, promoting more broadminded stances regarding the significance of the idea over the object. A new method for disaster recovery and addressing trauma from lost architecture is also acquired. Factors regarding advanced structural systems and programmes are not covered within the scope of this research because the project instead explores issues regarding the boundaries between the immaterial and material. The project methodology involves communicating a narrative derived from the memories alumni and staff members have of the old school block. The approach for portraying the narrative is based on a list of strategies obtained from case studies. The final product of the research is a new design for the high school, conveyed through a set of atmospheric drawings that cross-examines the boundaries between the physical and non-physical realms by representing the version of the school that exists solely within memories.
