BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0030

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Gap Filler Chess set on Colombo Street, Sydenham".

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0029

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Gap Filler Chess set on Colombo Street, Sydenham".

BeckerFraserPhotos February 2012 photograph 0028

Images, UC QuakeStudies

A photograph of Wayne Youle's mural 'I Seem to Have Temporarily Misplaced My Sense of Humour' (2012). The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Art installation at an empty site on Colombo Street, Sydenham".

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2012 photograph 131

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Outdoor seating and the garden outside the Coffee Zone kiosk in Sydenham. This garden was a project supported by Greening the Rubble.

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2012 photograph 134

Images, UC QuakeStudies

The garden and seating area outside the Coffee Zone shack on Colombo Street. This was put together by the Greening the Rubble community project.

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2012 photograph 132

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Plant beds made out of corrugated iron, greening the empty building sites along Colombo Street. These were placed here by Greening the Rubble, a community project in Christchurch to create temporary public parks and gardens on the sites of demolished buildings.

Greening the rubble in Christchurch: Civic ecological reclamation efforts …

Research Papers, Lincoln University

Within four weeks of the September 4 2010 Canterbury Earthquake a new, loosely-knit community group appeared in Christchurch under the banner of “Greening the Rubble.” The general aim of those who attended the first few meetings was to do something to help plug the holes that had already appeared or were likely to appear over the coming weeks in the city fabric with some temporary landscaping and planting projects. This article charts the first eighteen months of Greening the Rubble and places the initiative in a broader context to argue that although seismic events in Christchurch acted as a “call to palms,” so to speak, the city was already in need of some remedial greening. It concludes with a reflection on lessons learned to date by GTR and commentary on the likely issues ahead for this new mini-social-environmental movement in the context of a quake-affected and still quake-prone major New Zealand city. One of the key lessons for GTR and all of those involved in Christchurch recovery activities to date is that the city is still very much in the middle of the event and is to some extent a laboratory for seismic and agency management studies alike.

BeckerFraserPhotos April 2012 photograph 133

Images, UC QuakeStudies

The seating and garden area outside the Coffee Zone shack on Colombo Street. This is a Gap Filler space and the garden has been put together by Greening the Rubble.