An aerial photograph of Manchester Street near Cambridge Terrace. The photograph has been captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The new Christchurch emerges - more colourful than before. The tree wrapped in high visibility is another project from artist Peter Majendie. The newly planted grass on the right hand side of the photo is on the PGC site and an adjoining site and is a CERA initiative. In the foreground of the photos the former site of St Luke's is now attractively laid out, while the splendour of the trees on the site can be fully appreciated".
The Canterbury earthquake series of 2010/2011 has turned the city of Christchurch into a full scale natural laboratory testing the structural and non-structural response of buildings under moderate to very severe earthquake shaking. The lessons learned from this, which have come at great cost socially and economically, are extremely valuable in increasing our understanding of whole building performance in severe earthquakes. Given current initiatives underway on both sides of the Tasman towards developing joint Australasian steel and composite steel/concrete design and construction standards that would span a very wide range of geological conditions and seismic zones, these lessons are relevant to both countries. This paper focusses on the performance of steel framed buildings in Christchurch city, with greatest emphasis on multi-storey buildings, but also covering single storey steel framed buildings and light steel framed housing. It addresses such issues as the magnitude and structural impact of the earthquake series, importance of good detailing, lack of observed column base hinging, the excellent performance of composite floors and it will briefly cover research underway to quantify some of these effects for use in design.
