Page 4 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Monday 13 May 2013.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 18 April 2013.
Page 7 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 30 March 2013.
Page 3 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 21 May 2013.
A video of an interview with Mayor Bob Parker about the building consent crisis at the Christchurch City Council. The council received a letter from International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) on 30 May 2013. The letter says that the Council has until 28 June 2013 to improve its processes or it will be stripped of its accreditation as a building consent authority.
Page 4 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Friday 15 November 2013.
Page 1 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Wednesday 3 July 2013.
Unreinforced masonry (URM) is a construction type that was commonly adopted in New Zealand between the 1880s and 1930s. URM construction is evidently vulnerable to high magnitude earthquakes, with the most recent New Zealand example being the 22 February 2011 Mw6.3 Christchurch earthquake. This earthquake caused significant damage to a majority of URM buildings in the Canterbury area and resulted in 185 fatalities. Many URM buildings still exist in various parts of New Zealand today, and due to their likely poor seismic performance, earthquake assessment and retrofit of the remaining URM building stock is necessary as these buildings have significant architectural heritage and occupy a significant proportion of the nation’s building stock. A collaborative research programme between the University of Auckland and Reid Construction Systems was conducted to investigate an economical yet effective solution for retrofitting New Zealand’s existing URM building stock. This solution adopts the shotcrete technique using an Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC), which is a polyvinyl alcohol fibre reinforced mortar that exhibits strain hardening characteristics. Collaborations have been formed with a number of consulting structural engineers throughout New Zealand to develop innovative and cost effective retrofit solutions for a number of buildings. Two such case studies are presented in this paper. http://www.concrete2013.com.au/technical-program/
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Page 3 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 17 September 2013.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Wednesday 27 March 2013.
Page 1 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 30 July 2013.
A time-lapse video of New Regent Street, taken from The Press building, which accidentally captured the collapse of the Copthorne Hotel. A cloud of dust from the collapsing building can be seen in the top of the video. The hotel collapsed while it was being demolished.
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 19 January 2013 entitled, "New Home".
The Christchurch City Council has received a strong warning from the Earthquake Recovery Minister to speed up its processing of building consents or lose its power to authorise consents.
Christchurch earthquake events have raised questions on the adequacy of performance-based provisions in the current national building code. At present, in the building code the performance objectives are expressed in terms of safety and health criteria that could affect building occupants. In general, under the high intensity Christchurch events, buildings performed well in terms of life-safety (with a few exceptions) and it proved that the design practices adopted for those buildings could meet the performance objectives set by the building code. However, the damage incurred in those buildings resulted in unacceptably high economic loss. It is timely and necessary to revisit the objectives towards building performance in the building code and to include provisions for reducing economic implications in addition to the current requirements. Based on the observed performance of some buildings, a few specific issues in the current design practices that could have contributed to extensive damage have been identified and recommended for further research leading towards improved performance of structures. In particular, efforts towards innovative design/construction solutions with low-damage concepts are encouraged. New Zealand has been one of the leading countries in developing many innovative technologies. However, such technically advanced research findings usually face challenges towards implementation. Some of the reasons include: (i) lack of policy requirements; (iii) absence of demonstrated performance of new innovations to convince stakeholders; and (iv) non-existence of design guidelines. Such barriers significantly affect implementation of low damage construction and possible strategies to overcome those issues are discussed in this paper.
Corner of Cashel and Madras streets, with the relatively new (built 2007) Inland Revenue Building and the white chair memorial to the 185 lives lost as a result of the 22/02/11 earthquake. The chairs sit on the site of the now demolished St Pauls Pacific Chuch and is diagonally across the intersection from the CTV (Canterbury TV) building where ...
The earthquake swarm that has struck Canterbury, New Zealand from September 2010 has led to widespread destruction and loss of life in the city of Christchurch. In response to this the New Zealand government convened a Royal Commission under the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908. The terms of reference for this enquiry were wide ranging, and included inquiry into legal and best-practice requirements for earthquake-prone buildings and associated risk management strategies. The Commission produced a final report on earthquake-prone buildings and recommendations which was made public on the 7th December 2012. Also on the 7th of December 2012 the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) released a Consultation Document that includes many of the recommendations put forward by the Royal Commission. This paper examines the evidence presented to the Royal Commission and reviews their recommendations and those of MBIE in relation to the management of earthquake-prone buildings. An analysis of the likely impacts of the recommendations and proposals on both the property market and society in general is also undertaken.
Members of the public sitting in the outdoor seating area of C1 Expresso's new location in the Alice in Videoland building.
The president of the Structural Engineers' Society, John Hare, says since the Christchurch earthquakes, engineers have been too conservative in evaulations for fear of liability.
Page 16 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Wednesday 27 November 2013.
A video of Lianne Dalziel announcing her decision to run for the mayoralty of Christchurch. Dalziel talks about the rebuild of Christchurch, and the daily lives of those living in post-earthquake Christchurch. She also talks about her decision to run independently, her experience as a minister, and the need for transparency and financial integrity in the Christchurch City Council. Lastly, she talks about the building consent crisis at the Council, and the need for the Council to connect with communities.
Page 7 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 22 August 2013.
Page 1 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Monday 12 August 2013.
Damage to ceiling systems resulted in a substantial financial loss to building owners in the Canterbury earthquakes. In some buildings, collapse of ceilings could easily have resulted in severe injury to occupants. This paper summarizes the types of ceiling damage observed in the Canterbury earthquakes, and draws useful lessons from the observed performance of different types of ceiling systems. Existing ceiling manufacturing and installing practices/regulations in New Zealand are critically scrutinized to identify deficiencies, and measures are suggested to improve the practice so that the damage to ceilings and the resulting loss are minimized in future earthquakes.
Page 4 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Wednesday 20 February 2013.
Page 13 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 13 August 2013.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 23 February 2013.
Page 5 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 18 July 2013.
Page 11 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 21 December 2013.