Past earthquakes have consistently highlighted the vulnerabilities of the built environment. Current building codes, which focus primarily on life safety, fail to address the need for buildings to remain functional after a seismic event. The emerging concept of post-earthquake functional recovery aims to integrate recovery-based objectives into building codes. However, literature reveals a predominant focus on engineering parameters, with limited attention given to the perspectives of building users; a critical gap in understanding a building’s comprehensive functionality and path to functional recovery. Whilst structural integrity is essential, functionality following a disaster is not determined by physical stability alone. Thus, this study addresses this gap by exploring the perceptions and expectations of office building users (both tenants and property owners) regarding building functionality and post-earthquake functional recovery in New Zealand’s major urban centres: Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch. A qualitative research strategy was employed, utilising interpretative phenomenological and grounded theory methods to develop insights from the lived experiences of twenty-six (26) participants. The study applied a systems thinking approach using a socio-technical systems (STS) framework to develop micro (single construct) and macro (multiple constructs) models of building-system functionality. The findings demonstrate that a building’s functionality is nuanced, multifaceted, and context dependent. It encompasses physical, economic, social, organisational, technical, regulatory, and environmental elements, and is ultimately determined by users’ specific needs and priorities. A key divergence emerged: whilst property owners prioritise economic and environmental factors, tenants focus on the socio-organisational aspect, viewing the physical workspace as an embodiment of corporate identity, culture, and values. Regarding expectations for post-earthquake functional recovery, the post-pandemic era has drastically reshaped outlooks. Unlike previous earthquakes, where tenants scrambled for any available space, there is now increased demand for flexibility due to the hybrid work model. The immediate return to an office following a major earthquake is now expected to support critical business functions, with essential services including power or a standby generator, technology to access files, water, as well as operations of air conditioning and elevators. By advancing socio-technical systems theory and elucidating building users’ perspectives for a building’s functionality and post-disaster functional recovery, this research provides evidence-based, social science insights to inform more holistic and effective risk governance in property and disaster risk management
During the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, Reinforced Concrete Frame with Masonry Infill (RCFMI) buildings were subjected to significant lateral loads. A survey conducted by Christchurch City Council (CCC) and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) documented 10,777 damaged buildings, which included building characteristics (building address, the number of storeys, the year of construction, and building use) and post-earthquake damage observations (building safety information, observed damage, level of damage, and current state of the buildings). This data was merged into the Canterbury Earthquake Building Assessment (CEBA) database and was utilised to generate empirical fragility curves using the lognormal distribution method. The proposed fragility curves were expected to provide a reliable estimation of the mean vulnerability for commercial RCFMI buildings in the region http://www.13thcms.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Symposium-Info-and-Presentation-Schedule.pdf VoR - Version of Record
This study is a qualitative investigation into the decision-making behaviour of commercial property owners (investors and developers) who are rebuilding in a city centre after a major disaster. In 2010/2011, Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, was a site of numerous earthquakes. The stronger earthquakes destroyed many buildings and public infrastructure in the commercial inner city. As a result, affected property owners lost all or most of their buildings, a significant proportion of which were old and in the last phase of their life span. They had to negotiate pay-outs with insurance companies and decide, once paid out, whether they should rebuild in Christchurch or sell up and invest elsewhere. The clear majority of those who decided to reinvest in and rebuild the city are ‘locals’, almost all of whom had no prior experience of property development. Thus, in a post-disaster environment, most of these property owners have transitioned from being just being passive investors to active property developers. Their experience was interpreted using primary data gathered from in-depth and semi-structured interviews with twenty-one “informed property people” who included commercial property owners; property agents or consultants; representatives of public-sector agencies and financial institutions. The study findings showed that the decision-making behaviour of property investors and developers rebuilding after a major disaster did not necessarily follow a strict financial or profit motive as prescribed in the mainstream or neo-classical economics property literature. Rather, their decision-making behaviour has been largely shaped by emotional connections and external factors associated with their immediate environment. The theoretical proposition emerging from this study is that after a major disaster, local urban property owners are faced with two choices “to stay” or “to go”. Those who decide to stay and rebuild are typically very committed individuals who have a feeling of ownership, belonging and attachment to the city in which they live and work. These are people who will often take the lead in commercial property development, proactively making decisions and seeking positive investment outcomes for themselves which in turn result in revitalised commercial urban precincts
