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Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The contents of this dissertation explores the renovation of Noah’s hotel which was left abandoned after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. With the current state of New Zealand as of now, rent prices plummeting, and the ongoing mass emigration proves the country’s increased cost of living. A trend of ‘hidden homelessness’ in the forms of couch surfing and overcrowding tenancies evinces a mass economic displacement. This thesis is driven by means of speculation and of hope that by utilising Christchurch’s dilapidated sites can be transformed into safe havens for those evicted. Guided by the six principles of heterotopia introduced by Michel Foucault, the proposed co-living hotel determines to attest societal perception of hotels, and introduce a reality that alleviates a community from political and economical instability. In terms of Christchurch’s landscape, the hotel itself lies within Maltese Cross, layout planned in 1850 which defines the CBD’S unique urbanscape. Historic landmarks and erected projects use the cross as a guide in tandem with legislative policies strictly imposing the importance of view protection for heritage buildings - a notion made compulsory especially after the earthquake. By taking inspiration from Gordon Matta-Clark’s methodology of Conical Intersects, voids through the building act as viewshafts, each introducing key sites important to Christchurch. These voids simultaneously house integral communal areas and narrates a timeline of Ōtautahi’s crucial events

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

This thesis describes the strategies for earthquake strengthening vintage clay bricks unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. URM buildings are well known to be vulnerable to damage from earthquake-induced lateral forces that may result in partial or full building collapse. The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes are the most recent destructive natural disaster that resulted in the deaths of 185 people. The earthquake events had drawn people’s attention when URM failure and collapse caused about 39 of the fatality. Despite the poor performance of URM buildings during the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, a number of successful case study buildings were identified and their details research in-depth. In order to discover the successful seismic retrofitting techniques, two case studies of retrofitted historical buildings located in Christchurch, New Zealand i.e. Orion’s URM substations and an iconic Heritage Hotel (aka Old Government Building) was conducted by investigating and evaluating the earthquake performance of the seismic retrofitting technique applied on the buildings prior to the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes and their performance after the earthquakes sequence. The second part of the research reported in this thesis was directed with the primary aim of developing a cost-effective seismic retrofitting technique with minimal interference to the vintage clay-bricks URM buildings. Two retrofitting techniques, (i) near-surface mounted steel wire rope (NSM-SWR) with further investigation on URM wallettes to get deeper understanding the URM in-plane behaviour, and (ii) FRP anchor are reported in this research thesis