
A photograph of Julia Holden's painting 'Blue Building' displayed on a billboard in Auckland.
A close-up photograph of Julia Holden's painting 'Blue Building' displayed on a billboard in Auckland.
A written history of 161 Cashel Street, the Hotel Grand Chancellor.
A photograph of Julia Holden's painting 'Blue Building' displayed on a billboard in Auckland.
The streets are quiet – a parked car sits outside Dalgety’s, a lone tram rumbles towards the tram sheds and a tired delivery horse stands with his head bowed, eating chaff from his feed…
“To settle what seems to be a somewhat vexed question, a representative of the Lyttelton Times yesterday made inquiries among a number of the Pilgrims with regard to the authenticity, or otherwise,…
Friday 22 February 2013. File reference: CCL-2013 -02-22-IMG_4026 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Workmen approach the elevator shaft of the CTV building - 05 March 2011 The CTV building claimed 115 lives when it collapsed in a pile of smoking rubble on 22 February 2011 during a 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch and only the lift shaft was left standing.
A view after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch 22 February 2011. Corner of Barbadoes and Kilmore Streets. So sad to see history die - both buildings and business.
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File reference: CCL-2012-02-22-IMG_9693 From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
This will open up the street to the Avon River
Damage to the Clarendon Tower building.
Fences around the CTV building site.
Demolished building materials behind Harvey Norman.
Damage to building on Colombo Street.
Partially-demolished building on Colombo Street.
Deconstruction of the Forsyth Barr building.
In the late 1960s the Wellington City Council surveyed all the commercial buildings in the city and marked nearly 200 as earthquake prone. The owners were given 15 years to either strengthen or demolish their buildings. The end result was mass demolition throughout the seventies and eighties.¹ Prompted by the Christchurch earthquakes, once again the council has published a list of over 630 earthquake prone buildings that need to be strengthened or demolished by 2030.²Of these earthquake prone buildings, the majority were built between 1880 and 1930, with 125 buildings appearing on the Wellington City Council Heritage Building List.³ This list accounts for a significant proportion of character buildings in the city. There is a danger that the aesthetic integrity of our city will be further damaged due to the urgent need to strengthen these buildings. Many of the building owners are resistant because of the high cost. By adapting these buildings to house co-workspaces, we can gain more than just the retention of the building’s heritage. The seismic upgrade provides the opportunity for the office space to be redesigned to suit changes in the ways we work. Through a design-based research approach this thesis proposes a framework that clarifies the process of adapting Wellington’s earthquake prone heritage buildings to accommodate co-working. This framework deals with the key concepts of program, structure and heritage. The framework is tested on one of Wellington’s earthquake prone heritage buildings, the Wellington Working Men’s Club, in order to demonstrate what can be gained from this strengthening process. ¹ Reid, J., “Hometown Boomtown,” in NZ On Screen (Wellington, 1983). ² Wellington City Council, List of Earthquake Prone Buildings as at 06/03/2017. (Wellington: Absolutely Positively Wellington. 2017). ³ ibid.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Cotter & Co. Building on High Street which has survived the earthquakes even though all the buildings around it have been demolished.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Forsyth Barr building at 764 Colombo Street (left) and 779 Colombo Street (right)".
Smoke billowing from the remains of the collapsed Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street. Below, emergency personnel can be seen searching the rubble for trapped people.
A New Zealand Fire Service personnel member at the site of the collapsed Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street, holding a can of "V" energy drink.
A photograph of a block of earthquake-damaged buildings on Manchester Street. The walls of the Westende Jewellers Building on the right have crumbled, exposing the second storey rooms.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Isaac House, also known as the National Bank building at 779 Colombo Street".
The Canterbury Provincial Council buildings on Durham Street. The word "Clear" has been spray painted on one section of the building in pink spray paint.
People will be told by Christmas if they are in unsafe buildings that have the same flaw as the CTV building, which collapsed killing 115 people in the Christchurch earthquake.
The reality of just how many historic buildings will be lost to the Christchurch earthquake is now becoming apparent with Civil Defence adding another 123 buildings to the demolition list.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The BNZ building on Armagh Street and the PWC building reflected in the Avon River".