
he 2016 Building (Earthquake Prone Building) Amendment Act aims to improve the system for managing earthquake-prone buildings. The proposed changes to the Act were precipitated by the Canterbury earthquakes, and the need to improve the seismic safety of New Zealand’s building stock. However, the Act has significant ramifications for territorial authorities, organisations and individuals in small New Zealand towns, since assessing and repairing heritage buildings poses a major cost to districts with low populations and poor rental returns on commercial buildings.
Background Liquefaction induced land damage has been identified in more than 13 notable New Zealand earthquakes within the past 150 years, as presented on the timeline below. Following the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES), the consequences of liquefaction were witnessed first-hand in the city of Christchurch and as a result the demand for understanding this phenomenon was heightened. Government, local councils, insurers and many other stakeholders are now looking to research and understand their exposure to this natural hazard.
A photograph of a slow motion knob and shaft from the Townsend Telescope. The knob broke off the shaft during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
A photograph of the right ascension slow motion gears from the Townsend Telescope. Some of the larger gear's teeth were damaged during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
A photograph of cracks around a window of the Observatory tower at the Christchurch Arts Centre. The cracks formed as a result of the 4 September 2010 earthquake.
A photograph of cracks around a window of the Observatory tower at the Christchurch Arts Centre. The cracks formed as a result of the 4 September 2010 earthquake.
A photograph of cracks around a window of the Observatory tower at the Christchurch Arts Centre. The cracks formed as a result of the 4 September 2010 earthquake.
A plan which defines the framework for performance measurement to align SCIRT with the objectives from the Alliance Agreement objectives. The first version of this plan was produced on 20 August 2011.
Damage to a house in Richmond. Part of a concrete patio has slumped, leaving large cracks. In the background, cracks are visible in the brickwork of the house. The photographer comments, "More patio cracks".
Staff meet in temporary office space set up in the NZi3 building. The photographer comments, "University of Canterbury administration all fits into one building! Well, sort of. Two meeting spaces in the middle of the floor".
The text of a Pecha Kucha talk titled, "A working week in the Recovery Centre". The talk was given by Moya Sherrif, CCCRC Intern, at the Museums Aotearoa Conference on 4 April 2014.
A photograph of an architect from Populous leading a tour of the temporary AMI Stadium. Populous were the designers of the stadium. The tour was conducted as part of FESTA 2012.
A photograph of an architect from Populous leading a tour of the temporary AMI Stadium. Populous were the designers of the stadium. The tour was conducted as part of FESTA 2012.
A paper delivered at Building a Better New Zealand (BBNZ 2014) Conference. The paper examines the relationship between innovation and productivity improvement in the construction industry.
Damage to a house in Richmond. Part of the brick wall is visibly out of alignment, leaving large gaps at the corner of the house. The photographer comments, "Dining room exterior wall".
A man photographs large cracks in River Road where the road has slumped towards the river. The photographer comments, "Cracking in River Rd. The Banks Ave/Dallington Tce end of our block is impassable".
At a meeting in a tent, Vice-Chancellor Rod Carr speaks to staff about their return to work after the February 2011 earthquake. The photographer comments, "The VC addresses staff in a marquee in the Communication Disorders car park".
A woman sits reading beside the "University of Canterbury" sign on Clyde Road. In the background are the tents used while lecture theatres were closed for structural testing. The photographer comments, "From Clyde Rd, all seemed intact".
Damage to a house in Richmond. The foundation is cracked, and a gap is visible between the foundation and the house. The photographer comments, "River Rd, between Stanmore Rd and Fitzgerald Ave".
The suburb of New Brighton in Christchurch Aotearoa was once a booming retail sector until the end of its exclusivity to Saturday shopping in 1980 and the aftermath of the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The suburb of New Brighton was hit particularly hard and fell into economic collapse, partly brought on by the nature of its economic structure. This implosion created an urban crisis where people and businesses abandoned the suburb and its once-booming commercial economy. As a result, New Brighton has been left with the residue of abandoned infrastructure and commercial propaganda such as billboards, ATM machines, commercial facades, and shopping trolleys that as abandoned fragments, no longer contribute to culture, society and the economy. This design-led research investigation proposes to repurpose the broken objects that were left behind. By strategically selecting objects that are symbols of the root cause of the economic devastation, the repurposed and re-contextualised fragments will seek to allegorically expose the city’s destructive economic narrative, while providing a renewed sense of place identity for the people. This design-led thesis investigation argues that the seemingly innocuous icons of commercial industry, such as billboards, ATM machines, commercial facades, and shopping trolleys, are intended to act as lures to encourage people to spend money; ultimately, these urban and architectural lures can contribute to economic devastation. The aim of this investigation is to repurpose abandoned fragments of capitalist infrastructure in ways that can help to unveil new possibilities for a disrupted community and enhance their awareness of what led to the urban disruption. The thesis proposes to achieve this research aim by exploring three principal research objectives: 1) to assimilate and re-contextualise disconnected urban fragments into new architectural interventions; 2) to anthropomorphise these new interventions so that they are recognisable as architectural ‘inhabitants’, the storytellers of the urban context; and 3) to curate these new architectural interventions in ways that enable a community-scale allegorical and didactic experience to be recognised.
Damage to a house in Richmond. Stucco underneath a window has cracked, and the foundation appears to be on a lean. The photographer comments, "These photos show our old house in River Rd and recovery work around Richmond and St Albans. The bay window of our bedroom has jumped off the foundations, cracking the stucco".
The University of Canterbury's E-Learning team's temporary office in the James Hight building. The photographer comments, "First looks at our new temporary (maybe) office space. Our group will stay here until April or May 2011, then will move to another floor in the Central Library. Jess's desk. Viewed from my side of the couch".
Heathcote Valley school strong motion station (HVSC) consistently recorded ground motions with higher intensities than nearby stations during the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. For example, as shown in Figure 1, for the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, peak ground acceleration at HVSC reached 1.4 g (horizontal) and 2 g (vertical), the largest ever recorded in New Zealand. Strong amplification of ground motions is expected at Heathcote Valley due to: 1) the high impedance contrast at the soil-rock interface, and 2) the interference of incident and surface waves within the valley. However, both conventional empirical ground motion prediction equations (GMPE) and the physics-based large scale ground motions simulations (with empirical site response) are ineffective in predicting such amplification due to their respective inherent limitations.
Furniture and equipment packed up ready for the University of Canterbury's E-Learning team's move to their temporary office in the James Hight building. The photographer comments, "First looks at our new temporary (maybe) office space. Our group will stay here until April or May 2011, then will move to another floor in the Central Library. Waiting for the movers. Our office is packed into orange crates, everything is labelled, where are the movers?".
A PDF copy of a page on the EQ Recovery Learning site which linked to a YouTube video. In 2015, Christchurch hosted the biggest international cricket tournament ever to be played in New Zealand - the ICC Cricket World Cup. Take a look behind the scenes and through the eyes of some of Canterbury's most passionate cricketers as cricket makes its epic return to the Hagley Oval.
INTRODUCTION This project falls under the Flagship 3: Wellington Coordinated Project. It supports other projects within FP3 to create a holistic understanding of risks posed by collapsed buildings due to future earthquake/s and the secondary consequences of cordoning in the short, mid and long term. Cordoning of the Christchurch CBD for more than two years and its subsequent implications on people and businesses had a significant impact on the recovery of Christchurch. Learning from this and experiences from the Kaikōura earthquake (where cordons were also established around selected buildings, Figure 3) have highlighted the need to understand the effects of cordons and plan for it before an earthquake occurs
A document containing the flipcharts from the SCIRT and the New Zealand Red Cross design thinking workshop.
An entry from Deborah Fitchett's blog for 27 May 2011, posted to Dreamwidth. The entry is titled, "In which the TARDIS visits #eqnz".The entry was downloaded on 16 April 2015.
An entry from Deborah Fitchett's blog for 27 May 2011, posted to Livejournal. The entry is titled, "In which the TARDIS visits #eqnz".The entry was downloaded on 13 April 2015.
An entry from Deborah Fitchett's blog for 17 March 2011, posted to Livejournal. The entry is titled, "In which she reads the news".The entry was downloaded on 14 April 2015.