No kidding! It’s not all concrete tilt-slab in the global world, wake up Brownlee…

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 11:53 04/01/2012
Buildings to ‘sit lightly’ under rebuild proposal
An area of central Christchurch is pushing to open up opportunities for the building of lightweight structures, as a less expensive and more “sensible” way to rebuild parts of the quake-ravaged city. Peterborough Village, a residential and commercial community inside the Christchurch central business district, is organising an international workshop to look into the issue in mid-February. Spokesperson Di Lucas said there were concerns the cost of stronger and deeper foundations required under post-quake bylaws could be unaffordable for some. She understood there were options for lightweight, cheaper but robust structures to sit lightly on the soft land as alternatives to the standard heavy structures being proposed on deep vertical piles.

Village chairperson Mark McEntyre said a public presentation was proposed following the workshop to demonstrate desired options. A summary of the workshop would also be published at peterboroughvillage.org.nz

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

NZIA members on Christchurch City Plan

Architects contribute ‘Early verdicts on the Christchurch draft Central City Plan’ in the latest issue of New Zealand Institute of Architects Cross Section magazine.

Christchurch’s draft Central City Plan, which the [Christchurch City] Council has been pressed to produce with some despatch, has met with a mixed response from local architects. Let’s start with the positive reactions. “The draft Central City Plan is a very good achievement in a short period of time and encapsulates a broad range of ideas and concepts that have been articulated to date,” says Warren and Mahoney’s Peter Marshall. “As a discussion document it will provide the necessary catalyst for a detailed evaluation needed in order to finalise the re-build framework for Christchurch.”

Various positives are expressed in reaction to Volume 1, followed by ‘criticalities’ and ‘explosions’ lobbed at the constraints of Volume 2.

A common critical theme is that the draft Plan is, in the words of Ian Athfield, “extremely prescriptive”, and that the regulatory regime revealed in Volume 2 would be inimical to the city’s recovery. “There are issues… that are going to need a more careful examination to ensure the urban design attributes do not compromise commercial realities,” says Peter Marshall. Peter’s remarks are a judicious expression of opinions that seem to be widely held by Christchurch architects.

“The more I look into Volume 2 the more concerned I get,” says Jasper van der Lingen (Sheppard & Rout Architects, and chair of the NZIA’s Canterbury branch). “Some examples: Volume 1 says you can get extra height for good urban design and a green building. Volume 2 translates this into mandating that a building owner must employ a green building council professional – bureaucracy and cost – and good urban design translates into a pitched roof between 30 and 60 degrees. Volume 1 talks about safety through passive surveillance. Volume 2 translates this into ridiculous rules about how much glazing you must have. Volume 1 talks about good scale of retail. Volume 2 translates this into a maximum size of retail of 250 square metres – no Ballantynes or Farmers. Volume 2 has some terrible stuff about blank façades that looks a lot worse than the old residential 20 metre rule, and it determines where neighbourhood centres should go without consultation with the local community – in dumb places, in my opinion.”

“There will be capital flight if this goes through unaltered,” Jasper says. “Volume 1 was a pass and appears to be written by designers. Volume 2 is a big fail and appears to be written by planners. It’s a huge worry for the future of Christchurch. The NZIA has a lot of work to do to fight this.”

It’s only a DRAFT. Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Christchurch’s AMI stadium

### offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com Tues, 9 Aug 2011 at 7:00 AM
Stadium rebuilding?
By Eric Crampton
Christchurch’s AMI / Jade / Lancaster Park Stadium (it’s changed names a few times since I’ve been here) seems likely to need the wrecking ball consequent to the February earthquake. I hope that City Council’s contribution to any rebuilding is limited to the insurance payout, and then only in the case that the insurer won’t let Council keep the cash. Stadiums just aren’t very good investments. In good times, a city can afford a lot of stupid. I’m not sure that Christchurch can afford to waste a lot of money over the next few years.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Where to share ideas for Christchurch and Canterbury

Rebuilding Christchurch | one brick, one word, one city:
http://rebuildingchristchurch.wordpress.com/ (James Dann) launched in September 2010.

Rebuild Christchurch Ideas Lounge | One Brick At A Time:
http://rebuildchristchurch.co.nz/rebuild-christchurch-ideas-lounge (Deon Swiggs) launched 4 September 2010.

Before After http://www.beforeafter.co.nz/ (New Zealand Institute of Architects) a discussion series launched along with an exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery (12 February – 20 March) – this closed early due to the 22 February earthquake. Explores the built environment and seeks to engage the public in identifying opportunities to create a better and more liveable region after the Canterbury Earthquake.

Urban Design Forum | Members Only Discussion Board
http://www.urbandesignforum.org.nz/
Urban design needs to be at the core of the re-building of Christchurch. While at the scale of the city, urban design ideas are likely to shape larger interventions, it is the site-by-site process of rebuilding where urban design principles could have their most lasting impact on the quality of the city that will emerge from the rebuilding process, particularly the quality of its streets, public spaces and neighbourhoods.

Other Links:
Canterbury Heritage http://canterburyheritage.blogspot.com/
Christchurch Modern http://www.christchurchmodern.co.nz/

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Building design to integrate safety, usefulness and enjoyment #eqnz

Design matters in Christchurch. Those supervising the reconstruction of the city should remember that. And they should see it as a positive civic attribute – something to draw on as they put the city back together again.

### nzherald.co.nz 5:30 AM Tuesday Mar 15, 2011
Design integral part of rebuilding city
By Jasper van der Lingen
Christchurch faces a decade of rebuilding. There is an urgent need to get started, and great pressure to get started immediately. Decisions made soon will shape the city for generations. This is the time, right at the outset of reconstruction, to ensure that we establish a rebuilding process and framework that has the best possible chance of producing successful results.
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–Jasper van der Lingen is chairman, Canterbury Branch, New Zealand Institute of Architects

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The co-ordination needed to manage the various responsibilities of public agencies, and extent and timing of investment by the private sector is beyond the mandate or capacities of any existing institution.

### nzherald.co.nz 5:30 AM Tuesday Mar 15, 2011
New approach needed for reconstruction
By Jennifer Dixon
What is the future of Christchurch? After the devastation there have been some exciting visions and proposals offered up for the rebuilding of this city. These embrace new possibilities for urban form and function, the shape and scale of the central business district and what needs to happen to tracts of land in the eastern suburbs, now largely unsuitable for residential living.
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–Jennifer Dixon is a professor of planning and dean of the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, Auckland University.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Postcatastrophe reconstruction – Schack Institute, NYU #eqnz

### nytimes.com March 1, 2011
Commercial
Born of 9/11, an Effort to Rebuild Shattered Haiti
By Julie Satow
Just four days after 9/11, James P. Stuckey, then a vice president of Forest City Ratner Companies, met with executives of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield at Forest City’s headquarters in Brooklyn. Empire had been the fourth-largest tenant at the World Trade Center, and the shell-shocked executives were already thinking about new offices. Mr. Stuckey promised them a building in 18 months, even though, he said, “they didn’t have any floor plans, they didn’t know who had sat next to who, or even where much of their staff was.”

“Based on a handshake, we started to pour the foundation,” at the MetroTech office plaza in downtown Brooklyn, said Mr. Stuckey, who in 2009 was appointed a dean of the Schack Institute of Real Estate at New York University. Soon after he assumed the position, he said, he started to think how he could teach students the lessons he learned after 9/11.

The result was a course on postcatastrophe reconstruction, now in its second semester, where students devise building plans, work on environmental and social issues, and create financing models for real-world projects.
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Habitat for Humanity International

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr (via @restorm)

“A nice dream from Christchurch”

Thanks to James Green for supplying this link – we’re using your heading as tweeted :)

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 13:04 28/02/2011
Drivetalk: Among the trees a city will grow
By Dave Moore
I was told many times when I arrived in New Zealand that Christchurch was the most English city outside England. It wasn’t. The most English cities outside England are in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, but once I experienced the Avon river, its poplars, the CBD architecture, and the city’s mildly genteel sensibilities, I knew what they meant.

By then I’d also fallen in love with the place, its people and its wide boulevards, and the ability to drive across town in just a few minutes. In fact the wide linear boulevards and cross-town convenience were two things that actually made Christchurch differ from similarly sized British cities.

Things are going to change now, since nature viciously and fatally shook the city and all but razed its core, and already there are arguments about what kind of architecture will come to define the place.

But I’m more interested in the infrastructural opportunities it presents.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Rebuilding Baghdad’s Rasheed Street

### nytimes.com December 29, 2009
In Iraq, a Plan to Revive the Pulse of an Artery
By Riyadh Mohammed and John Leland
BAGHDAD —Some city planners here do not want to leave to chance what Iraq will look like after American forces leave. Working with the Baghdad municipal government and the provincial council, engineers here have drawn up the largest Iraqi reconstruction project since the American-led invasion of 2003, a $5 billion plan to rebuild the city’s economic and cultural main street.

Rasheed Street, designed by the Ottomans in 1916 and modeled on Paris, has figured in much of Baghdad’s history: Sunnis and Shiites planned the overthrow of British rule in 1920 at Hayder Khana Mosque. The new plans show nine wide plazas and a streetcar passing through a low-slung strip of shops with ironwork balconies that would not be out of place in a small city in Florida. The engineers identified 254 buildings as historical or heritage sites to be preserved where possible; in 1984, there were 526.

Muwafaq al-Taei, an architectural planning engineer, said the reconstruction plans were shortsighted, in part because the car-free zone was unworkable, and in part because Baghdad today lacked the infrastructure — municipal or cultural — to regenerate the life that made Rasheed Street. “You don’t jump to the end product,” he said. “Rasheed is an end product.”
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr