Hard News: What Now?
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The most extraordinary, terrifying pictures of the tsunami sweeping across Northern Japan, on BBC News now!!
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Yeah, those pictures are unbelievable. Horrible seeing the vehicles driving and then completely wiped out by that wall of water and debris.
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Nice suggestion on Te Standard of strengthening capacity of local schools to act as Civil Defense community rallying points.
A comment from a foreign national in Japan caught my attention last night. She was a language teacher in a school and remarked that she was in the safest possible building as schools in Japan have extra earthquake reinforcement, ie over and above the building code as it applies to other buildings.
Which got me thinking.
Why not retrofit school buildings in NZ to an extra-ordinary high standard and have them double up as emergency centers in the event of a natural disaster?
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Okay: Justine knows two very clever crafters who make jewellery out of broken china and are planning to come down to Christchurch and offer the service free of charge to residents as a way of salvaging some of their cherished things. I bought one of their pieces for Justine a while back so I can vouch for the quality, and thinking also about what Emma wrote upthread this strikes me personally as a great idea. However they need a venue as the school were they were going to use is no longer available. Does anybody know of a place they could operate from? The dates are 1st, 2nd and 3rd of April.
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The event's Facebook page, for those who are on it.
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British architect Norman Foster (responsible for the restoration of the Reichstag and creator of London's iconic 'gherkin' building amongst others) on what's needed to rebuild a shattered Christchurch:
What happens now is going to affect future generations for hundreds of years to come so it has to be blessed with wisdom. You have three commodities: time, money and creative energy, and creative energy is the most important resource of all. It's not how much money you have; it's not how much time you have; it's how wisely you use it.
There has to be a champion – someone who says "we want to make our city better than it was before", and then you need a design-led initiative. But you don't want to get bogged down into the greyness of a stupid committee where in the end it becomes nothing. You need strong leadership – ideally strong political leadership or strong design leadership backed up by a political commitment.
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3410,
Minamisanriku, before and after:
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Local perspectives on rebuilding Christchurch, including this:
In the 1980s and 90s, Britain held five "National Garden Festivals", each intended to kick-start the regeneration of derelict urban land. Urban planner James Lunday, now living in Auckland, was a master planner of the 1988 Glasgow festival, and says a similar event would provide a focal point for the regeneration of Christchurch.
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We did a masterplan, then the roads were built and trees were planted, then all the building areas were cleared and nations were asked to come and build a garden – like an expo. And during that time you have film festivals, arts festivals and people came from all over to see it.
Instead of asking for aid we were asking them to come and celebrate landscape; and after that we sold sites to the market. Some gardens were dismantled, but some became permanent parks.
How it would work in Christchurch is that you would stretch out internationally to stakeholders – large corporations like Microsoft and the governments of our major trading nations.
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It's just a mechanism for the recreation of the CBD, an impetus to get things tidied up. One of the things I'm scared about is the kneejerk reaction of "let's have an international conference, or an international competiton to see who can design Christchurch".
That's all paper. Let's work with the people of Christchurch to build the city they want, but let's have a close target for when we tidy up.
Imagine a Christchurch that only had two- to three-storey buildings, and the church spires and domes sitting above the skyline, and the trees sitting above the buildings. When you looked from the Port Hills you would see the spires and you would see sculptures and you would see tree cover, and the houses nestling under it. A very different city.
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IMHO, the real problem isn't buildings, it's people.
The longer Christchurch remains a disaster area where normal life is impossible, the more people will leave. It'll be the mobile professionals, the young people going to or leaving university (who's going to enroll at Canterbury next year?) who'll up and off to Wellington, Melbourne or London.
New Zealand is already littered with cities, towns and suburbs where anyone "onto it" leaves as soon as possible and doesn't come back. If Christchurch isn't fixed fast, then it'll become another one, whether or not it eventually gets a Norman Foster designed city centre.
What's actually needed is to fix the services and clear the rubble - maybe bulldoze it all into a Schuttberg and make the cleared sites into temporary open spaces. That needs to be done as quickly as possible - the government really should call a halt to all other construction (like relaying pipes in Wellington) that's using resources that could be redeployed into fixing Christchurch.
Only once that's happened can we really start to think about long term rebuilding.
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Imagine a Christchurch that only had two- to three-storey buildings, and the church spires and domes sitting above the skyline, and the trees sitting above the buildings. When you looked from the Port Hills you would see the spires and you would see sculptures and you would see tree cover, and the houses nestling under it. A very different city.
I'm hearing a lot of people talking about the appeal of a low CBD; people are going to be very wary about going back into tall buildings, even new ones. Our heritage Press building was ruined on Feb 22, with one casualty, and there is an even sadder dimension to it -- we were less than two weeks away from moving into a new building around the corner. I imagine that's months away now for us, even if the new building has been unaffected, but the group I work with will be on the seventh floor. To say that there will be some nervousness on day one is an understatement. I've been more concerned about the failures of buildings like Forsyth Barr, CTV and Pyne Gould than the more predictable problems of heritage buildings.
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Sacha, in reply to
I'm hearing a lot of people talking about the appeal of a low CBD
Same, but it will require a big re-adjustment of cbd land valuation which I can't see happening under this government - unless they find a way to generously compensate property owners and developers, naturally.
Some more thoughts about rebuilding the city, noting the parallels to - and differences from - 1930s Napier.
But according to urban historian Ben Schrader, there are pitfalls in comparing this with Christchurch's recent quake.
"The big difference is that the fire that followed the earthquake cleared Napier – they had a totally clear platform and they had to begin again. In Christchurch that hasn't happened to the same extent."
That's why, says Schrader, you can expect a lot more argument in the coming weeks over what old stuff needs to be rebuilt or repaired, and what should be swept away on a tide of modernity.
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Shrader says the argument reflects a long-standing culture clash between architects and engineers who tend to want to build new, versus heritage advocates who want to hold on to the past. In New Zealand, says Shrader, the architect and engineer bloc tends to have the upper hand, "which I put down to the progressive ethos in New Zealand – the idea that we are still a new society and we don't have much from the past that's worth protecting".
But to bowl or not to bowl is just one of the thousands of decisions to be made. Build high or low? Leave some ruins where they are? Dig up the rivers? Turn roads into cycle lanes, or pedestrian walkways? Relocate the CBD, or let the East go back to marshlands? Crush the malls that have hollowed out the city centre?
Other trashed cities rebuilt around the world hold lessons.
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People can't help their feelings, but didn't the bulk of the post-1976 taller buildings come through pretty well?
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
didn't the bulk of the post-1976 taller buildings come through pretty well?
Everyone in them got out alive, I believe. Which, as I've said before, is a pass-mark in earthquake engineering, especially when the shake exceeds the design tolerances.
So yes, it's definitely an irrational response to want a low rise-only Christchurch. Particularly when there are a number of high-rise buildings that are intact, sound, and will be re-habited once the CBD is fully reopened.
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Sacha, in reply to
it's definitely an irrational response to want a low rise-only Christchurch
I agree emotion is playing a big role right now, but aren't there also eco reasons for preferring say 3-6 storey buildings?
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
aren't there also eco reasons for preferring say 3-6 storey buildings?
Can't think of any, apart from shade and wind effects on the street. Bigger buildings are more energy efficient and waste less land.
There could be sound aesthetic and sociological reasons not to go too high, and I certainly don't enjoy being in the upper stories of a swaying building, but tall buildings have good things going for them too.
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I like tall buildings, and a city no higher than 6 stories sounds painfully boring to me.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I like tall buildings, and a city no higher than 6 stories sounds painfully boring to me.
It could be. But lots of skyscrapers is no guarantee of interesting architecture.
I really don't see Christchurch being redesigned on some grand scale. NZ just doesn't have enough money for that. The priority is to get it basically functional first. That pretty much starts with demolition, and fixing the underground infrastructure.
This is going to be a long process. Building large buildings takes years and years. If business waits for that to happen, business will die.
The phoenix of industry there will rise from the suburbs. Eventually the CBD might reach its former glory, but in in the meantime life will go on with what survived.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
Yep. We don't want Christchurch to look like a larger version of Hastings.
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All this talk of density or no density reminds me of this New Yorker gem I've posted before.
It's a paradox of urban living - cities chock full of high rises are thought of as ecological nightmares, but in practice are quite green due to high public transit usage. Sprawling suburbia on the other hand is marketed as a slice of Ruritania, but in practice it's applied tragedy of the commons - and traffic gridlock is just part of it.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Sprawling suburbia on the other hand is marketed as a slice of Ruritania, but in practice it's applied tragedy of the commons - and traffic gridlock is just part of it.
I'm not sure how much "being green" is the reason people live in the suburbs, though. It's because they like living that way, and are prepared to wear the cost. But it would be better if there was more choice. Then anyone who liked urban living could do it. I think more people would if there was more of it available. Definitely moving to low rise inner suburbs would appeal to NZers, not just foreigners more accustomed to super high density living.
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nzlemming, in reply to
Definitely moving to low rise inner suburbs would appeal to NZers, not just foreigners more accustomed to super high density living
Big assumption, there. This is one NZer to whom it would not appeal at all, and I know plenty of others. We wouldn’t be living where we are, if it did. If it was the only choice, it might be acceptable, but that’s a long way from appealing. The desire for a bit of land that the kids can grow up on seems strong still. [ETA] And I don't even have kids.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
This is one NZer to whom it would not appeal at all, and I know plenty of others.
One of the things that struck me the most amongst the civil defense instructions on the aftermath of the quake was to deal with the munted sewers problem by 'going in the garden'. Not everyone has a garden, folks. Not even in New Zealand. That one had me screaming at the radio.
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Big assumption, there. This is one NZer to whom it would not appeal at all, and I know plenty of others.
Of course, but there will be plenty who do like it too. It's somewhere between suburbia and urban living. So they can keep their car, and do all the things that they think they can't do without that are basic in suburbia, but they get a great many of the advantages of urban life too. It's a gateway property drug.
I'm not just imagining this kind of layout. I've lived in it - Melbourne is exactly like that. The low rise inner suburbs were where I dwelt, in apartments, with a car and motorbike in the basement, a 1 minute walk to a tram stop for a 10 minute ride to the heart of the city, and walking distance from hundreds of restaurants, movie theatres, other shopping, parks, the university, the local pool, etc.
I really liked the gated condomium style apartment layout. It promoted interaction with your neighbors, was extremely secure, and highly efficient, with lots of shared facilities, like hot water, garbage disposal, a swimming pool and gym.
I did move to suburbia in the end because I wanted children, but I'm actually less convinced than I was about the wisdom of that.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
aren't there also eco reasons for preferring say 3-6 storey buildings?
My employer is moving offices in three weeks and our new home will be the greenest building in the country, currently just finishing construction/fit-out. It's 12 storeys high, nine of commercial and three of prime waterfront residential. So clearly there's no inherent conflict between being green and being tall, but NZ hasn't built too many very tall buildings since the standards for a properly "green" building were last revised upwards so most of our green buildings are mid-rise just because that was the design requirement.
The AirNZ Tower in QE2 Square got refitted and managed to achieve a very high green star rating (IIRC, at the time it was the highest green rating in the world for a retro-fit), which also demonstrates that height and "eco-ness" are compatible.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Public parks! I don’t understand not drilling public long drops where required and knocking up temporary, but robust public ablution blocks as a priority drain laying event.
This has bothered me enormously for many reasons.
Having a chemical toilet in your street would actually dis-encourage some from digging their own long-drops (assuming they have somewhere to dig) and put more pressure on the sewage treatment plants (those that still function) to dispose of the shit and use up valuable manpower that could be better directed. I can understand the elderly and infirm needing assistance but isn't that the sort of thing we have a peacetime army for?
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