CHRISTCHURCH REBUILD> BRICK BY BRICK

[Milan Luka]

Originally Posted by SYDNEY

You are back It was great seeing you again in Auckland, thanks for a lovely day and we look forward to seeing you real soon

Yeah baby! Yeah!

Always good to have a chin wag with you guys, always up for it.

Originally Posted by aarhusforever

Thank you for keeping us informed with all those photos, Milan Luka

It's my pleasure. And thanks for dropping by Aarhy!

[Milan Luka]

Harper Avenue, North Hagley Park.

Here's another update from another of the cities gems. This time I show Harper Avenue which is the main route into the city when coming from the airport. This is the first sight that those most visitors to the city see when arriving.

From here you get a fleeting glimpse of the CBD and skyline. As you can see though, the view is changing rapidly as the demolish most of the towers.

Despite those changes the park remains constant, and is in everyones opinion a real asset to the city. As you can see spring has hit us, and after a long cold wet winter we all appreciate the change in the season.

Winter 2011



Spring 2012

[Milan Luka]

[Milan Luka]

[Milan Luka]

Demolitions

Self explanatory really. Still so much activity clearing sites for the rebuild.

While many of these buildings were damaged beyond repair, there are a large number deemed 'uneconomic to repair'. That meaning they can be rebuilt but as building codes are so strict its actually more cost effective for the owners to just take the insurance pay out and start from scratch.

This will obviously give confidence to the public that everything built is going to be of an incredibly safe standard. While we all appreciate this, it's just sad to see so many buildings go, some only a handful of years old.

[Milan Luka]

[Milan Luka]

[christos-greece]

Sad photos about the demolitions and generally the image of the city today; let's hope for the best

[woody]

Luka mate, thanks for your recent updates. Hagley Park looks wonderful with the flowering blossom, you will soon have the long hot summer days.
The ever disappearing built environment in the CBD seems never ending, the rebuild cann`t come soon enough. Thanks again for your upadates and thanks also to Sydney, for his excellent work in making the ChCh forum a very informative read.

[SYDNEY]

No worries Woody, it is a huge pleasure Thanks Luka, it is so sad but there is also hope and excitement for what will rise - better and stronger

If people are wondering why so much has to be demolished ... here's a good explanation from Kiwiscrapers ....

Originally Posted by KaneD

Despite the media beat up, New Zealand actually has a very robust building code with regards to seismic resistance. The building code was updated to take seismic resistance into account shortly after the Napier quake in the 1930s and has been further enhanced after many quakes since then to take advantage of our increased knowledge of earthquakes and to allow for modern building materials and processes. In that regard, NZ is most definitely up there with Japan and California.

The reason why so many buildings have been demolished is that there are two relatively unique factors that make Christchurch quite different compared to other places like Kobe Japan, Northridge California and others:

Firstly, it is important to remember that the seismic forces exerted on buildings in the Chch quake were far higher than those of other major quakes in modern times. The important measurement here is known as Peak Ground Acceleration and is measured as a relative to gravity. The Feb quakes measured a maximum PGA of 2.2 times gravity. These figures are MUCH higher than those recorded in Kobe in 1995 (PGA= 0.8) and Northridge in 1994 (PGA = 1.7) and Haiti (PGA = 0.5). In addition, seismic engineering is mostly focussed at improving a buildings lateral strength - that is, improving the buildings resistance to sideways movement because that is what most earthquakes do with comparatively smaller amounts of vertical movement. In Chch however, there was a much higher vertical movement than would be expected. The end result is that both Engineers and Seismologists agree that the ground forces experienced in Chch were far greater than what any building code in both NZ or anywhere else would be expected to withstand.

The second factor to point out relates to insurance cover. On the whole, a very high percentage of commercial buildings in NZ have very good seismic event insurance at about 90%. The same cannot be said for many other seismically risky countries such as Japan where coverage is thought to be about 17% or California which is around 30%.

One thing that people assume is that all the buildings in the CBD are being demolished because they are unsafe. This isn't true. A good number of the buildings are only being demolished because the cost to repair them exceeds either the cost to replace it or the maximum limit of cover. Consider my example below:

If I have a building that was 75% of current building code worth $20m prior to the quake. It gets damaged and now only meets 50% of code which is still able to be inhabited (the minimum is 33% of code).

Since the building is insured, they are of course obliged to repair it. NZ building laws require that when a building needs structural repair, it must be brought up to 100% of the code, not just 75% that the building was at prior to the quake. In most cases this will just push up the cost to the insurance company to repair thus making demolition the likely outcome.

This differs from other countries where many buildings aren't insured, and as long as the structural damage isn't serious enough to compromise the building safety, the building in my example would probably have non structural repairs done and be reinhabited.

While it might be easy to say "But what about the CTV building" etc, it is important to look at the whole picture. The CTV was an exception and obviously as it appears, there were some shortcuts taken. This doesn't differ from other quakes such as the Loma Prieta quake where the dual deck interstate freeway collapsed, or in Kobe where the elevated freeway toppled over. Neither structures were terribly old, yet suffered failure they probably shouldn't have. But again, these are exceptions.

On the whole, apart from the few exceptions, buildings performed very well. They did exactly what they were designed to do which is to not collapse and allow people to get out. Seismic engineering isn't designed to make buildings "quake proof" but more "quake safe".

[Alphaville]

This thread fills me with such deep sadness, but also hope for the new city. Christchurch is truly unprecedented in the 21st century westernised world - a new city from the ground up - a reflection of our times, like Napier was a reflection of the 1930's.

[marlonbasman]

I never thought that the quake damage is this extensive.
thanks for showing them.

[hellospank25]

I am wondering why are they taking so long to clean up and demolish things? Shouldn't they be working 24/7?

[Alphaville]

Originally Posted by hellospank25

I am wondering why are they taking so long to clean up and demolish things? Shouldn't they be working 24/7?

I'm sure you can head over and volunteer?

[SYDNEY]

Originally Posted by hellospank25

I am wondering why are they taking so long to clean up and demolish things? Shouldn't they be working 24/7?

Firstly - they had to wait for the aftershocks to settled down, secondly - after each after shock (of which there have been thousands) they have to recheck every building which takes time, thirdly - insurance claims have to be processed which in itself is a lengthy process, fourthly - geotechnical surveys have to be processed (to establish where the rebuild can begin and which areas will be abandoned, the topography has changed considerably) and fifthly - the city has to start from scratch and they have to plan a new city (many property owners have had to wait for the final and approved plan before they can make decisions regarding their buildings, this in itself has take a long time as everybody has to have a say). The blueprint has been approved (see video below) and now things are starting to roll on.

The Government is buying up land for the Frame and Avon River Precinct as well as for their big ticket developments and private property developers are starting to tender for large projects and this should all start taking off next year - the first tender has been approved and will be an example of what the new city will look like - pedestrian focused and very modern:

[SYDNEY]

This shows the scale of the work that has to be carried out, many of the buildings still standing will be demolished ....

Christchurch from above: the rebuild

Absolutely shocking when you view it like this ....

[Alphaville]

Originally Posted by SYDNEY

Firstly - they had to wait for the aftershocks to settled down, secondly - after each after shock (of which there have been thousands) they have to recheck every building which takes time, thirdly - insurance claims have to be processed which in itself is a lengthy process, fourthly - geotechnical surveys have to be processed (to establish where the rebuild can begin and which areas will be abandoned, the topography has changed considerably) and fifthly - the city has to start from scratch and they have to plan a new city (many property owners have had to wait for the final and approved plan before they can make decisions regarding their buildings, this in itself has take a long time as everybody has to have a say). The blueprint has been approved (see video below) and now things are starting to roll on.

Not to mention a disaster of this scale being completely unprecedented in the modern westernised world. New Zealand is not a country that would cut corners in recovery.

[Skymino]

Impressive photos!!!

[DaveF12]

lovely images of the park.
I never thought that the earthquake damage is that extensive.

[mobus]

I'm in awe of how beautiful this city really is. We think we have it good in Australia, but Christchurch is just stunning geographically. Those park photos The city has an amazing survivalist spirit too.