Quake presents extraordinary architectural opportunity – Parker

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Quake presents extraordinary architectural opportunity – Parker

3News NZ

Mayor Bob Parker (left)

Mayor Bob Parker (left)

By James Murray

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker managed five hours sleep last night, and say it is hard to get team members to go home.

"You get so wound up in what is happening, and so focussed on what is happening. It is very difficult to pull out sometimes."

He gave 3 News reporter Alistair Wilkinson an update on the Christchurch Girls High School building which was in danger of collapse last night.

He said he had an unconfirmed report there had been some collapse at the school.

As time goes by a number of buildings are turning up issues for the Urban Search and Rescue teams, which is resulting in access routes in the cordoned area becoming narrower.

"It's getting more difficult, more tortuous, to get around the city."

He said Christchurch's older masonry buildings have taken the brunt of the quakes damage, but it was concerning that more modern buildings had also "taken a bit of a pounding".

The City Art Gallery had performed very well, part of its brief was to provide alternative facilities for things like Civil Defence.

"It just shows that you can create buildings which offer a lot of protection for people."

Mayor Parker appeared to refute Earthquake Minister Gerry Brownlee's statement yesterday that liquefaction was not the worst manifestation that can occur after an earthquake.

"I guess in a technical sense, that may well be true," he said.

"Liquefaction is still a massive, massive problem."

"I think what the minister might be referring to... is that the quality of the soil, because of the shaking, is actually more densely packed. In terms of the remediation work that's a plus (for the future of Christchurch)."

He said Christchurch can be rebuilt, but the future held new opportunities for areas of the city to be quite different from the way they were before.

Entire city blocks may end up as bare ground, which was an extraordinary opportunity to build a city that was "more focussed on the needs of today and the future... as opposed to a city that was laid out in response to the needs of a world and life two centuries ago".

3 News 

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Comments

27/02/2011 7:31:51 a.m.

kay wrote:

looking forward to a new christchurch to modern shops and adequate parking. always advoided the CBD as there was always the problem of finding a park and when you do its 6 stories high and 1/2 km from where you want to go. if you are not familiar with the one way system you end up doing 2 km more travel just to get a short distance to where you want. at night there are so many booze resterants that the streets are clogged with cars and people. it is time theses businesses spread out a bit and relieved the congestion.

26/02/2011 2:32:05 p.m.

lize wrote:

There are students trapped in the school building are they have communicated with parents. Parents have communicated with authorities in your area- i am so surprized the mayor would say the reports are still unconfirmed. Japanese & Australian rescue teams had been dispatched to assist together with medical teams.... what is most important now is to save those lives and not about rebuilding. Lives are still in danger plsss. we might find them still alive

26/02/2011 12:54:51 p.m.

Meg wrote:

It is a little early to start talking rebuild, but I agree there are huge opportunities for Chch to become a world leader for sustainable, durable architecture (but evocative of what has gone before). Coming from a sustainability perspective, we look at Auckland and wish some of the buildings could be rebuilt with green technologies in mind instead of constant retrofits. What to do with all the bricks? How about some beautiful winding memorial pedestrian pathways?

26/02/2011 12:51:30 p.m.

JohnC wrote:

How awful, the mayor wants to convert Christchurch from an historic and attractive tourist mecca, into a clone of Auckland.

Hopefully the philistine engineers won't do more damage to the city than the earthquake has.

26/02/2011 12:25:25 p.m.

Pat wrote:

I live in Christchurch and will miss some of the character buldings however I think this would be a great opportunity for architects to design new buildings within CBD with a mixture of office- apartments and retail space. More green areas and plenty of car parking would be beneficial. I dont want a Westfield mall type building

26/02/2011 9:19:00 a.m.

paul anicich wrote:

Bob, I admire You in your leadership of your People. I have a small understanding of what you are going through. I was the then senior partner of a Newcastle law Firm located here in Newcastle, Oz, when we had our 5.6 Richter quake on 3 december 1989 and was one of the few allowed into the post quake eerie city with others to assess damage etc which was miniscule cf yours. Later, I survived the second bali bombing in 2005 so have been through my share of trauma.People need Leaders, Bob. You are providing that leadership in a City I love and often refer to as an example
of things which could be done to Newcastle to Civic Councillors etc here (to little avail). I was last there in
Feb. '09. You have my best wishes , Bob, as does everyone there. NZ is a beautiful place, to which I regard Oz as very "close". Keep at it. May God give You strength.
PAUL ANICICH 6149297399.

26/02/2011 9:03:09 a.m.

Glynn wrote:

They should rebuild the entire cbd like a giant Westfield Mall, all under cover with lots of free parking. That should stop them whinging about how to revitalise the cbd and competing with the suburban malls!