Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Filling Christchurch Gaps

I was in Christchurch over the weekend and biked around to see how everything looked and what was happening. The number of empty sites is what strikes you. The empty spaces. So many prime sites to choose from...

They are a problem for any thriving area. This is a corner property in the Merivale Shopping area on Papanui Road. A challenge for the town planners and property owners...

Everywhere there are political hoardings. The election has well and truly begun in Christchurch. Demolition sites are the preferred places for election placards. Bit tacky I thought...

Here's another corner site, on the Eastern side of the city. The building has been demolished, the site cleared, but someone's put paving stones and gravel down, and it has become a little corner park...

Amazing what you can do with a park bench and a food cooler full of books. The inspiration I understand is: www.gapfiller.org.nz

This sign was unsettling. Given the mass destruction of massive (read: stone, read: brick)buildings, it is somewhat head-in-sand to push for more of the same... Or maybe there will never be another earthquake... come on...

2 comments:

Sean said...

Yes as Christchurch progresses with clearing the rubble there will be a lot of empty spaces until re-development gets underway and no doubt some sites will be vacant for a very long time (and some not). Council has indicated that it will clean up vacant sites in the interim, landscaping, seating alt use etc and not be tempted to create lots of temporary car parks. In some places this has already occurred (see old ASKO site on Victoria St which if you didn't know does not look like it was a demolition zone).

What will be interesting is that many sites will become the home to "popup" businesses (shops, cafes, bars etc). There are some great examples of this in place already and as summer comes this will become much more prevalent and play a great role in getting a bit of movement back into the CBD areas boundary surrounding the barriers (which continues to recede). ReStart in Cashel Mall due to open late Oct will be a larger scale example; but also see the bar on the old Carlton Hotel site, Quinns in Merivale etc.

What will be of utmost importance for Council and CERA is to ensure that those pop-ups in the CBD and and emerging cleared areas are attractive, well-designed/clever, interesting and relevant. It would be a disaster if they are developed in a haphazard way and become and an eyesore.

Joel Cayford said...

Sean, Thanks for this comment. I went on the internet to look at the old ASKO site. And was interested to see that it is the image in the background of one of the photos I took down there. It's the one with the sign that reads: "rebuild, brick by brick". I guess I don't think that's the right message. It was disturbing. Walls like that fell down and killed people. That doesn't take away the need to fill spaces. I saw three sites that were taken up by caravans and food places and temporary cafes. I will run another blog with this. I was really interested in seeing how the spaces were being re-used....

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Filling Christchurch Gaps

I was in Christchurch over the weekend and biked around to see how everything looked and what was happening. The number of empty sites is what strikes you. The empty spaces. So many prime sites to choose from...

They are a problem for any thriving area. This is a corner property in the Merivale Shopping area on Papanui Road. A challenge for the town planners and property owners...

Everywhere there are political hoardings. The election has well and truly begun in Christchurch. Demolition sites are the preferred places for election placards. Bit tacky I thought...

Here's another corner site, on the Eastern side of the city. The building has been demolished, the site cleared, but someone's put paving stones and gravel down, and it has become a little corner park...

Amazing what you can do with a park bench and a food cooler full of books. The inspiration I understand is: www.gapfiller.org.nz

This sign was unsettling. Given the mass destruction of massive (read: stone, read: brick)buildings, it is somewhat head-in-sand to push for more of the same... Or maybe there will never be another earthquake... come on...

2 comments:

Sean said...

Yes as Christchurch progresses with clearing the rubble there will be a lot of empty spaces until re-development gets underway and no doubt some sites will be vacant for a very long time (and some not). Council has indicated that it will clean up vacant sites in the interim, landscaping, seating alt use etc and not be tempted to create lots of temporary car parks. In some places this has already occurred (see old ASKO site on Victoria St which if you didn't know does not look like it was a demolition zone).

What will be interesting is that many sites will become the home to "popup" businesses (shops, cafes, bars etc). There are some great examples of this in place already and as summer comes this will become much more prevalent and play a great role in getting a bit of movement back into the CBD areas boundary surrounding the barriers (which continues to recede). ReStart in Cashel Mall due to open late Oct will be a larger scale example; but also see the bar on the old Carlton Hotel site, Quinns in Merivale etc.

What will be of utmost importance for Council and CERA is to ensure that those pop-ups in the CBD and and emerging cleared areas are attractive, well-designed/clever, interesting and relevant. It would be a disaster if they are developed in a haphazard way and become and an eyesore.

Joel Cayford said...

Sean, Thanks for this comment. I went on the internet to look at the old ASKO site. And was interested to see that it is the image in the background of one of the photos I took down there. It's the one with the sign that reads: "rebuild, brick by brick". I guess I don't think that's the right message. It was disturbing. Walls like that fell down and killed people. That doesn't take away the need to fill spaces. I saw three sites that were taken up by caravans and food places and temporary cafes. I will run another blog with this. I was really interested in seeing how the spaces were being re-used....