Situation: Up in the Air, Casting urban allegories from a city that no longer exists

Abstract

This thesis highlights design challenges facing the post-quake Christchurch Central Business District and responds with the development of the design strategy the Urban Allegories and the consequent theoretical design proposition Air Space. This thesis is structured in three parts, the past, present and future. Air Space demonstrates the conflation of these concepts. Facing the aftermath of a city torn asunder, Christchurch now looks ahead to rebuilding the CBD. Amid the urban erasure, rubble and shard-like ruins, a curious mercurial urban condition has unfolded. Trace-like architectural elements have been exposed, where the past is visible yet ghosted within the urban palimpsest that has emerged. Architectural meaning, order and significance have been blurred and the ability to make sense of what remains oscillates before one’s eyes. In this new iteration of the city, the past, present and future are equally precarious and uncertain. Situation : Up in the Air explores this unique ephemeral urban condition, referred to in this thesis as the split view phenomenon. Following graduation from the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts I moved, with a group of friends, into the Christchurch CBD. For one year, we maximized the potential of living and working as artists in the inner city. The Urban Allegories is a research and design strategy which draws from the memory of this time and weaves together urban and architectural fragments of our past lives in the city that no longer exists. The design proposition Air Space articulates elements of past architectural moments projected into a new urban configuration. Air Space is a mixed-use development, designed as a substrate to support the vibrant everyday lives of urban dwellers within the future Christchurch CBD. From site analysis to final documentation, the notions of layering, montage, chance and projection are critical practice methodologies as well as design drivers. Information gathered from analytical photography, mapping, drawings and research documents has been re-worked to generate multi-layered drawings, photographs, projections and physical models to elucidate the design process and design outcomes.