Constructing a community

Abstract

It has been more than four years since the first earthquake in Christchurch and although the progress has been slow, with barely 10% of the rebuild underway (Peters, 2014), the city has fundamentally changed and there is more of a focus out in the suburbs with a desire to return to ‘village values’ (Anderson, 2014). The Christchurch earthquakes may have shown that you cannot always rely on central services to survive and you have to rely on things within walking distance without a vehicle. Evan Smith says “if you build with that in mind, you build in a lot of resilience” (Anderson, 2014).

The outlying eastern suburbs were hit particularly hard in the earthquakes, leaving a large number of houses damaged or destroyed. The shortage of housing in Christchurch has put added strain on residents and a sense of community wellbeing may have been lost. By extending the city to the suburbs, a focus on the recovery of community wellbeing as well as the ability to recover from and adapt to these events will in turn build a resilient city.

This thesis sees a gap in knowledge surrounding medium density housing in New Zealand and the issue of community wellbeing and identity. Suburban sprawl has been detrimental to the community and housing stock and has New Zealanders stuck in their ways for wanting the ‘quarter acre’ dream. New tendencies in urban design plays a definitive role in the structure of neighbourhoods and the issues of walkability, mixed use and shared public space and are vital in creating a sense of community.

This thesis sets out to consider the problems surrounding medium density housing and the lack of community wellbeing. Issues of permeability, public versus private, separation of the pedestrian and vehicle and shared public space are discussed and analysed through designled research. The research is presented with the final design outcome first, the design processes second, and lastly the summary which critically analyses the design outcome and processes; made to resolve the research questions.