This studio involved 2 briefs, both looked at the same site. The site for Un-Blocking the City  was inner city Christchurch 2 years after the massive earthquakes. The studio’s site, the Worcester St Bridge forms the entrance to the city. It being the site of the first encounter between Maori and Pakehas (New Zealanders of European descent) is also significant.

 

The axis from Worcester Boulevard over the Worcester Bridge into the inner city ends at Cathedral Square, the former heart of the inner city, now an empty and desolate space.

 

This studio looked at an existing  (communication and transport) structure in a post-disaster city and argued for the need of  a critical revaluation. The studio argued for the relevance of a spatial practice that ‘intervenes into a site in order to critique it’ (Jane Rendell).

 

The first brief was to individually design a new Worcester St Bridge. It was  to be a new entrance to the city post-disaster. This new bridge is conceptualized as a performative space, ie the bridge as a space of interaction. This allowed us to understand the site, the city and the culture as much as possible from a distance.

 

The second brief was a group project to design and construct temporary architecture at the site as part of Free Theatre’s production of Canterbury Tales at FESTA (Festival for Transitional Architecture), October 25-28, in Christchurch, NZ. This temporary architecture was site-specific: it was built on the site of the existing Worcester St Bridge.