FUTURE CHRISTCHURCH

URBAN NEEDLEWORK

Roberto Oat Wallace

URBAN NEEDLEWORK

ROBERTO OAT WALLACE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................02 RESEARCH................................................................................................................03 DESIGN CONCEPT....................................................................................................11 PROGRAM................................................................................................................15 DESIGN STRATEGY...................................................................................................17 FINAL DESIGN..........................................................................................................23

INTRODUCTION
Christchurch has been battered with the previous earthquakes that struck the city. Within this context our hole class aim was to research and propose new outlines for the future of the city itself. To do so, each student group took over different problematic zones to further develop these schemes. Our group choose Tower Junction and after researching together we developed three different solutions for the problems we focused on. The main objective of this project is solving the existing disconnection in the site focusing on the railway, presenting the problems it carries nowdays and trying to develop a new way in which the city interacts with this strong element, in hope that this may serve to encourage the construction of a better city.

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ROBERTO OAT WALLACE

RESEARCH

THE SITE
The site is located to one side of the city center, on the most important park of this, Hagley Park, and is crossed by the railway lines. The train station is in the middle of the place being the terminal for the passenger lines and cargo of the South Island.
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RESEARCH
This research presents in a summarized way Tower Junctions princial characteristics and the main causes that lead to the existing disconnection involving within the site.
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Comercial Barrier Christchurch City

Comercial Barrier Train Railway

Roberto Oat Wallace

COMERCIAL BARRIER
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RESEARCH

RESEARCH
ADDINGTON NOW
The area to which Tower Junction belongs, Addington, is a booming neighborhood that is slowly being reconverted towards what could be Parnell for Auckland. The neighborhood has a high demand, but Tower Junction is being excluded from its border areas because of its poor urban quality and the presence of the large warehouses.

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
Among the most important features of the site highlights the huge commercial area dominated by warehouses in it. It is for this extensive area the place is best known. The pedestrian has little space in Tower Junction because everything has been designed for the car scale. Large parking esplanades are located on the sides of the wrehouses creating this feeling of being in a sea of cars . The site is extremely underused , finding several empty lots or lots that are used for the accumulation of trash or old cars . These lots are generally found around the railway line , which itself is a dead space in the site . The only two pedestrian friendly areas are Hagley Park and Lincoln Road , this last one characterized by small scale commercial stores , like restaurants , hostals and bars , but that is slowly being undermined by the large commercial warehouses.

CONNECTIVITY RAILWAY HISTORY UNDERUSED

Five minutes of walking takes the average person only to get to the Train Station and around the immediate area of Tower Junction After ten minutes of walking the same person would only reach the corner of Hagley Park, this without counting the extra time taken for every red traffic light on its pass. These inefficient results are largely due to the disconnectivity between the Railway and other parts of Christchurch, as can be seen in the circulation diagrams.

Roberto Oat Wallace

WAREHOUSES

NATURE

CARS
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RESEARCH

RESEARCH
SITE PROBLEMS SITE PROBLEMS
Roberto Oat Wallace

CAUSES OF DISCONNECTION

COMMERCIAL BARRIER

CAUSES OF DISCONNECTION

RAILWAY WALL

From the many existing problems in Tower Junction, the one that draw the most my attention was the disconnection. It is really simple to observe that the most severe problems occur along the railway line because of the bad interaction it has with its borders, but it is the combination of four factors which end up causing this disconnection , as we will see. The first cause of the disconnection is the presence of a commercial barrier in the middle of the site. While among Christchurch, it is Tower Junctions warehouses were the problems hits with more strenght, it is still only a portion of a big commercial corridor that has developed in the city over the years. It crosses the city from east to west dividing it into two pieces. The bad interaction of the railway line to the city has led to its surrounding lots to end up being used for these large warehouses . At Tower Junction the situation is worse because this commercial corridor is framed between the railway line and Blenheim Road, a 6-lane road with high traffic flow , with few crosswalks that connect the north with the south.

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The second cause of disconnection is the negative wall effect that the rail line has in the area.
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In the section that runs along Tower Junction, about 938 meters in the main track and 479 meters on the side track, there is no crossing from north to south. The line also occupies 25 meters wide on average in this section, being the widest portion in Christchurch. This is because the train terminal is located there. While the city is proud of its railroad history, along those 938 meters the edge with the city is poorly treated, merely limited to cheap concrete walls and wiring, making the line a unsafe site that collects garbage and where gang members and homeless congregate.

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1,656 mts 526 mts Comercial Barrier 1,327 mts

Christchurch City

INDUSTRIAL CORRIDOR IN THE CHRISTCHURCH URBAN CONTEXT

Comercial Barrier Train Railway

INDUSTRIAL CORRIDOR IN THE SITE CONTEXT RAILWAY WALL IN THE CHRISTCHURCH URBAN CONTEXT
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Christchurch City Commercial Barrier Disconnect Junction

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RAILWAY WALL IN THE SITE CONTEXT

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COMERCIAL BARRIER
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Train Railway

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Its almost as if the city was giving up on it and tried to pretend that there is no such huge space, turning his back on it rather than integrating it. This only increases the north - south disconnection.

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RESEARCH

RESEARCH
SITE PROBLEMS
Roberto Oat Wallace

CAUSES OF DISCONNECTION

GREEN ISLES

CAUSES OF DISCONNECTION

UNDEFINED GRID
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The third cause of the disconnection is originated by a serious mistake when planning a public space. At the beginning of the research I mentioned Hagley Park as being one of the few pedestrian friendly places , but this does not mean it works perfectly. The park , as well as most of the parks in the city , ends up being a green island. Of course, it provides a nice recreational space in the city to its users, but the effect it has ends abruptly at the exact spot where the park ends. This is because theres a missing element, an intermediary between the park itself as an island and the city that surrounds it. This element is none other than quality urban connections designed for users of the park itself. This includes not only the car, but also and especially the pedestrians. Hagley Park is not operating at 100 % because for the pedestrian is just to complicated to get to it, and in Tower Junction this becomes even more noticeable. It should also be said that not even the park itself is designed for the human scale . Its oversized and has nothing to activate it that attracts people to it.

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Finally the last existing disconnection cause is the lack of a defined grid.
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The development of the commercial warehouses along with their parking lots within Tower Junction has come to break with the most subtle, but extremely important element that maintains the stability of the human scale in the city. The warehouses have landed on the original grid making the most possible profit in the space, but the city has payed the price. It pulled off the pedestrian circulations and the old connections between north and south. Already the mere fact that the CBD has a defined grid makes it much more friendly with the pedestrians and has a better human scale as it can be seen in the comparison between the two grids.

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CBDs grid Tower Junctions grid

GREEN AREAS IN THE CHRISTCHURCH URBAN CONTEXT

GREEN AREAS IN THE SITE CONTEXT

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Train Railway Avon River

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GREEN ISLES

CBD AND TOWER JUNCTION GRID COMPARISON IN THE CHRISTCHURCH URBAN CONTEXT

RESIDENTIAL GRID IN THE SITE CONTEXT

Canterbury Agricultural Park Canterbury Agricultural Park Hagley Park Hagley Park Travis Wetland N. H. Park Travis Wetland N. H. Park

There is a huge difference between the two sites, even when they stand one side each other . Of the entire study area the only space where there is still a clear portion of grid is in the residential sector, which maintains its grid of 20 by 20 meters further.

Christchurch City Train Railway Avon River Main Streets related to Site

Train Station Train Railway Actual Grid

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DESIGN CONCEPT

DEFINE GRID

DESIGN CONCEPT
The seed of the project was the result of the pursuit of a solution to the main connection problems surrounding the railway line in the site. The final concept was born from the intention of sewing the disconnected parts of this open wound in the middle of Tower Junction.

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The first step is defining a grid. Since the site has no clear grid and the railway has very few connections from one side to another the first thing to do should be choosing one of the hinted grids and extendind it trhough the site. This allows to bring back the pedestrians into Tower Junction and creates the physical lacking conections.

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DESIGN CONCEPT

DESIGN CONCEPT

SEW UP

ACTIVATE NODES

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The second step is sewing it up. Since the railway is such a strong element on the site it isnt enough to just create this new grid. It needs something else. That missing element is a stronger stitch between the affected areas that can pull together both sides and tight them up.
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HAGLEY PARK
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The final step is breaking down the commercial barrier and activating the site. In order to do this you need to fill the empty space with th correct programs that can attract people to the site and give life back to it, make people really want to use the site. This way not only you program the specific spot, but also the new conections.

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PROGRAM
FILL IT JUST WITH...
GREEN AREA
STRENGTHS
It may become a spinal cord to the city. Public nature. Permanent use (day/night and winter to summer). Good impact on the city - green lunge. Esthetic value for the community and the city. It may compensate the fact of having the big warehouses nearby. Immutable nature: stays almost intact for years and endures many events like earthquakes or economic crisis.

WEAKNESSES
It still needs a hook to make people really use the park. What makes it different to other parks? Why there? It needs dynamic nature programs to vitalize it. It still needs a blending nature program to break the railway wall. It doesnt return any tangible profit. Its hard to have the green area sitting just next to the railway insecure. Insecure by night solitary.

GROUND LEVEL

ABOVE GROUND

PROGRAM
Prior to start designing, it was necessary to investigate the possible program to integrate in the proposal, to have a clearer notion when start projecting. In order to do so I picked four main programs: green area, small commerce, residential and community spaces. To test them I took the hypothetical case in which I could just fill an entire area in the city with each of them to see if one of them solved the problems for itself.

SMALL COMMERCE

Blending/intermediate nature that works well next to the warehouses. Dynamic nature program, flux of people. Permanent use. Semipublic nature. Attracts people from inside and outside the site. In small concentrations invites the pedestrian.

In bigger scales or too clustered invites the cars. Constantly changing, it needs to be near stable programs. If badly treated they dont enable a human scale. Just commerce would worsen the commercial barrier.

After analysing the strengths and weaknesses of each case I came with the conclusion that no one is capable of activating the site itself, each one of them has its higher and lower points. Then, insted of choosing one, the best solution is to use all of them but taking charge of the weak points they have.

RESIDENTIAL
People already live on the site: extreme potential user of the other programs. People are there at night: more security to the site. Use at all times (day and especially at night). Stable nature. You still need something to make people choose to live there. Nobody would want to live directly next to the trains noise. It needs other programs to vitalize the site, to make people connect to the rest of the city and avoid turning them into ghettos. It still needs a blending nature program to intermediate with the big warehouses.

COMMUNITY

Involves the people in the site, creates strong ties with it. They dont need to be a building and work well combined with green areas. Permanent use and sporadic events. Semipublic nature. They work well like specific points that tight the system around their intervention area.

You cant have huge amounts of them in mass.

What it came to my mind was that if you think of them as layers inside a cake you have the ingredients that go on the middle, the top and the bottom.Translating this to building terms you would have the ground leves, above groud and underground, but since there is a lot of empty space it would be a waste to use the underground level and most of the time they end un being dark underused spaces, so I picked the other two leves to split the different layers.

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DESIGN STRATEGY

DESIGN STRATEGY
Taking into account that slight notion of the program (small commerce and residential - UP / green area and community - GROUND), which will be useful later, I can start with the design phase as such by applying the initial concept.

STEP 1: An intervention zone is defined choosing only the sites that surround the railway.

STEP 2: The buildings within that zone are taken away, the ones that are not affected by the project will later be placed again.

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DESIGN STRATEGY

DESIGN STRATEGY

STEP 3: The new grid is extended using the remaints of the old one to connect both sides. This new grid provides new ground level car paths of small sized lanes.

STEP 4: Starting from Hagley Park and ending on the small residential park the stitch is placed. The stitch may come up and down whenever is necessary in the way of a continuous path and it will contain an urban pack to ensure new connections.

STEP 5: The 20 x 20 grid from the residential area is extended over the sites like a chessboard.

STEP 6: A security zone of ten meters from the rail borderline is drawn to separate it from the future project.

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DESIGN STRATEGY

DESIGN STRATEGY

RESIDENTIAL

SMALL COMMERCE

COMMUNITY / GREEN

STITCH - URBAN PACK

NEW GRID

URBAN STRUCTURES

ARBORIZATION

PEDESTRIAN

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STEP 7: The project takes its form from the grid and the created boundaries being the red the tough programs and the orange the intermediate between them and the stitch.

STEP 8: Untouched buildings are restored to the previous sites they had.

Moving forward with the stitch, a urban pack is designed to fill it and provide the site with new different conections: a pedestrians way and a cycling path. Both come along with arborization, the proper urban structure like benches and water fountains, and a green field under the bridge. The bridges structure provides the lighting.

GREEN FIELD

BIKE LANE

To summarize everything the components of the project are: the new grid, the stitch with its urban pack, the intervined sites with community programs and green area on the ground level, small commerce and an intermediate deck on the first level above ground and residential activity above it.

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ROBERTO OAT WALLACE

FINAL DESIGN

BLENHEIM ROAD

HAGLEY PARK

FINAL DESIGN
After all this considerations and applying the design strategy the final design came to life. The result is the attempt to test a way to counter the disconnection on the railway and Tower Junction by bringing the people to the site, delivering the missing pedestrian and biking paths, stitching both sides together and activating the surroundings of the lane.
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GENERAL PLAN
On the general plan you can see all the components of the design strategy. The stitch provides a strong connection between the north and south and integrates the pedestrians within the urban design of the site. On the middle of the project an open sports field is shared by the four units. Each one of them has a community program on the ground floor as it goes: Unit 1: Basketball courts and skate park Unit 2: Art and exposition centers Unit 3: Multipurpose courts and cycling center Unit 4: Open library

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Roberto Oat Wallace

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PROBLEMS
Roberto Oat Wallace

OBLEMS

ROBERTO OAT WALLACE

FINAL DESIGN

FINAL DESIGN

DETAIL PLAN
UNIT ONE - GROUND LEVEL

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UNIT OLEVEL ONE

As you can see in this detail plan of unit number one, the community program is placed underneath the building in an open space but protected by the columns of it. It is properly distanced from the railway line but not turning its back towards it. Green area surrounds the community programs that functions as an intermediary between the road and rail lines to the though programs. This disposition, as well as giving a open faComercial Barrier cade to the city, provides the site with Christchurch City non restricting programs, which ensures that the land can be used at any time of the day or night. Next to the community programs the parking lot needed for the building is placed trying to minimize its size and efect.

Comercial Barrier Train Railway

On the first level the small commerce is located. They are directly connected to the stitch with an open deck that serves as a prelude to the shops and as the roof for the parking underneath itself, meaning that for every meter taken by the cars you have a meter on top gained as public space. This level of semi public character has the function of activating the connection paths and maintaining a dynamic flow on the stitch. The next four levels are residential, they maintain a stable amount of users in the place and provide the missing security on the site.

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COMERCIAL BARRIER
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FINAL DESIGN

FINAL DESIGN

PROJECT SECTION

BLENDING IN HIGHLIGHTING THE RAIL

SPORTS

GREEN

COMMUNITY

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FINAL DESIGN

PROJECT VIEWS

View from the top of the commerce level View from the inside of one of the units

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