2 October 2013 Open display on opened up lives

Private lives opened up post-earthquakes. That’s one of themes behind the contribution of Lincoln University’s Landscape Architecture students to the 2013 Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA) scheduled in Christchurch for late October.

The students, who are in the second year of their four year professional degree, are utilising some 400 metres of Avon River between Worcester and Cashel Streets for their exhibition.

The exhibition will entail three grass-covered rafts; one of which will carry a dining room suite, another a living room suite, with the third carrying a bedroom suite.

The design will also feature a series of model birds festooning the trees alongside the river to represent a desire to incorporate ecology into the rebuild in the interest of bringing birds back into the urban space.

The design, which is currently in the building stage, was chosen among 15 other submissions on the grounds that it is expressive of Christchurch’s recent past and the experience of many of the city’s residents, but also has an eye to the future.

“In many respects the earthquakes brought lives out into the open space. Buildings were opened up. People had to reveal themselves at some level. To represent this, we want to show a domestic setting that is not only fragmented, but very public,” says Bachelor of Landscape Architecture student, Rose Johnston, one of 35 participants in the project.

However, it’s not all about the past.

“One aspect of Christchurch life we want to portray is that of moving on. By setting the exhibition on the river we hope to create a sense of transition, progress and even peace,” says Charlotte Warren, another Landscape Architecture student at Lincoln University.

The exhibition, which will be installed just prior to Labour Weekend, was made possible by donations from Ecostore, Winstones, and Resene Paint.