2019 A Landscape of Change: Change-resilient regeneration on Christchurch residential red zone under a depopulation background Avon River, Christchurch, New Zealand - Hanley Chen

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Background: After the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. the Avon River catchment and its surrounding areas lost approximately 0.4 metre elevation overnight due to crustal movement (Cochran et al., 2014). This has resulted in a significant increase in flooding risk and liquefaction (Officials' Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination. 2007; National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, 2017; Land Information New Zealand. 2016). Therefore. almost 7000 residential houses were demolished and 600 hectare vacant land was left and red zoned (Harvie, 2018; McDonald. 2018). The emergence of the Red Zone has made out-migration a significant phenomenon after the major earthquake (Wright, 2012). Furthermore, a series of social, economic and environmental issues were also resulted from the earthquake and the associated depopulation (see ISSUES IDENTIFIED for more details). How to make rational use of the land under the background of depopulation and regeneration has become an urgent problem for Christchurch.

Aim: This project aims to provide a design solution for the residential red zone along the Avon River catchments to create a change-resilient landscape which can adapt to and embrace changes in both socio-economical (demographic changes) and environmental (water level changes) aspects.