21 January 2011 Landscape students to help green the rubble

A “seismic shift” from rubble to natural beauty on earthquake-hit sites in Christchurch gets the help of Lincoln University this weekend. (22-23 Jan.).

Landscape architecture students, staff and graduates from the University are contributing their expertise to Canterbury Biodiversity’s “Greening the Rubble” project.

“The aim of the project is to create attractive, temporary, public landscapes on sites where buildings have been destroyed by the earthquake,” says the Chair of the Canterbury Westland branch of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects, Neil Challenger, who is Head of Lincoln University’s School of Landscape Architecture.

Construction on the first property  -  the old ASKO site on the corner of Victoria and Salisbury streets  -  starts this weekend.  On Sunday from 9.30am – 4.30pm students, staff and graduates from Lincoln University’s School of Landscape Architecture will take up tools alongside other members of the community and lead the way on the rejuvenation work.

They will prepare the ground and establish lawns, tree planters, garden beds of insect-beneficial plants, pathways and gabions filled with broken bricks.  The gabions (containers of woven metal bands filled with the likes of earth or stones, but in this case bricks) have been constructed by students with the help of Warwick Hill in Lincoln University’s engineering workshops.  Lincoln University catering staff will provide a barbecue lunch for the working bee members.

When the site eventually reverts to a building, most of the “greening” materials will be reused on another temporary landscape project on an earthquake-hit site somewhere else in the city.