Design project explores post-quake resilience

2 April 2015
- for immediate release

Design project explores post-quake resilience

A Lincoln University graduate who recently won a nationwide landscape design award has been praised for her “thought-provoking project” that focuses on increasing post-earthquake resilience in flood-prone Avonside.

Nicki Copley’s project, Living with Uncertainty: A Design Investigation into Adaptive Living in the Residential Red Zone, received the Student Design Award from the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (NZILA) last month.

Ms Copley, who graduated last year with a Master of Landscape Architecture, says her design work suggests potential strategies for increasing a community’s ability to adapt to flood risk.

“Theory suggests the residential red zone could be an ideal place to test experimental land uses. I spent nearly a month investigating the Avonside site conditions – past, present and predicted future.”

One of Ms Copley’s strategies involves reconceptualising roads as urban waterways.

“As roads are often the first to flood, the needs of water can be designed for first and then we can work out how people might use them,” she says. “Roads might become canals, floating bridges or be narrowed with bordering swales. They would be designed to suit the hydrological conditions of each site.”

Ms Copley also suggests managing land use in terms of time rather than activity.

“Perpetual activity-based zoning, such as for residential use, can limit our ability to adapt to change; we make decisions based on the assumption that the land will always be in one particular use,” she says.

“However, the landscape is constantly changing, particularly in low-lying areas prone to flooding. Managing land use in differing time cycles – such as 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years – depending on the potential future flood risk might allow for opportunities to utilise the land but still be adaptable to change.”

Another strategy focuses on “placemaking through functional legibility”, says Ms Copley.

Placemaking involves creating spaces that promote people’s health and happiness, while legibility in urban design relates to helping people understand the inner workings of a particular location.

Ms Copley says although her project is set within the context of Avonside, the strategies she suggests have much wider implications.

“Christchurch has the opportunity to increase resilience through the rebuild process and should lead the way nationally for how we might adapt to sea level rise and higher frequencies of flood events.”

Ms Copley says the city needs to use this opportunity to design land management systems that allow flexibility and experimentation and can shift and change with fluctuating social and environmental conditions.

“We should also be creating opportunities to test new, adaptive ways of living.”

In their citation, the judges say Ms Copley’s project is “an excellent illustration of a partnership connecting topographical landscapes with the community via social capital that would enrich the community’s flexibility in times of need”.

They also say her work shows “the visionary brilliance of a Landscape Architecture student”.

“The design … demonstrates a clear understanding of resilience in regard to flood patterns. A truly thought-provoking project that works to expand our relationship with the landscape.”

In addition to Ms Copley’s win, nine of the 12 NZILA awards went to Lincoln alumni. The top two prizes (the George Malcolm and Charlie Challenger Supreme Awards) were won respectively by Lincoln graduates Charles Gordon (for his project, Te Kopahou Reserve) and Stuart Houghton (for The City East West Transport Study).

Rough and Milne, an organisation made up of Lincoln Landscape Architectural graduates, won the Community Design award for their work on the ReStart Mall in central Christchurch.

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