10
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AOTEAROA
Occupy the
Red Zone
Text by
Bernd Gundermann
Looking past bureaucratic obstacles,
Bernd Gundermann proposes a future for
Christchurch’s Red Zone that could serve as
an archetype for riparian suburbs facing
the effects of climate-change.
LAST TIME I WAS INVITED BY REGENERATE CHRISTCHURCH
to advise about the future of the Residential Red Zone
along the Avon river, I emphasised that there is a
realm beyond the frustration about both the ongoing
fights with hard-nosed insurers, and half a decade of
stand-still in the physical recovery of the city.
It is within this rarely visited territory behind the
spreadsheets and the “return on investment” clamour
out of Wellington where the best solutions are found.
Christchurch’s Residential Red Zone by the river,
bought by the Crown, momentarily is lost. Its dollar
value is zero. However, its location between the larger
part of the city and the seashore gives it a value when
strategising responses to climate change. Utilised as
green eco-buffer to counter the impact of sea-level
rise, floods and storm surge its value will soar as the
challenge unfolds.
But how to proceed with the land right now?
I believe the Red Zone can be restored, inhabited
and work as an archetype for countless suburbs facing
climate change. First, the zone should be completely
reverse-engineered and free of environmentally
harming remnants of human activity in order to avoid
pollution when it eventually will go back to the sea.
Hydrologists shall be asked about riverine erosion and
sedimentation to sniff out safest places for homes.
Ecologists will design a masterplan that connects the
green dots that already exist in east Christchurch:
Travis Wetlands, Bexley Park, South New Brighton
Park, and the Residential Red Zone that becomes the
Eastern Eco-sanctuary. The connections shall be
accomplished by greening the streets, making the
pavements permeable, adding open drains and native
trees; greening the metal roofs to stop pollution with
heavy metals and reduce stress on the sewerage
through rainfalls and floods.
Combined, these measures will not only change the
appearance of the precincts, they will also replenish
the biodiversity and the heightened birdsong will
uplift the traumatised people.
The novelty of this masterplan will be its connection
to complementary hydrological, seismic, and
BIM-models that, constantly updated with scientific
data input, will determine when the scheduled exitsequence will be due.
The currently demarcated Red Zone zigzags along
the threshold within which liquefaction damaged the
houses beyond repair. Its logic follows backwardlooking fiscal and legal reasoning and is, therefore,
irrelevant for moving forward. Science knows that
potentially the entire Christchurch Plains are subject
to liquefaction. Thus, I suggest that the Red Zone
should be the testing ground for new prototypes of
settlements in fragile, flood-prone land.
In my opinion, Christchurch should host an international competition among interdisciplinary teams
to design, build, and operate demountable stilt-houses that work off grid and take the US Department of
Energy’s ”Solar Decathlon” to the next level. The brief
should include passive house standards as well as
renewable power sources besides solar. Additionally,
smart interconnectivity to satellite-based warning