Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
hyperbolic judement-pants
Would that be these pants?
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Islander,
Makes your head hurt, but-
I recommend either chopping wood or alcohol.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Personally I like steel and concrete blocks
Now you're being perverse :P
Yes steel and concrete can be beautiful.
The Auckland Uni Chem building is not beautiful. IMO of course, noted art and architecture critic that I am.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Keir Leslie,
People can’t afford to be out of jobs for six months. That has to be the realistic goal: to restore some kind of a functioning economy to Christchurch within the next three-six months.
From what I've seen of business responses to things like fires which affect only a single building, it's usually possible to relocate any business to a basic warehouse. I don't know if such warehousing exists in any less affected areas but my expectation is that many businesses will be running in such temporary buildings in Christchurch fairly quickly ... maybe a month or so (assuming such undamaged buildings exist).
The question then becomes how do you get those businesses back into permanent buildings in the CBD. What those new buildings in the CBD look like how they interact with the infrastructure etc etc ... those are complex questions. But you can solve it very quickly by building generic concrete and steel blocks quickly or you can try and do something different and better.
You can rebuild infrastructure by simply making new roads where the old ones were or you can ask questions about whether that is the best way to move people and goods in and out of the CBD in 2011.
It's not my choice but if it were I would take the time to let the real experts in those fields to come up with options rather than simply pressuring everyone to build as fast as possible.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Fair call Andre, you need places to work. But that said putting up grey concrete boxes in the CBD to fill with workers is not going to create a city people want to live in long term.
I realise there is no perfect option (absent of lots of money). But I also know kiwis have a strong tendency to build plain boring functional things because making it look good would be somehow elitist/wrong/fancypants. And then they go overseas and admire the beautiful cities.
Yes we must get christchurch functioning quickly, but there is an opportunity here to actually make Christchurch beautiful. It can't be the city it was but it can be something as good or better with some care and most importantly some desire to make something special.
And I'm not a planning expert and I'm not an architect but given time to work those professionals can do some very cool things with cities.
None of which is more important than getting the basic infrastructure to people now of course. And all of which will cost money - so please can you raise my taxes now (yes I'm serious I want a tax rise).
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And there are thousands who’d rather like a hot shower, clean laundry and a bowel movement that doesn’t have to be co-ordinated with the rest of the street stat.
Yup but those are two different things.
The disaster response that has to be done now and as fast and effectively as possible.
That isn't the same thing as saying rebuild the CBD quickly. Rebuilding the CBD won't impact in those people without sewerage and if you tried to rebuild really fast you'd probably slow down the infrastructure work. And I don't for a second thing Mr Ballyntine is being a d-bag he just is focussed on getting his part of the world (the CBD) back together as fast as possible, which is entirely understandable. I'd just point out that there will be costs in design and price when you rebuild fast.
It isn't my place to pick for christchurch but if it was my choice that rebuilding would be slower and attempt to make something really neat, not simply restore business premises to functional.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
rebuilding the CBD “real fast”
You can have it fast, well designed and cheap ... pick two out of three
I'm going for well-designed and cheap but that's just my preference.
I'd rather have a great Christchurch in 15 years than a cheap ugly Christchurch in 5 years.
Please please make the new christchurch spectacular.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
So perhaps we’ve had our fun
aw but conspiracy was so entertaining for a while, such a nice break from reality
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Andre Alessi,
People aren’t mindless drones
You only think you aren't a mindless drone ...
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Steve Barnes,
And our esteemed Prime Minister has one. God help us.
He was asked about it on breakfast TV and was very very coy about how he got it and why he was wearing it.
My read on it (warning cynic alert) was that he'd been compensated in some way for wearing it in public. Totally unsubstantiated musing on my part of course.
Because really if he'd paid for it himself then why not say so?