More than 100 architects and other designers spent 48 hours designing a new Christchurch city. It was a team competition. Five zones in the central city were chosen. Each zone had three or four teams working on it. Each team had five or six people. They were city designers, landscape designers, design engineers and architects and they came from around New Zealand and overseas. They started at midday on Friday and had to finish at midday today.
One member from each team was taken into the red zone to see the area. These are the five areas: The Square in the centre of the city, two areas in Gloucester St and one in Armagh St including Victoria Square, and a large empty piece of land in Colombo St where the old Women’s Hospital used to be.
Then the teams worked for 48 hours. Some didn’t sleep. Everyone drank a lot of coffee to stay awake. They had one eye on the computer and one eye on the clock.
A group of architects will judge which team is the winner.
Christchurch city hopes some good ideas will help with the city plan which will be ready in August. Already the council is looking at 90,000 ideas from the “Share an Idea” weekend and website. However, these design experts might have more creative ideas. Henry Ford once said, “If you had asked people what (transport) they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’. Sometimes you need people who have more imagination. This is called ‘thinking outside the square’.
Listen to May 15 2011 to hear more about ‘Share an Idea’.
Questions
Nobody was paid to do this 48 hour design challenge. Why would people want to do it? Was it to help Christchurch? If they don’t win, what do they gain from it?
Do you think it is too soon to re-design Christchurch city because there are still after-shocks? Some of the after-shocks cause more damage.
Grammar
Note: spend time doing / designing / working /playing/ enjoying
Vocabulary
What do architects do? What do landscape designers do? What do city planners do?