Tobin Smith of CoLab Architecture reflects on the emerging central city and champions the need for more small-scale developments to ‘join the dots’ between the big glass boxes.

As the city rebuilds and vacant lots are replaced by large-scale developments and precincts, it is important to remember that we need small buildings as well as big ones. While it is good to see these large developments – the Justice Precinct, the Convention Centre and the like – give the city a sense of permanence, smaller tenancies get a little lost within the branding of the major tenant.

Before the earthquakes, many Christchurch streets, including Colombo, Manchester and High Street, were lined with two and three-storey Victorian buildings that were home to many tenants that needed only a small workspace. This finer grain of development gave tenants a strong individual identity, allowing them to build their brand. If all that is available to them in the rebuild is space in a large building where the tenancy list is dominated by the nameplates of big corporates, it will be much harder for them to establish their own identity. By providing space for local retailers or artisans, finer-grain buildings also create connections between the larger city-block developments.

The other thing we need is more buildings with windows. We’re in danger of becoming the glass box city as the rebuild delivers a lot of new glass buildings with some sort of screening device to control light and articulate the façade. We have lost the solidity of our old Victorian or Mid Century Brutalist buildings.

It’s easy to over-romanticise the pre-quake city. The reality is that among the heritage gems that were lost, we also lost a lot of rubbish. Retail was not in a great place pre-quakes – Cashel Street for example was in a pretty sad state – and now retail is bouncing back, with strong brands committing to the central city. Not every new building will be to everyone’s taste, and it’s important to have diversity in the rebuild.

Helping that diversity is the restoration of some large-scale pre-quake buildings. Peter Beaven’s former Canterbury Terminating Building Society building on Manchester Street, which illustrates Christchurch’s Mid Century Modernist architecture, is getting a new lease of life, with developers Box 112 doing a stellar job there. And talk of the former Design and Arts College building on Worcester Street being restored is also music to my ears – the building is a stunning example of the Art Deco era. Our streetscapes need these references.

The central-city residential developments are another welcome sign but it’s the apartments with the $500,000 price tag, rather than $1.5 million, that we need first. It’s all about bums on seats – attracting a younger population to live in the city by delivering good quality, affordable housing. There will always be a market for higher-priced housing stock in the inner city, but this portion of the market won’t dramatically grow the central-city population. This is only possible by reducing the scale and increasing density. Grow the population in the city to stimulate local businesses, then look to increase the scale and price.

colabarch.co.nz