Roundtable Statement

Roundtable: ADA Mesh Cities: Network, Space and Memory in the Transitional City

I live in Dunedin, a small city relatively close to Christchurch in the South Island. We all have family and friends in Christchurch, and we feel the earthquakes, both physically and socially. Dunedin is not a very affluent city. Its economy peaked in the 1870s as a result of the Otago gold rush. We have a lot of old buildings that were built over 100 years ago, paid with gold. The contemporary networked city however does not need this kind of architecture. These old buildings need to be either strengthened or demolished in the next 10 years. So we are facing a kind of rewriting of the city, a lot like Christchurch, where there is demolition, though in Dunedin there is no ‘rebuild’.

• Caro McCaw, NZ

Full text (PDF)  p. 291-292