On the stage (well by video link) - Phoenix Cities UK: Rising from the Ashes
Reset director Garth Falconer was recently honoured to present lessons learnt from the Christchurch rebuild at Manchester's Phoenix Cities event, joining built environment professionals from the UK and USA to explore what cities can learn from regeneration after disaster and long-term decline.
The event was chaired by Shelagh McNerney, head of Manchester City Council's regeneration programme, with presentations from local author Euan Kellie on Manchester's recovery after the 1996 bombing, Nina Chase, a designer from Pittsburgh, on that city's long-term economic rebuilding following the decline of the steel industry, and Garth contributing a New Zealand perspective drawn from his direct experience in Christchurch across more than fifteen years of disruption and recovery.
Cities are shaped as much by disruption as by growth. Garth's presentation traced that arc through Christchurch, from the city's utopian origins and New Zealand's broader exposure to earthquakes, floods and storms, through to his own experience leading the Cashel Street City Mall project in 2009, one of the first city centre regeneration projects of its kind. He then walked through the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes and the demolitions that followed, the Council's Share An Idea community expos, central government's rebuild blueprint, the grassroots energy of initiatives like Gap Filler, and the gradual development of staged precincts and anchor projects that gave the city a new structure.
Across all three cities, the same questions kept surfacing: who holds decision-making power in a crisis, how are communities meaningfully engaged, and how do places balance economic pressure with design quality, identity and fairness. These are not abstract questions. The decisions made in the months and years after disruption shape cities for generations, and the consequences fall unevenly. Sharing lessons across different contexts, different scales, and different types of disruption is exactly the kind of conversation the built environment profession needs more of.
Check out more in the links below:
Construct Manchester website
