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A brief history of Christchurch city is presented, including information on the introduction of unreinforced masonry as a popular building material and an estimate of the number of unreinforced masonry buildings in the Canterbury region currently. A general overview of the failure patterns that were observed in unreinforced clay brick and stone masonry buildings in the Christchurch area after the 2010 Darfield earthquake is provided. Case studies of the damage sustained to five unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings that were unretrofitted at the time of the earthquake, including photographic details, is documented. The performance of eight retrofitted URM buildings is then commented on, detailing the building characteristics and retrofit techniques. The case studies include the use of moment resisting frames, steel strong backs and strapping, diaphragm anchoring, surface bonded fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets and cavity ties.

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Paraffin-based phase change material (PCM) is impregnated into the pores of lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) through vacuum impregnation to develop PCM containing macro-capsules of LECA. Three different grades of LECA varying in size and morphology are investigated to host the PCM to determine the impregnation effectiveness, viability for coating, and its stability. The produced LECA-PCM is coated with geopolymer paste (GP) to provide leak proofing during the phase change. The PCM is thermophysically characterized by employing differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and the temperature history method (THM) to determine the phase transition and the latent heat. The stability of the macro-capsules is determined by weight loss through rapid thermal cycling (RTC) at elevated temperatures. Leakage of the PCM is tested using the diffusion-oozing circle test (DOCT). The results show that the GP coated LECA-PCM macro-capsules achieved 87 wt % impregnation efficiencies and no noticeable loss of PCM, which indicates leak proofing of the developed capsules up to 1000 RTC.

Recent earthquakes in New Zealand not only highlighted the vulnerabilities of the existing building stock but also the need for: (i) a better understanding of the building inventory, and (ii) easy access to information for quicker response after an event. In the case of Wellington, efforts over the years by the City Council and other stakeholders have produced a number of useful datasets about the building inventory. These available datasets when put together are critical in understanding the composition and characteristics of the building inventory in Wellington. This paper describes the available information, and the process to combine the different strands of data possessed by multiple stakeholders into an effective and usable multi-disciplinary building inventory database for Wellington’s CBD. The uses and future directions for this collated database are also discussed.