Recently Rangiora has been looking like a lot of Christchurch does. Wire fences, shipping containers, blocked roads and closed shops. The shame for Rangiora is that we were buzzing with activity earlier while Christchurch residents could come here and forget about the earthquake for a while. Now it’s as depressing as everywhere else so Chch people may as well go shopping in Riccarton or Merivale now.

I would like to see the place cheered up a bit. Can’t we hide the fences behind decorated panels and cover the shipping containers.

With this in mind I have drawn a sketch of High Street. What are your thoughts?

The second thing I was thinking about was the temporary shops the Council is considering put up outside the council buildings for displaced businesses. There was an article in the Northern Outlook last week with a diagram showing the council proposal. I like the idea and I am glad the council is doing this. I just hope they are not just using shipping containers. I would love to see some smart design options. It will obviously be constrained by budget but some great designs are very economical.

I am not going to claim to be a great designer but came up with one option.

“The future is now … it’s not a fetishistic obsession or architectural style … building a city for 2050 should have started 50 years ago – we’re already late for managing our human investments – so let’s not make it too late!”