Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu

This building uses one of the most distinctive base isolations in all of Christchurch. If you enter the Gallery through the main entrance, and then take the elevator down to the underground carpark, you will be able to see lots of colourful columns. And on the top of all of these columns, are thick rubber-collared so-called "triple pendulum base isolators". These essentially separate the building from the ground and foundation. As a result, during a big earthquake, the ground may shake a lot but the building will pretty much remain in the same location. The base isolators are designed such that the building can move 60 cm relative to the ground. If you now come back outside and have a look at the area in front of the art gallery, you might find what is called a seismic gap: the area that separates the base isolated building from the surrounding ground. It is made of a flexibe rubber and smaller, weaker bricks which can move and break if necessary. This allows for the aforementioned 60 cm of movement .