BY DESIGN

THE ARCHITECTURAL MEMORY OF A CITY

Richard Dalman Managing Director, Dalman Architects dalman.co.nz Iwas looking at old photos of Christchurch last week with a friend, and we were trying to identify and remember what some of the now-demolished buildings were.

I couldn’t remember the names of a few, but I could remember who the architect was! We could both remember an event at, or a visit to, various buildings.

Some buildings are more apt to creating memories than others. The Christchurch Town Hall, for instance, is home to many of our memories: our first rock concert, school choir, graduation…

We all remember our city’s buildings past or present in different ways. Italian Architect Aldo Rossi talked about the importance of a city’s ‘collective memory’ – memories that belong to all of us.

The Christchurch earthquakes destroyed much of our physical architecture, but memories of buildings and spaces remain in our individual and collective memories. One way of helping us retain these is to re-use surviving buildings or encompass retained elements within new developments.

When Dalman Architects transformed the Hotel So into BreakFree on Cashel a few years ago, we had this on our minds. Our clients wanted a smart new makeover of the façade, so we installed vertical louvres on the outside. One side of the louvre was painted bright yellow and the other orange, so the building appears to change colour as we move past it. But the louvres also allow for a view through to the original IRD building façade when looking front on. That brings back memories of the old office building and numerous stories around it.

Inside BreakFree, we incorporated demolition timbers removed from the old AMI Stadium. Back rails from the bench seats were used with the original colours, and seat numbers were kept. For me, this brings back many fond memories of watching cricket with my older brother and mates and rugby with my father-in-law.

Hopefully, other Cantabrians might connect to former buildings and recall their own memories that they can share with others to develop our city’s collective memory further.

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ARE YOU BEING ‘BRIGHT’ ABOUT YOUR PROPERTY?

Maria Hayes, Solicitor Cora Granger, Law Clerk Parry Field Lawyers parryfield.com The bright-line test is a rule in the Income Tax Act 2007 aimed at taxing financial gains made on residential investment properties sold within the bright-line period.

On 23 March 2021, the bright-line period was extended from five years to 10 years. This means that many residential properties – if disposed of within 10 years of acquisition – will be subject to income tax on any profit made. Any property acquired before 27 March 2021, however, will still fall under the previous rules.

For residential properties acquired between 29 March 2018 and 27 March 2021, a bright-line period of five years applies, with tax potentially being imposed on properties disposed of within five years of acquisition.

Under the old rules, your property is not subject to the bright-line rules if it has been your main home for more than 50 per cent of the time you owned the property within the bright-line period. Inland Revenue has clarified that a ‘main home’ is where you have lived most of the time. Therefore, you must have actually lived at the property for this exemption to apply.

For properties acquired after 27 March 2021, the extended bright-line period of 10 years applies. There is still a main home exemption, but the rules for the main home exemption have changed.

Under the new rules, where the property is not used (while you own it) as your main home for one or more periods of 366 days or more, you will be required to pay tax on a proportion of the increase in the value of the property that matches the proportion of time that you owned the property and (for 366 or more consecutive days) were not living in the home as your main home.

The Government has also excluded new builds from the most recent law changes meaning that new builds continue to be subject to the old five year bright-line rules.