Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 1909
-
ItemSaving heritage policy: The past and future of conservation in the Australian city(ANU Press, 2024)In 2021, the NSW Government initiated a review of the Heritage Act 1977 (NSW). The framing of the review expressed confusion about the purpose of heritage policy and administration. The accompanying discussion paper identified no fewer than 19 questions (Standing Committee on Social Issues 2021a). These questions were not based on a depth of knowledge of the challenges facing the governance and management of heritage places. Rather, tensions between traditional and evolving outlooks on heritage appeared throughout the paper and in the subsequent parliamentary review report (Standing Committee on Social Issues 2021b). Conservation has long privileged the retention of traditional heritage values: historic, aesthetic, and scientific significance. Emerging viewpoints equally foreground the social, economic, and environmental capacities of conservation. Similar challenges appear in policy initiatives and decision-making conducted across national, state, and local jurisdictions. This is evidence of duplication and fragmentation in urban heritage policymaking, while broader philosophical and strategic issues remain unresolved. Australian urban heritage is at a major juncture. Since the early 2000s, the capacity for authorities to pursue innovative heritage policy and to facilitate sophisticated conservation outcomes has been eroded. Heritage governance has not been responsive to evolving professional and community expectations for the historic environment. After the closure of the Australian Heritage Commission (1975–2004), the nation has had no effective national leadership in urban heritage. This devolution agenda, making state and local authorities exclusively responsible for urban heritage, while professional and voluntary bodies uphold conservation standards, has generated issues. The authorities and bodies are disparate and under-resourced. Traditional outlooks and approaches have become entrenched (Sullivan 2015). For instance, the capacity for urban heritage to advance social, economic, and environmental sustainability has not been substantively recognised in the Australian context, raising questions about the continuing relevance of heritage conservation. As background, this chapter first maps the national policy environment for urban heritage that has formed since the mid-2000s. The body of the chapter then provides three areas for augmenting federal government leadership related to national coordination, review frameworks, and sustainability transitions. A theme throughout is the longstanding policy precedents established by the former Australian Heritage Commission, which continue to be adopted within national, state, and local heritage policy. Many of these precedents now act as barriers to advancing heritage governance and management. Comparative examples are drawn from across Australia’s cities, from overseas jurisdictions, and from intragovernmental and nongovernmental bodies: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). Opportunities exist for renewed national (and state) leadership, revised policy frameworks, and broader sustainability transitions, aligned with evolving political, social, and economic imperatives.
-
ItemDesigning for the Future in Australia: A Retrospective on the ALIA Library Design Awards(Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), 2023)Library designs shape people's expectations and experiences of what libraries can be. Their physical spaces house collections, provide safe spaces for people to meet and engage, and enable access to services and activities designed to meet community needs. Libraries' digital spaces extend these services and supports beyond the physical walls, enabling after-hours access to the world's knowledge. When library buildings are designed well, they serve as beacons in their communities. Their interiors inspire people to learn, to create, to think, and to engage with digital and physical platforms to satisfy information needs.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableDataset for: Present day and future urban cooling enabled by integrated water management( 2023)Dataset for the publication Present day and future urban cooling enabled by integrated water management. Includes modelling setup files and output.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableImpacts of irrigation scheduling on urban green space cooling( 2023)This record contains the microclimate and soil moisture data from a field experiment that investigated the impacts of irrigation scheduling on urban green space irrigation in Melbourne, Australia.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableDataset for: Sky pixel detection in outdoor imagery using an adaptive algorithm and machine learning( 2019)The data presented in this article is related to the research article entitled ``Sky pixel detection in outdoor imagery using an adaptive algorithm and machine learning." \citep{Nice2019UC}. The dataset consists of a trained Inception V3 neural network model as well as the configuration files to train the neural network and run the inferences. The dataset also contains two sets of outdoor imagery (from Skyfinder and Google Street View) used to train the neural network and validate the sky pixel detection system in the linked article. The original images are included as well as rescaled imagery used to train the neural network, and sky masks used for validation.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableMelbourne Google Street View imagery dataset( 2018)The data presented in this article is related to the research article entitled "Urban design using generative adversarial networks: optimising citizen health and wellbeing" (Wijnands et al 2018). The data consists of Google Street View (Google Maps, 2017) imagery (4,473,991 images, 8-bit JPEG at 256x256 resolution) from four headings (0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees) at 1,118,534 locations in the greater metropolitan area of Melbourne, Australia. Locations were determined using the nodes of the vector lines in the PSMA Street Network dataset (PSMA 2018) and data was post-processed by removing indoor images. Please cite this paper if you use the dataset. The data is broken up into four archives, 000.zip, 090.zip, 180.zip, and 270.zip, containing the imagery from each compass heading. A csv file (contained in MelbourneStreetViewImagesData.zip) provides a mapping between the filenames, location names, direction, latitude, and longitude.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableWater sensitive outcomes for infill development: final report(Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, 2021)Australian cities have experienced significant growth recently, a trend that is expected to continue. One response from governments has been to promote ‘infill development’, which increases urban density, but also has significant adverse effects on urban water cycles, resource use efficiency, and the amenity and liveability of urban areas.
-
ItemBarriers to implementation of sustainable construction in India(The University of Melbourne, 2023)Abstract: The Indian construction industry was estimated to be worth three trillion INR in 2022 and is expected to be the third largest construction market by 2025. The industry is responsible for a large amount of energy consumption, which not only contributes to the emission of greenhouse gases, but also adversely impacts resources like land, waterbodies, minerals, and other naturally sourced materials. Hence, implementing sustainable construction practices across the project life cycle is essential to reducing the detrimental impacts of the industry. Despite having 3 green building rating systems (GRIHA, IGBC, and LEED) and adopting certain national level initiatives, there is an absence of a systematic regulatory framework for the incorporation of sustainability principles in the Indian construction industry. It is critical to determine the existing issues that prevail in the industry to address the barriers in a timely manner. This paper determines the critical barriers to incorporating sustainable construction in India by reviewing the academic literature, Environmental Performance Index (EPI), and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2022 reports. Unskilled workforce, low productivity, lack of monitoring schemes, inadequate technology, poor team integration and collaboration are the key barriers that are deduced from the systematic literature review. The ongoing national level initiatives and schemes promoting multiple goals of SDGs are also identified. The administrative framework of the Indian construction industry includes ministries, state departments, local authorities, and regulatory councils. Every state in India has building bye laws that differ from those of other states and this has also been identified as a barrier. One of the solutions determined by experts and researchers is for the Indian construction industry to comply with the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. In order to accomplish that, policy makers, sustainable construction practitioners, and industry professionals must develop specific grassroot level mitigation factors to counter the key barriers.
-
ItemEvaluating the impact of material service life on embodied energy of residential villas in the United Arab Emirates(Emerald, 2024)Purpose: Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE. Design/methodology/approach: Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation. Findings: For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values. Originality/value: The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.
-
ItemDeveloping An Evidence-based Understanding of Hospital Space Planning Efficiency(Architectural Science Association, 2018)Over the last two decades there has been a steady increase in the demand for healthcare services and a commensurate rise in the global expenditure in health (WHO, 2014). Given the significance of the financial investment in capital works programmes required to meet growing healthcare needs and the expanding environmental impact of the healthcare industry, it is important to gain a detailed understanding of how healthcare infrastructure assets currently perform, the strategic drivers impacting on hospital space use efficiency, and the complex interrelationship of factors that impact on the healthcare environment. This paper outlines a research project that was conducted by the University of Melbourne in conjunction with a local architectural practice partner, to examine space planning efficiency and emerging trends in hospital space planning requirements. To assist in developing a greater understanding of the space planning efficiency of healthcare infrastructure, and changing trends in hospital space planning, this study examined a range of measures across 31 hospitals against regional and international benchmarks. This paper outlines a novel multi-modal research methodology established to examine the complex range of interconnecting planning measures impacting space planning efficiency, and some of the difficulties in assessing hospital space planning efficiency.