Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemBeyond transport duality: Extending the instrumental rationality of kelotok transport in Banjarmasin, Indonesia( 2023-12)Banjarmasin, the ‘City of a Thousand Rivers’ in the South Kalimantan province of Indonesia, offers a unique empirical context for this PhD thesis. The city’s vibrant inland waterway transport (IWT), particularly the kelotoks –the city’s traditional riverboats– provides a rich case study for exploring transport beyond its mere economic and utilitarian functionalities. Kelotoks are not just modes of transport; they serve as the city’s source of cultural vitality, which is deeply rooted in Banjarmasin’s urban fabric and socio-economic life. This study investigates why kelotok drivers persist in Banjarmasin’s IWT sector amidst the challenges imposed by urbanisation and modernisation. This thesis offers a critical examination of the prevalent dualistic framework in transport literature, wherein traditional transport systems such as Banjarmasin’s kelotoks are often relegated to the ‘informal’ category, primarily based on the metrics of efficiency and formality. Challenging this paradigm, the study expands the conventional boundaries of instrumental rationality, a foundational concept in transport analysis, to encompass the socio-cultural dimensions intrinsic to kelotok transport. Departing from traditional quantitative methodologies, this research employs a qualitative approach, employing storytelling as an interview strategy with 22 kelotok drivers. This method facilitates a richer, more nuanced exploration of the socio-cultural complexities within Banjarmasin’s IWT sector, aspects that are often sidelined in mainstream transport discourse. As a result, this thesis broadens the traditional confines of instrumental rationality, typically preoccupied with economic-centric measures, to unpack a more comprehensive understanding of traditional transport systems. In extending the confines of instrumental rationality, this thesis integrates the theories of ‘satisficing,’ ‘access,’ and ‘transport indigeneity.’ These theoretical lenses facilitate the examination of the multifaceted motivations, strategies, and perceived roles of kelotok drivers that influence their interpretation of instrumental rationality. In turn, this nuanced instrumental rationality explains their continued engagement in the declining IWT sector. The study finds that kelotok drivers’ motivations, strategies, and self-conception extend beyond mere economic considerations. Their persistence is also attributed to non-monetary factors, such as familial values, cultural heritage, and social coherence. Building on these findings, the thesis introduces an advanced ‘Indigenous transport’ framework. This context-aware perspective acknowledges the sociocultural imperatives that underpin the provision and continuity of traditional transport systems. In summary, this research calls for a paradigmatic shift in the conceptualisation of traditional transport sectors, calling for more inclusive and culturally sensitive transport evaluation. The research transcends existing knowledge boundaries by introducing empirical depth through the unique context of Banjarmasin’s IWT sector and proposing a new conceptual framework. It establishes a pathway for interdisciplinary research that integrates social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of traditional transport systems, thereby filling a critical gap in the literature and suggesting areas for further inquiry.
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ItemImpact of Globalisation on the Construction Supply Chain: Challenges and Responses in Victoria( 2023-11)Low trade barriers and increased access to global markets allow Australian contractors to procure foreign construction materials and products easily. Domestic manufacturing industries struggle to compete if these imported goods are cheaper or of superior quality, resulting in job losses and business closures. Job losses trigger government intervention in the market to preserve the local industry. Despite previous academic research in this area, there is no comprehensive investigation of the responses of different categories of firms and the government to the globalisation of the construction supply chain. This research aims to establish a framework that will clarify the procurement strategies of firms in the construction supply chain in view of globalisation and economic nationalism in Victoria. Five research objectives were articulated: (1) To analyse the drivers of offshore procurement of materials, (2) To analyse the drivers of local procurement of materials, (3) To model firms’ responses to the import of materials, (4) To model the responses of the local manufacturing industry (including the Victorian Government) to the import of materials and (5) To develop a framework that will explain the rationale behind firms’ procurement strategies. Data was collected through 46 semi-structured interviews with a cross-section of industry professionals and an in-depth analysis of 28 regulatory and legislative documents. The findings indicate that developers, head contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers leverage the global market to import lower-cost construction materials, leading to price pressure and import competition for local manufacturers grappling with high input costs. In contrast, local procurement is driven by the regulatory impact of the Local Content Policy and buy-local sentiments, mainly in public projects. In response to increasing imports, manufacturers adopt a range of responses such as cost-cutting, product differentiation, import substitution and lobbying for local content. The findings of this research were summarised in a framework comprising procurement drivers, a description of alignment between institutional requirements and firms’ objectives, the extent of alignment between firms’ objectives and institutional demands, strategic responses at the firm level and institutional work at the field level. The procurement drivers were rationalised using institutional theory which revealed that the cost-cutting culture is endemic in private and public sectors. However, the Local Content Policy restricts the cost competition to local construction materials in public projects. Seven summary findings were deduced to show the rationale behind firms’ strategic responses for private and public projects, applicable to cases with a local content law in the construction supply chain. These summary findings indicated that firms’ strategic responses depend on the extent of alignment between institutional demands and firms’ objectives, and the strength of institutional requirements. Institutional work examined the collective and intentional response of firms, industry groups and the Victorian Government to the import of construction materials. In contrast to the categorisation of maintaining work in existing literature, the findings revealed that maintaining work for the local content law is divided into establishing and implementing. In addition to the seminal classification of disrupting work in the literature, two new sub-forms adopted by head contractors due to cost pressures and inconsistent implementation of the local content law were discovered. This research contributes to knowledge in construction management by clarifying the strategic responses of firms when faced with conflicting pressures from globalisation to import materials and economic nationalism to buy local. The findings also contribute to institutional theory and institutional work by adopting a bi-directional approach showing the influence of institutions on firms and the reciprocal effect of firms on institutions. The findings of this research have practical implications for key stakeholders in the construction supply chain – firms benefiting from access to the global market (head contractors, subcontractors and suppliers), those challenged by import competition (manufacturers), organisations that lobby for local content (industry groups and trade unions), and the Victorian Government and its agencies. Head contractors are vital because the Local Content Policy is mainly implemented through the construction sector. There is a conflict of interest for head contractors who prefer to import cheaper materials. Yet, regulators who enforce the Local Content Law may not fully understand the market challenges confronting head contractors, which leads to a preference for cheaper overseas materials. Besides, head contractors, subcontractors and suppliers have not engaged in previous inquiry panels, which strengthened the Local Content Act. Therefore, head contractors, subcontractors and suppliers that bid for public projects should participate more in manufacturing industry forums, such as panels of inquiry, to share information with those who set the rules. Manufacturers contend with price pressure, import competition and high input costs. Manufacturers who import a proportion of inputs and raw materials are more competitive against imports than those who do not. Thus, manufacturers should consider importing inputs or offshoring production tasks to improve their competitive advantage, especially in private projects. In addition, small and medium-sized (SME) manufacturers are the primary targets of the Local Content Act. Nevertheless, they cannot challenge and report non-compliant head contractors when their materials are swapped with imports due to fear of exclusion from future jobs. Therefore, the findings recommend that SME manufacturers join industry associations focused on supporting SMEs, which will provide a stronger platform for them to challenge non-compliance and protection from reprisal attacks. The findings indicate that head contractors are more likely to achieve the agreed minimum content if there is consistent monitoring, enforcement and audits by relevant public agencies. The LJF Commissioner is vital to achieving local content and is statutorily empowered to perform advocacy, monitoring, enforcement and audit functions. There is inconsistent monitoring, enforcement and audit, resulting in the replacement of local materials. Besides, the data suggests that the LJF Commissioner is under-resourced and lacks the political will and real power to confront large, non-compliant head contractors. Consequently, the LJF Commissioner should request more resources from the Victorian Government and seek the backing of the supervising Minister to enforce compliance robustly as mandated by the local content law. In turn, the Victorian Government should empower the LJF Commissioner to achieve its mandatory functions as specified by the Local Content Act. Without an effective regulator, the benefits of the Local Content Act will not be fully realised.
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ItemThe role of informal transport workers in tourism: A case study of tricycle guiding in Baler, Philippines( 2024-01)This thesis advances informal transport knowledge by reconceptualising it as a form of tourism transport from the perspective of informal transport workers. Informal transport and tourism have a reciprocal connection. Informal transport workers help tourism thrive by providing mobility and access, especially in developing countries’ tourism destinations. As the main providers of public transport in the region, informal transport workers enable tourists to reach the sites they intend to visit from their residences or places of origin. At the same time, tourism (a significant promoter of socio-economic growth in developing countries) supplements transport workers’ income and employment by generating additional demand for transport. Despite the clear link between these two industries, informal transport operation in tourism is understudied. Little is known about the extent of informal transport workers’ functioning and contribution to tourism. This thesis responds to this knowledge gap by examining the role of informal transport workers in tourism through a case study of tricycle guiding in Baler, Philippines. Tricycle guides are tricycle drivers who double as tour guides. Their transport and tourism services are particularly critical to Philippine provincial towns like Baler, which have limited transport alternatives. Drawing from Banks, Lombard, and Mitlin’s conceptualisation of urban informality as a ‘site of critical analysis’, which foregrounds the significance of the informal-formal continuum and the social dimension of urban informality, this thesis explores how tricycle guides begin, perform, and curate tricycle tours in Baler. Data were collected through qualitative interviews (with 34 tricycle guides, eight tourists, and a former government official), fieldwork observations, and document analysis of two government reports, five ordinances, and five statistical reports. Transcribed interviews were managed and analysed using the NVivo 12 software package. Study results reveal that multiple informal practices animate and sustain informal transport operation in tourism, and it is socially embedded. Partial legality and verbal vehicle rental agreements (which can be temporary) help informal transport drivers immediately begin tricycle guiding. People-led service production and relational passenger recruitment (which can overlap with formal procedures) allow them to perform tricycle guiding daily. Their shifting roles in guided tours and overall flexible approach to tricycle guiding manifest in how they curate Baler tour itineraries. The widespread acceptance and successful execution of these informal practices depend on various actors (including their family members, other tourism service providers in Baler, fellow tricycle guides, and tour passengers) and collective norms. These empirical findings reinforce the heterogeneity and complexity of informal practices in tourism transport provision and its embeddedness in the local community, which has received limited scholarly attention.
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ItemTransforming spatial governance High-speed rail planning and the regional integration of Hume( 2023-09)Australian governments and private consortiums have been planning high-speed rail since the 1980s by studying different corridor options and railway technologies to connect major cities along the eastern seaboard. Despite the introduction of government policies to promote land use and transport integration, recent proposals for intercity high-speed rail have obtained weak connectivity between station infrastructure and regional settlement systems. In Australia, justification for weak connectivity is typically based on a combination of transport planning and urban design considerations that are said to hinder integration between regional stations and established urban areas. However, recent studies of high-speed rail development overseas suggest that the problem instead has its origins in national systems of multilevel governance. This research takes the Hume Region in northeast Victoria as an illuminative case study to understand the influence of high-speed rail planning on regional governance in Australia between 2008 and 2017. A spatial governance perspective is used to explore the in-between spaces of state planning that embed infrastructure projects into regions to promote their economic and political integration. The conceptual framework draws on Raco’s (2005) understanding of regional integration as a political process that reconfigures power relations and gives rise to hybrid institutional forms. A mix of research methods, including geographic analyses of three high-speed rail proposals and qualitative analyses of interviews with national and regional actors (n=64), government policies and media reports, showed that high-speed rail planning is connected to processes of regional integration by its potential to restructure settlement systems and embed new institutional and political structures into non-metropolitan regions. The research found that regional institutions in Hume coevolved with the institutional structures that governed high-speed rail planning in Australia. This convergence between national and regional-level structures can be explained by the top-down nature of infrastructure planning and regional policy. However, the analysis identified ground-up moments of institutional reform that indicate greater reflexivity between territorial levels than is typically acknowledged in the domestic planning literature. In the case of high-speed rail planning in Hume, institutional reforms were instigated by localised struggles against the partisan structures that govern public investment in critical infrastructure. It remains to be seen if newly empowered regional actors highlighted in the research can secure broad-based outcomes from high-speed rail development because they lack the planning authority and fiscal resources needed to implement integrated planning solutions. In Australia, the forms of regional integration engendered by high-speed rail planning have limited potential to promote sustainable development outcomes in non-metropolitan regions because the strategic goals of the state and powerful non-state actors are privileged over the planning goals and development needs of regional communities. Consequently, high-speed rail planning is transforming spatial governance by reproducing national corporatist structures in non-metropolitan regions. These structures, however, do not engender a regionally integrated approach to spatial planning.
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ItemCity of Caulfield: an illustrated city report(University of Melbourne, 1968)
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ItemNational identity, Australian plants, and the natural garden in post-WWII Australia, 1945 to 1986(University of Melbourne, 2015)
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ItemReclamation art : an alternative aesthetic to the picturesque(University of Melbourne, 1996)
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ItemSustainable residential development in the coastal zone(University of Melbourne, 1996)
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ItemA landscape for learning : the design and use of the school ground(University of Melbourne, 1993)
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ItemCommunity facilities in Fitzroy : research report, first stage, design 4, 1970(University of Melbourne, 1970)