Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemTAKE 8 Learning Spaces: The transformation of educational spaces for the 21st century(Australian Institute of Architects, 2009)TAKE 8 explores the intersection between architecture and education with a focus on Australia. Under the title of Learning Spaces, the editors have asked researchers and practitioners from both education and architecture to contribute their reflections on the relationship between learning and physical space. TAKE 8 Learning Spaces has grown out of an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant called Smart Green Schools. Both editors and many of the authors are contributors to that research as Chief Investigators, Industry Partners or PhD students.
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ItemSustainability for learning environments(Australian Institute of Architects, 2009)Every brief and every client anticipates that building designs will be informed by sound environmental decision making. Quantitative research, particularly from the USA, has confirmed our commonsense notion that learning improves with good lighting, ventilation and water proofing as well as thermal comfort and acoustic control. In this paper, Dominique Hes provides an introduction to and critique of the relatively new Green Star rating tool for education buildings. One of the aims of the rating tool is to provide a road map for designers and clients to help them make good environmental decisions. Dominique concludes with a critique of the current rating tool for education and a suggestion for how to move forward even if the tool is not yet ideal.
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Item'Once they have been there and have sat in it, they get it'(The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Education, 2009-11-01)Many recent school designs incorporate sustainability features. This paper reflects on several school building projects where the potential was present for these features to be brought into the teaching practice. Using a building as a 3-D textbook means it can be incorporated into the curriculum and aid teaching about heating and cooling, temperature transfer, sun angles, lighting and so forth. A building can embody its philosophy overtly, hanging its green credentials on its sleeve, by providing access to electricity meters, control mechanisms, data and sustainable features. This research fits within a broader framework of the Smart Green Schools ARC linkage project and sits within its qualitative research methodology centred on case studies. Case studies were chosen as they allowed the investigation of the highly complex influences of built educational environments and their effect on teaching and learning. Observation and ‘thick description’, which enable judgements about making comparisons with, or the possible transferability of findings to other settings, were used. The importance of real world, physical experiential case studies to support learning has been shown by others as crucial for developing tacit understanding (see for example Hes4). Our research hopes to illustrate how buildings could be used in learning about environmental sustainability within the middle years of schooling. The ultimate intention is to provide guidance on how schools can integrate buildings as effective 3-D textbooks to support their curricula. This paper illustrates its arguments through the voices of three of the teachers at the case study schools and their experiences in using these buildings. This has inherent limitations in bias and attachment to their projects that need to be kept in mind when reading their reflections on using buildings as 3-D textbooks to teach environmental sustainability.
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ItemSmart Green Schools The Unofficial Overview(Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, 2010)The Smart Green Schools project, an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant (2007-2010), investigated the influence of innovative and sustainable school building designs on middle school education in Victoria focussing on understanding the links between design, sustainability, pedagogy and Information Communication Technology (ICT) within 21st century learning spaces. The projects’ aims were both practical and theoretical. Practically, there was an urgent need for current and local data on school design to ensure effective spending of government funds on facilities that support learning. Theoretically, the research project aimed to advance thinking about how schools, as complex systems, engaged with contemporary design, curriculum, technological, and environmental issues.
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ItemEcoHome reflection on research outcomes in light of initial research grant intentions: a multidisciplinary approach to complex housing sustainability issues(Flinders University, 2006)Sustainability in the housing industry is a complex interrelated field of inquiry. In Melbourne, Australia, a consortium of seven industry, regulatory and policy organisation, two universities covering three disciplines (building, social science and engineering) came together to explore a multidisciplinary approach to the field through the EcoHome research project. This paper will summarise the journey of the EcoHome project and its outcomes, beginning with its intentions in 2001 to the home’s sale in 2005. The journeys of the three research projects is briefly outlined and discussed in light of the intentions of the project. This paper also reports on how this project resulted in a collaborative multidisciplinary approach to research called the ‘Triple Helix’ approach and the linked development of the Re-imaging the suburb research program.
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ItemEcotourism in the architectural imagination(Channel View Publications, 2007)Ecotourism is a burgeoning sector of the tourism industry offering a relatively guilt-free environment in which to satisfy the desire for travel and adventure. The discourse is firmly entrenched within the dominant conception of sustainability, which posits nature as a privileged ‘other’ free from human intervention. Images of ecotourism destinations celebrate this ideology through the promotion of ‘pristine’ environments. However, a more complex image question arises in relation to the infrastructure that supports the tourists’ encounter with this idealised natural environment. This paper is concerned with unpacking the identities and ideologies that are embedded within images of ecotourism resorts and within the broader field of sustainable tourism. Through the lens of the premier global sustainable tourism certification program, Green Globe, three ‘images’ that correspond to three typologies of tourism destinations are identified. The ‘hyper-real’ is embedded within the mass-market arena of sustainable tourism, while the niche ecotourism market engages in a process of architectural ‘absence’. The third typology of place-based tourism mediates between these two extremes. While it can result in a tendency towards undifferentiated ‘background’ architecture, at its most productive it is conceived as a form of architectural ‘camouflage’ by maintaining a dynamic process of emergence and disappearance. When this typology is extended beyond the limits of the image, it offers even greater potential as a form of spatial liminality between traditional representations of human/environment relations as alternatively undifferentiated or ontologically distinct. The paper concludes by arguing that the design of ecotourism facilities should be focused on more than minimising impacts and that architecture has a productive role to play, particularly in relation to the education imperative of ecotourism.
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ItemCharting a new course for water - is black water reuse sustainable?(IWA Publishing, 2007)The world is facing a water crisis, and Australia is no exception. New regimes for the supply, use, and delivery of water are needed to ensure a sustainable water future. Black water reuse through ‘sewer mining’ or onsite treatment, proposes to be one initiative that may possibly offer a viable and sustainable alternative approach to water provision in many contexts. However, despite the potential benefits of black water reuse, its feasibility is not yet fully understood. In particular, there is much uncertainty surrounding the following issues: 1) community acceptance, 2) policy complexities, 3) performance impacts of these localised systems, and 4) environmental balance over the full life cycle. This paper outlines research needs surrounding black water reuse with a focus on these four major issues. The paper presents a research agenda to address these important issues. This research agenda involves two Australian commercial case studies: the Council House 2 building in Melbourne, and the Bendigo Bank building in Bendigo.
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ItemQualitative and quantitative tool development to support environmentally responsible decisions(Elsevier, 2007)The Centre for Design at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia has developed various quantitative and qualitative tools to supportdecision-making by industry and government partners in product design and policy development. The aim, in general, is to support developmentof attractive, functional, marketable products while enhancing their environmental performance. Depending on the product, the project scope andthe client, the tools that are used can be anything from a half-day char-rette, environmental checklist, to a one-year life cycle assessment (LCA).In this paper we describe our approach and the various tools that have been developed by the research team at the Centre over recent yearswith the use of case studies. The paper argues that it is important for tool development to be based on solid research and information, but the keyto influencing product design decisions is the translation of this information into a usable format for the users.
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ItemReservoir Civic Centre, Darebin City, Melbourne, Australia(Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2007)