Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemThe Singapore Flyer and design of giant observation wheels, Singapore(Informa UK Limited, 2009-01-01)Some of the engineering principles conceived behind the design of Singapore Flyer, the giant observation Wheel (GOW), built by Arup, are discussed. The wheel is 150 m in diameter, and features access gantries to allow the passenger boarding and loading platforms having two stories above ground in the terminal building located at the base of the wheel. A tropical rainforest attraction has been built into the courtyard space immediately below the wheel to attract the visitor's experience. The 2D ladder truss helps reduce wind load on the Flyer rim. The Flyer also uses cable spokes that need to be prestressed to resist compression. The structural team used purpose-written software to study rim buckling. The GOW represents one lineage of a family of visitor attractions known as ionic viewing platforms, and the engineering design process has recognized several geometric effects on the efficiency of the structure.
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ItemDisease surveillance using a hidden Markov model(BMC, 2009-08-10)BACKGROUND: Routine surveillance of disease notification data can enable the early detection of localised disease outbreaks. Although hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been recognised as an appropriate method to model disease surveillance data, they have been rarely applied in public health practice. We aimed to develop and evaluate a simple flexible HMM for disease surveillance which is suitable for use with sparse small area count data and requires little baseline data. METHODS: A Bayesian HMM was designed to monitor routinely collected notifiable disease data that are aggregated by residential postcode. Semi-synthetic data were used to evaluate the algorithm and compare outbreak detection performance with the established Early Aberration Reporting System (EARS) algorithms and a negative binomial cusum. RESULTS: Algorithm performance varied according to the desired false alarm rate for surveillance. At false alarm rates around 0.05, the cusum-based algorithms provided the best overall outbreak detection performance, having similar sensitivity to the HMMs and a shorter average time to detection. At false alarm rates around 0.01, the HMM algorithms provided the best overall outbreak detection performance, having higher sensitivity than the cusum-based Methods and a generally shorter time to detection for larger outbreaks. Overall, the 14-day HMM had a significantly greater area under the receiver operator characteristic curve than the EARS C3 and 7-day negative binomial cusum algorithms. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that the HMM provides an effective method for the surveillance of sparse small area notifiable disease data at low false alarm rates. Further investigations are required to evaluation algorithm performance across other diseases and surveillance contexts.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableDesign that Moves(Architecture Media, 2009)
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ItemA Practice of Ephemeral Urban Design(Common Ground Research Networks, 2009)This paper will present research that developed from two projects undertaken in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. The first project was a postgraduate collaboration of researchers in the Design Research Institute at RMIT University, the second was a collaboration with video, sound and projection artists. Both projects engaged with public urban spaces on a sensory and experiential level by using different principles and practices. In this paper I will argue that space is something that is not framed in advance of inhabitation, as an a priori conceptual category. Instead space is a more elusive environment that unfolds alongside our modes of expression and perception. Further, I will demonstrate through two design research case studies how space formation is interwoven with the effects and affects of temporality, ephemerality, and the poetic and sensory potential of new and old technologies. These installations were intended to extend the quotidian perception of the city as a physical and built environment through creating an awareness of temporal, ephemeral, and intangible elements and sensations.
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ItemExperiencing Architecture Walk: Perception in Detail(Hong Kong Institute of Architects, 2009)
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ItemEquitable pedagogical spaces: teaching and learning environments that support personalisation of the learning experience(The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Education, 2009)This paper introduces the concept of equitable pedagogical spaces and discusses the potential educational gains that may result from the creation of physical learning environments that are designed to facilitate equity of instruction. Incorporating Monahan's concept of 'built pedagogy', and informed by work in constructivist educational theory by Dewey, Gardiner, Vygotsky, Friere and Bruner, the paper explores the potential for 'space' to play a significant role in supporting the authentic personalisation of student learning in schools.
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ItemDisciplinary dilemmas: learning spaces as a discussion between designers and educators(The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Education, 2009)As an architect and academic, I have been attempting to engage in conversations outside my discipline around the theme of education with a particular focus on how space can support learning. Currently undertaking a Doctorate of Education as the only non-cognate student, I am struck by the different languages that the disciplines of architecture and education use. We each have our own shorthand for capturing and communicating complex ideas. Architects and educators come from different tribes with different ways of viewing the world. These different languages support effective communication when we are working within an academic discipline but can alienate and confuse when we are attempting to work in interdisciplinary ways. The context of this paper is a research project called 'Smart Green Schools' funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) as part of their Linkage Grant program. The aim of the Smart Green Schools research is to investigate the relationships between pedagogy, space and sustainability. Our team is supported by nine industry partners including the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) (Victoria), the Government Architect (Victoria) and a range of architecture and design firms which specialise in school design. The five chief investigators come from the diverse fields of architecture, education, educational planning, urban design and sustainability. There are two PhD students; one who was a science teacher prior to accepting the ARC scholarship and the other, an architect.
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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.