Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemTowards a contraction and convergence target based on population life expectancies since 1960(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2013-10-01)
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ItemUsing simple agent-based modeling to inform and enhance neighborhood walkability(BMC, 2013-12-11)BACKGROUND: Pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods with proximal destinations and services encourage walking and decrease car dependence, thereby contributing to more active and healthier communities. Proximity to key destinations and services is an important aspect of the urban design decision making process, particularly in areas adopting a transit-oriented development (TOD) approach to urban planning, whereby densification occurs within walking distance of transit nodes. Modeling destination access within neighborhoods has been limited to circular catchment buffers or more sophisticated network-buffers generated using geoprocessing routines within geographical information systems (GIS). Both circular and network-buffer catchment methods are problematic. Circular catchment models do not account for street networks, thus do not allow exploratory 'what-if' scenario modeling; and network-buffering functionality typically exists within proprietary GIS software, which can be costly and requires a high level of expertise to operate. METHODS: This study sought to overcome these limitations by developing an open-source simple agent-based walkable catchment tool that can be used by researchers, urban designers, planners, and policy makers to test scenarios for improving neighborhood walkable catchments. A simplified version of an agent-based model was ported to a vector-based open source GIS web tool using data derived from the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). The tool was developed and tested with end-user stakeholder working group input. RESULTS: The resulting model has proven to be effective and flexible, allowing stakeholders to assess and optimize the walkability of neighborhood catchments around actual or potential nodes of interest (e.g., schools, public transport stops). Users can derive a range of metrics to compare different scenarios modeled. These include: catchment area versus circular buffer ratios; mean number of streets crossed; and modeling of different walking speeds and wait time at intersections. CONCLUSIONS: The tool has the capacity to influence planning and public health advocacy and practice, and by using open-access source software, it is available for use locally and internationally. There is also scope to extend this version of the tool from a simple to a complex model, which includes agents (i.e., simulated pedestrians) 'learning' and incorporating other environmental attributes that enhance walkability (e.g., residential density, mixed land use, traffic volume).
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ItemUrban Actions: An Alternative Pedagogical Approach to Urban Spaces(Australian Institute of Architects, 2013)It is easy to forget that human actors or agents, as individuals or collectives, are the ones best able to create situations, stories, and life in the city. Architecture, conventionally considered as a circumscribed aesthetic object, curtailed by issues of ownership and economic return, is the setting and space for human actions and encounters, love, grief, happiness and disappointment.
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ItemTeaching Informal Urbanism Simulating Informal Settlement Practices in the Design Studio(TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC, 2013-07-03)Informal settlements have become dominant forms and processes of urban development in many cities, yet the task of helping students engage with design issues in such contexts is fraught with difficulties of access, safety, and complexity. Drawing on detailed fieldwork, this article explores ways in which informal settlement formation can be taught in design studio through the use of games that simulate incremental practices of room-by-room accretion and prospects for transformation. The pedagogical goals are to effect a blurring of authorship and authority, to undermine top-down thinking, and to nourish forms of design imagination that unite process and form.
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ItemEvaluating learning environments for interprofessional care(Taylor & Francis, 2013-09-01)Many institutions have invested considerably in the provision of student facilities – lecture halls, tutorial rooms and classrooms – spaces we call collectively learning environments. In expending resources on such facilities, we have assumed that we have needed to create this range of spaces for such activities. However, how do we know we have invested wisely in support of learning for interprofessional care? In this article I review the literature to identify evidence in a range of fields, including health care, to consider the issues and difficulties of employing established approaches from practices of evidence-based design. Central in this article is the role of evidence in the assessment of learning environments. In particular, I argue that the evidence must include qualitative dimensions of the learning experience. To address the qualitative outcomes from education, with particular attention to the concerns of interprofessional education, a model is proposed to examine different levels of outcomes. By developing an interpretation of Kirkpatrick’s model, four levels are described for the effective evaluation of interprofessional learning environments.
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ItemAccreditation of Australian urban planners: building knowledge and competence(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2013)
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ItemUniversity curriculum development - stuck in a process and how to break free(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2013)
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ItemThe social values at risk from sea-level rise(ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, 2013-07)Analysis of the risks of sea-level rise favours conventionally measured metrics such as the area of land that may be subsumed, the numbers of properties at risk, and the capital values of assets at risk. Despite this, it is clear that there exist many less material but no less important values at risk from sea-level rise. This paper re-theorises these multifarious social values at risk from sea-level rise, by explaining their diverse nature, and grounding them in the everyday practices of people living in coastal places. It is informed by a review and analysis of research on social values from within the fields of social impact assessment, human geography, psychology, decision analysis, and climate change adaptation. From this we propose that it is the ‘lived values’ of coastal places that are most at risk from sea-level rise. We then offer a framework that groups these lived values into five types: those that are physiological in nature, and those that relate to issues of security, belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation. This framework of lived values at risk from sea-level rise can guide empirical research investigating the social impacts of sea-level rise, as well as the impacts of actions to adapt to sea-level rise. It also offers a basis for identifying the distribution of related social outcomes across populations exposed to sea-level rise or sea-level rise policies.