Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableDigital Material Practice: the Agency of Making( 2019)Advanced digital fabrication has coupled virtual design modelling and material prototyping in new ways. This has permeated the discourse of architectural teaching, research and practice. A complicated relationship between the production of architecture and digital technology emerges especially when examined through the medium of making. Making is typically seen as an activity that is a means to an end: to achieve a built outcome. I have researched whether the activity of making can be a generative design process in its own right; a knowledge-generating activity. In this dissertation, I reconsider the relationship between contemporary tectonic culture and digital fabrication in what I call a `digital material practice'. This is a model of practice that employs the act of making and digital fabrication as drivers for its generative design process. The fabrication workflow, prototypes and tools emerge as critical agents. These agents have an agentive capacity to deliver what I call affordances for design. Affordances produce emergent aesthetic values that contribute to the formulation and negotiate architectural design intentions through a continuous feedback process. These values are uncovered during and after the act of making. Through reflective practice and autoethnography research methodology, the research is investigated through my design practice: LLDS. The practice embraces design and fabrication through deploying design strategies rooted in the making process, namely procedural logic, iterative prototyping and material interfaces. Interviews with contemporary craft practitioners allowed me to understand the role of tools and their associated agency for design. When applied to architectural practice, such agency challenges the traditional hierarchy of design intention to the outcome, with the potential to create novel aesthetics. This has a profound impact on my understanding of the making activity in design practice and architectural education. My contribution to knowledge in this dissertation lies in extending the practice of continuous designing in architecture through the agency of making. I have investigated this through theory and through practice to demonstrate how affordances for design engendered through making enable the architect to formulate, negotiate and alter design intentions also through making. The implication of digital material practice demands a new engagement with the way we work with prototypes. The method produces new intricacy in architectural detailing and aesthetics.
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ItemIndustry adaption to NatHERs 6 star energy regulations and energy performance disclosure models for housing( 2016)This thesis examines adoption of the current 6 star standard in Australia and principally South Australia one of the first states to adopt the new standard and from which most data sets were drawn. It is relatively recently that minimum energy performance standards were introduced for Australian housing, first in 2003 and then with stringency increases in 2006 (5 star) and then in 2010/11(6 star) the current standard mandated for action under a Council of Australian Governments Agreement (COAG) signed earlier in 2009. From the literature review it was found that whilst the science of energy and building shell physics is a mature field and the human behaviours around energy use for thermal comfort are well researched a gap has existed in relation to understanding the effectiveness of the current regulations. Using real world energy monitoring data for houses across a wide spread of star band ratings and undertaking thermal simulations consistent with the rating scheme the effectiveness of the NatHERs regulatory approach to the reduction of energy use was demonstrated. The cost impacts of moving to a 6 star standard are modelled and findings presented from a study of representative housing types. The findings show a modest capital cost increase of 1- 2% to reach the new standard measures from the previous less stringent 5 star standard. A qualitative survey of home builders around the industry adoption of 6 star was undertaken. Results shows some differences of adaptive measures and cost considerations but significantly a pattern of successful transition to the new standard in general. Older housing stock (pre 2003) suffers the legacy of lack of energy standards and these existing Australian homes are sold or rented with little or no measure of energy performance disclosure. This thesis has a goal of examining various models for residential energy performance disclosure finding that energy labelling or certification based on the modelled thermal performance of the building stock is potentially a far superior way of gauging energy efficiency, being more useful than using billed consumption data due to the wide variation in occupancy behaviours. The studies in this thesis propose that human behaviour becomes a more significant factor in milder climates such as in South Australia, whereas the building envelope is more important in harsher climates. A separate study and analysis has been undertaken and presented on the cost of retrofitting older South Australian homes which show a pathway to improve homes to the current 6 star standard and even greater efficiency with a logical application of building shell improvements and building sealing. Given the next opportunity to implement significant housing energy regulation change will not occur until 2019 under the 3 year cycle of building code review and mandated existing housing disclosure is uncertain the housing disclosure energy studies, 6 star implementation and industry and energy framework analysis presented in this thesis informs the national debate on future building energy standards and enhances knowledge of the role that residential buildings may play in addressing climate change and energy demand challenges.
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ItemTowards a comprehensive energy assessment of residential buildings. A multi-scale life cycle energy analysis framework( 2013)Buildings are directly responsible for 40% of the final energy consumption in most developed economies and for much more if indirect requirements are considered. This results in huge impacts which affect the environmental balance of our planet. However, most current building energy assessments focus solely on operational energy overlooking other energy consumptions such as embodied and transport energy. Embodied energy comprises the energy requirements for building materials production, construction and replacement. Transport energy represents the amount of energy required for the mobility of building users. Decisions based on partial assessments might result in an increased energy demand during other life cycle stages or at different scales of the built environment. Recent studies have shown that embodied and transport energy demands often account for more than half of the total lifecycle energy demand of residential buildings. Current assessment tools and policies therefore overlook more than 50% of the life cycle energy consumption. This thesis presents a comprehensive life cycle energy analysis framework for residential buildings. This framework takes into account energy requirements at the building scale, i.e. the embodied and operational energy demands, and at the city scale, i.e. the embodied energy of nearby infrastructures and the transport energy of its users. This framework is implemented through the development, verification and validation of an advanced software tool which allows the rapid analysis of the life cycle energy demand of residential buildings and districts. Two case studies, located in Brussels, Belgium and Melbourne, Australia, are used to investigate the potential of the developed framework. Results show that each of the embodied, operational and transport energy requirements represent a significant share of the total energy requirements and associated greenhouse gas emissions of a residential building, over its useful life. All the scales of the built environment and the different life cycle stages should therefore be taken into consideration in order to reduce energy use in the built environment. Also, results have demonstrated that current building energy efficiency regulations may paradoxically lead to an increase in energy use. The use of the developed tool will allow building designers, town planners and policy makers to reduce the energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions of residential buildings by selecting measures that result in overall savings. This will ultimately contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the built environment.
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ItemDefining the density debate: Social representations of urban consolidation in Brisbane( 2017)This thesis is concerned with understanding the social representations that impact on how stakeholders understand, value and act in relation to urban consolidation, a planning policy designed to increase the density of housing in existing urban areas. The study revealed that urban consolidation is a complex topic that involves associated issues of land use conflict, regional population management, investment and property, home and housing affordability, neighbourhood change and urban renewal. Urban consolidation is a political topic subject to vested interests and often doesn't achieve the positive outcomes for which it is promoted in policy documents