Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemSketches of Thought: Inside the Black Box of AI(University of Melbourne- Melbourne School of Design, 2020)‘Sketches of Thought’ is a human-machine collaborative design system based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The first aim of ‘Sketches of Thought’ is illustrating an approach to AI-integration within the designer’s creative workflow. The system translates a hand-drawn architecture sketch into a photorealistic image that suggests a possible evolution of the design idea. The dialogue with the system happens through a visual interface whereby the designer communicates by sketching directly on a drawing monitor, while the system responds by showing the results of the image translation process on a second monitor. Interaction with the system does not end after a first iteration. Instead, the designer is encouraged to adjust the initial sketch – or even make new sketches – for several times to explore, with the aid of the machine’s feedback, different elaborations of an idea. This system does not require particular drawing skills, and therefore anyone can experience a proficient ‘exchange of ideas’ with the AI model. The second aim of ‘Sketches of Thought’ is helping the designer familiarise with AI technology. This is achieved by unveiling the black box of the AI model functioning, that is, through a representation of its internal processes. Moreover, as the AI model simulates some aspects of human cognition, a look inside the black box of AI also means visualising a simplified version of the human mental processes. Therefore, learning about AI is an opportunity for humans to learn more about themselves. The relevance of this virtual prototype is twofold. First, it promotes the view of AI as a means to augment rather than replace the human cognitive capabilities. Second, it challenges the current beliefs and prejudices on AI-technology by making the AI internal processes explicit through a visual representation.
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ItemAntipodean Architectures of Displacement(Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)The provisional occupations and ephemeral materialities of human displacement offer limited scope for a discipline focused on formalism and aesthetic value. Consequently, more temporary or abject human spatial experiences have been excluded from the architectural canon in the past. Treating the history of Australia, a settlement colony and postcolonial immigrant nation as a test site, Pieris applies the caveat of displacement to its record of architectural types. The chapter looks beyond the tented encampments of a progressive colonial outpost, built on white Australian immigration, to the repressed spaces that these in turn displace. By linking convict prisons, Aboriginal missions, wartime internment camps, postwar immigrant camps, and contemporary detention centres, the chapter proposes a taxonomy that might politicise the discipline.
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ItemSystems Engineering as Engineering Philosophy(Routledge, 2020-12-30)Studies into various aspects of systems engineering have emerged to broaden understanding of the discipline. However, consensus on the concept and purview of the field remains elusive. Viewing systems engineering as engineering philosophy can provide insight into these differing perspectives. This chapter discusses engineering philosophy and provides a brief historical overview of systems engineering. Some concepts in system engineering, such as system, complexity and emergence amongst others, are discussed. Systemic thinking as a precursory problem-solving strategy is highlighted. Thereafter, the various representations of systems engineering are used as examples of reflections within systems engineering, which can be characterised as engineering philosophy as distinguished from philosophy of engineering. Whilst the philosophy of engineering assesses engineering from the outside with the aid of concepts and methodologies of the discipline of philosophy, engineering philosophy involves philosophical thinking of engineering from within that sets a paradigm for understanding the world.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSetting the agenda for parking research in other cities(Elsevier, 2020-01-01)Most parking research to date has been conducted in Western countries. Parking: An International Perspective is different. Taking a planetary view of urbanism, this book examines parking policies in 12 cities on five continents: Auckland, Bangkok, Doha, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Nairobi, Rotterdam, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Shenzhen, Singapore, and Tokyo. Chapters are similarly structured, and contain detailed information about the current parking strategies and issues in these cities. The discussion of parking is placed in the context of transport, mobility, land-use, society, technology, and planning in each of these cities.
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ItemOpenness and innovative development of the service sectors in Melbourne’s CBD(Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2020)In the post-industrial world, the rise of ICT in global network scale and global value chain is rapidly forming which helps boost economic growth and accumulation of human capital with new technologies based industrial sectors. Within this context, inner Melbourne observed adjustment in labour structure and high value-added industrial development, which supports the sustainable growth of the urban economy, ensures and improves residents’ quality of life as well as visitors’ travel experience. This study concerns the interaction of division of labour and spatial structure for development of service economy upgrade of the service sector. It focuses on the monocentric city’s central business district, by applying partial analysis of characteristic, industrial change, policy and spatial features of Melbourne’s service sector. It aims to identify links between CBD transformation and globalising service economy to identify policy challenge. The comprehensive infrastructure in Melbourne’s CBD area and its effective use strongly support the rise of its service economy and industry transformation.
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ItemInternational Urban Development Leadership: Singapore, China and South Korea Compared(Routledge, 2020)By their nature, patterns and processes of urban development and governance tend to be localized to individual cities. Yet a market for the export and import of all things urban has long existed; “international urban development leadership” has been reinvigorated and expanded significantly in an era of unprecedented international economic integration. East Asian nations have emerged as some of the leading sources for the “export” urban expertise of various sorts. These nations are notable for the pragmatism and concreteness of their rapid urbanization and industrialization—features that greatly appeal to a wide variety of Global South nations continuing to aspire to greater levels of development. Yet, important differences exist among East Asian nations in both the methods of export and the urban expertise involved. This chapter compares and contrasts some of the emerging differences in international urban development leadership among these three key national players. As a city-state, Singapore might be said to enjoy unique and first mover advantages in international urban development leadership in which close regard has been paid to the opportunities for “money-making” from the Singapore story and growing its smart and sustainable urban solutions industry. China rapidly has emulated some of the direct investment approaches found in the Singapore case, albeit with the geopolitical largess of “money-giving”. South Korea’s more recent “going abroad” has been aligned more ambivalently with international overseas development aid efforts in which it nevertheless has hoped to magnify Government-to-Government (G2G) arrangements for its large and well-established private sector as “money-leveraging”.
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ItemDisaster risk reduction beyond command and control: mapping an Australian wildfire from a complex adaptive system’s perspective(Elsevier, 2020-09)This chapter examines the challenges and opportunities of employing a resilience-building perspective to disaster risk reduction in the context of wildfires. It maps the evolving concept of resilience and its incorporation by different disciplines and by government agencies through policy formulation and implementation in Victoria, Australia—one of the most wildfire-prone areas in the world. In addition to semistructured interviews and direct observation, data collection targeted reports, meeting minutes, legislation, news articles, newsletters, and institutional social media relating to the 2015 Wye River-Jamieson Track Fires. Data were analyzed following a Grounded Theory approach supported by NVivo 12. Findings point to the implementation of disaster risk reduction strategies that emphasize emergency management services and the resilience of local communities. These strategies incorporate natural systems from an anthropocentric ecosystem services perspective, there being room for greater collective understanding of the links between individual/site vulnerability/resilience and community/settlement vulnerability/resilience as part of the concept of shared responsibility.
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ItemMANILA, PHILIPPINES(Routledge, 2020-05-17)This chapter reports the results of a survey on sexual transit crime with college students in Manila, Philippines. The chapter introduces some basic information about the sample (316 students) and some empirical findings. Forty-three percent of respondents were sexually harassed, but 85% of those students who reported having been victimized did not report the incident. Fifty-one percent of female, 32% of male, and 15% of LGBTQI students reported having been a victim of sexual assault or harassment crime while on the bus, train, at the bus stop or station platform, or on their way to/from the transit stop. The most common precaution by women was “dressing in a certain way”, waiting for buses only at well-lit places, or avoiding bus stops and train stations where crime was prevalent. The chapter briefly summarizes the main findings from the case study and makes suggestions for research and practice.
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ItemCOVID-19 Community Response Strategy in Local Governments: Lessons and Considerations for Planning(Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2020-12-20)In the Philippines, local governments are at the frontline of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. While the national government has focused on building the capacities of the health system, mobilising national resources, and issuing policies, interpreting and implementing actual measures have been largely left at the hands of local government units. This chapter outlines key policy considerations for local government units (LGUs) - provinces, cities and municipalities – as they revisit their Covid-19 Community Response Strategy and draw up post-pandemic recovery plans.
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ItemDesigning Fair Compensation for the Compulsory Acquisition of Land: Case of Bengaluru, India(Asian Development Bank Institute, 2020)