Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableDataset for: Sky pixel detection in outdoor imagery using an adaptive algorithm and machine learning( 2019)The data presented in this article is related to the research article entitled ``Sky pixel detection in outdoor imagery using an adaptive algorithm and machine learning." \citep{Nice2019UC}. The dataset consists of a trained Inception V3 neural network model as well as the configuration files to train the neural network and run the inferences. The dataset also contains two sets of outdoor imagery (from Skyfinder and Google Street View) used to train the neural network and validate the sky pixel detection system in the linked article. The original images are included as well as rescaled imagery used to train the neural network, and sky masks used for validation.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableMelbourne Google Street View imagery dataset( 2018)The data presented in this article is related to the research article entitled "Urban design using generative adversarial networks: optimising citizen health and wellbeing" (Wijnands et al 2018). The data consists of Google Street View (Google Maps, 2017) imagery (4,473,991 images, 8-bit JPEG at 256x256 resolution) from four headings (0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees) at 1,118,534 locations in the greater metropolitan area of Melbourne, Australia. Locations were determined using the nodes of the vector lines in the PSMA Street Network dataset (PSMA 2018) and data was post-processed by removing indoor images. Please cite this paper if you use the dataset. The data is broken up into four archives, 000.zip, 090.zip, 180.zip, and 270.zip, containing the imagery from each compass heading. A csv file (contained in MelbourneStreetViewImagesData.zip) provides a mapping between the filenames, location names, direction, latitude, and longitude.
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ItemPlace and Parametricism(Real/Material/Ethereal: The 2nd Annual Design Research Conference, 2019)This project contributes to a broad range of design fields, especially architecture. The overarching project, also called Place and Parametricism, looks at qualitative and quantitative ways to represent and manage places. Within this theme, the focus of this exhibition is on the analysis of digitally held information and on design-research methods that can advance such research. The project: 1) develops an account of place that is useful in concrete design situations; 2) conducts a systematic examination of computational approaches to place; 3) creates and tests computational design tools that can advance place-oriented design; and 4) demonstrates the effectiveness of this toolkit. The exhibition specifically focuses on the demonstration of the methods and tools. In response to these aims, the project has conducted a range of design experiments. The investigators used these outputs for theory construction in collaborative multidisciplinary settings. The project has produced multiple outputs including contributions to theoretical understanding and practical design approaches. It produced novel teaching and learning strategies, demonstrated how computing can be used to unify multidisciplinary knowledge on place and disseminated the toolkit within relevant communities of practice. This recorded work has been selected for the exhibition within the Real/Material/Ethereal: The 2nd Annual Design Research Conference in 2019, the leading disciplinary research forum in Australia. The work is supported by the ARD DP170104010 grant and co-created with leaders in their fields. The publications are forthcoming, and the team are in an active discussion with the curators at the National Gallery of Victoria where this work will form a part of a major exhibition. The themes presented in the exhibition have been discussed in peer-reviewed publication, presented at conferences, and won awards for the excellence in research.
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ItemStreetlife Rhythms(Routledge, 2017)Lefebvre's call for a 'rhythmanalysis' of the city has long inspired urban thinking, but like most texts on space it lacks any specific spatiality. This chapter is an empirical approach to urban rhythms through a comparative study of nine selected street intersections in London, New York and Melbourne. It explores the links between the daily and weekly rhythms of pedestrian flows and the detailed morphology and functional mix of the urban context. Such mapping is a means of revealing the synergies between morphology and streetlife that produce emergent and place specific polyrhythms.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableCan't touch this(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2019-05-10)Australia’s laid-back, sun-drenched beach lifestyle has been a celebrated and prominent part of its official popular culture for nigh on a century, and the images and motifs associated with this culture have become hallmarks of the country’s collective identity. Though these representations tend towards stereotype, for many Australians the idea of a summer holiday at the beach is one that is intensely personal and romanticised – its image is not at all urbanised. As Douglas Booth observed, for Australians the beach has become a ‘sanctuary at which to abandon cares – a place to let down one’s hair, remove one’s clothes […] a paradise where one could laze in peace, free from guilt, drifting between the hot sand and the warm sea, and seek romance’.1 Beach holidays became popular in the interwar years of the twentieth century, but the most intense burst of activity – both in touristic promotion and in the development of tourism infrastructure – accompanied the postwar economic boom, when family incomes were able to meet the cost of a car and, increasingly, a cheap block of land by the beach upon which a holiday home could be erected with thrift and haste. In subtropical southeast Queensland, the postwar beach holiday became the hallmark of the state’s burgeoning tourism industry; the state’s southeast coastline in particular benefiting from its warm climate and proximity to the capital, Brisbane. It was here – along the evocatively named Gold Coast (to Brisbane’s south) and Sunshine Coast (to its north) [1] – that many families experienced their first taste of what is now widely celebrated as the beach lifestyle.
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ItemAll that glitters is not gold: the effect of mining activities and royalties on the built environment of remote North East Arnhem Land(Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), 2016)This paper explores the effects of mining activities and royalties on the Northern Territory’s remote northeast Arnhem Land region, including the mining town of Nhulunbuy (with a 93.8% non-Indigenous population) and surrounding Indigenous communities, and shows that the associated architectures do not provide long-term benefit to local people. In 2014, Rio Tinto Alcan closed their alumina refinery in Nhulunbuy. This resulted in the redundancy or redeployment of 1100 workers and a significant reduction in the town’s 4000 strong population. The closure of the refinery calls into question the role of mining settlements and their surrounding regions beyond the life of a mine. Using the case study of northeast Arnhem Land, the paper describes the genesis of the Nhulunbuy Township in the late 1960s and how it precipitated the Indigenous land rights movement in the Northern Territory and the repatriation to homelands throughout the region. The paper analyses the architecture of Nhulunbuy, whose public, commercial and residential buildings were almost exclusively designed and built by the mining company, in comparison to the architectures that emerged through mining royalty funds distributed to traditional land owner groups such as the Gumatj and Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporations, the Yirrkala Dhanbul Association and the Arnhem Land Trust. It historicises and critiques their respective contextual response to environmental, social and adaptive economic factors. Nhulunbuy has grown to become a significant resource centre for the northeast Arnhem Land region providing services to surrounding Indigenous communities and homelands. Thus the paper turns to a discussion of the recent history of the alumina refinery closure and the subsequent ramifications for the region’s architecture, both in the mining town and for mining royalty funded structures throughout the region. With the sudden closure of other mines throughout remote Australia, such as the Alinta coal mine at Leigh Creek, South Australia, which also acts as a service centre to the nearby Iga Warta Indigenous community, this paper is both a timely and relevant contribution.
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ItemReconsidering the Safety in Numbers Effect for Vulnerable Road Users: An Application of Agent-Based Modeling(Taylor and Francis Group, 2015)OBJECTIVE: Increasing levels of active transport provide benefits in relation to chronic disease and emissions reduction but may be associated with an increased risk of road trauma. The safety in numbers (SiN) effect is often regarded as a solution to this issue; however, the mechanisms underlying its influence are largely unknown. We aimed to (1) replicate the SiN effect within a simple, simulated environment and (2) vary bicycle density within the environment to better understand the circumstances under which SiN applies. METHODS: Using an agent-based modeling approach, we constructed a virtual transport system that increased the number of bicycles from 9% to 35% of total vehicles over a period of 1,000 time units while holding the number of cars in the system constant. We then repeated this experiment under conditions of progressively decreasing bicycle density. RESULTS: We demonstrated that the SiN effect can be reproduced in a virtual environment, closely approximating the exponential relationships between cycling numbers and the relative risk of collision as shown in observational studies. The association, however, was highly contingent upon bicycle density. The relative risk of collisions between cars and bicycles with increasing bicycle numbers showed an association that is progressively linear at decreasing levels of density. CONCLUSIONS: Agent-based modeling may provide a useful tool for understanding the mechanisms underpinning the relationships previously observed between volume and risk under the assumptions of SiN. The SiN effect may apply only under circumstances in which bicycle density also increases over time. Additional mechanisms underpinning the SiN effect, independent of behavioral adjustment by drivers, are explored.
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ItemThe Adaptation of Tertiary Admissions Practices to Growth and Diversity(La Trobe University, 2016)The expansion of higher education places adaptive pressure on institutional and policy frameworks that were originally designed at times of lower levels of participation. This adaptive pressure is evident in changes to admission and selection practices, and has become more acute with the introduction of demand driven funding for undergraduate Commonwealth supported places. Universities seeking to optimise their market share in line with their values and strategic objectives are increasingly utilising direct admissions rather than historically dominant state centralised admissions processes. Direct entry pathways are also being utilised by some institutions as a means of increasing their share of disadvantaged students in particular. Both centralised and direct admissions pathways are also drawing on contextual data – such as the geo-demographic background of the applicant, school attended, perceived academic potential, or volunteer and community service – in the assessment process (Harvey 2014). The growth and complexity of university admissions practices raises two key questions. First, what impact is rising complexity in admissions practices having on student decision-making, with particular emphasis on students from disadvantaged backgrounds? And, second, how are universities and state-based tertiary admissions centres (TACs) responding to the challenges associated with rising student participation, diversity and mobility, as well as complexity in admissions practice?
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEquity at and beyond the boundary of Australian universities(La Trobe University, 2019)This report investigates the social demography, learning outcomes and educational experiences of students enrolled in two distinct modes of higher education delivery in Australia — university programs delivered through third party arrangements, and higher education courses delivered by non-university higher education institutions (NUHEIs). In short, the research examines equity at and beyond the boundary of Australian universities. University courses delivered through third party arrangements—particularly those that involve subcontracting and franchising of program delivery—are not provided directly by public universities, and can therefore be considered as residing at the boundary of the public university. Programs delivered by NUHEIs are positioned definitively beyond the boundary of the Australian public university. Our research examines the equity group participation, retention and success rates—as well as the educational experiences—of students within these two domains of delivery. While maintaining a particular focus on students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, we analyse and present data on five of the six nationally recognised equity groups within higher education, including Indigenous students, students with a disability, and students from low SES, regional and non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB).
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ItemStructural Design with Reclaimed Materials: an Elastic Gridshell out of Skis(International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS), 2017)This paper presents the design and construction of a 36m2 gridshell, the rigidity of which is achieved through the bending of an initially flat grid of 210 reclaimed skis. The generated waste for its production is near zero as it is mostly built from discarded material. Its construction process is such that it can be disassembled and reassembled multiple times without scaffolding and by means of traditional tools only. After a brief introduction on the need for reducing embodied carbon and waste in structures through reuse, the paper sets up the constraints that have driven the definition of the pavilion, the main one being the extension of the lifetime of high-performance sport equipment by reclaiming their intrinsic mechanical properties. The paper then details the encountered unusual aspects in the design process and how they have been overcome – i.e., sporadic material supply, categorization of mechanical properties, physical alteration of these properties, and uncertainties in the numerical modelling of both the structural analysis and the construction process. Eventually, we conclude that reclaimed skis as a material have the potential to be as good as conventional timber when designing elastic gridshells. A series of future directions for this emerging field of research are also laid out.