Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemResearching place history, memory and contested identities in urban design(Taylor & Francis, 2023-08-24)Places engender (carry, protect) memory; memory, in turn, determines identity, variously of the individual, the community and the nation. In the broadest sense, the task of urban design research is to identify and understand the carriers of memory in places. However, as memory is socially produced, urban design is routinely mobilised to manipulate memory, most notably in the (re)construction of community or national identity, especially in the interests of the politically hegemonic. In that sense, the task of urban design research is to ask the question: How is this place being manipulated to serve the production of certain memories (and, presumably, the suppression of others), and what competing interests and underlying values are involved? The task might be seen, methodologically, as located in the interstices of ethnography and architectural critique; in terms of methods, however, it will most readily be approached via a critical reading of political history.
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ItemInformality as process and the social construction of slums: Southeast Asian cases(Oxford University Press, 2023)Crucially in Southeast Asian cities, the production of alleged “slums” relates to rural-to-urban migration (rural decline, the allure of the cities), also to political and economic ight (Burmese and Khmer in Bangkok, for instance), less so to urban displacement (the de-industrialization prevalent in the West). However, in more recent times these processes intersect with counter-forces of middleclass gentrication, dreams of urban beautication, and fears of rural-to-urban invasion. There are simultaneously waves of the informal and the formal seen as process in urban space, accounting for entirely new imaginings of slums. The chapter uses a series of case studies to illustrate these processes: in Thailand, Sukhumvit and the Khlong Toei Slums of Bangkok, the cannal communities in Bangkok’s northern Bangkhen district, and conicts of the Chao Phraya riverbanks; in Indonesia, the kampung of Jakarta and the Kampung Improvement Programs of Surabaya; and in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur’s Kampung Baru.
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ItemBANGKOK: Creative disorder and the military imagination(Routledge, 2023-01-01)This chapter addresses the disconnect between urban life and the real urban situation, and an ideologically informed imagining of what these things should be in Bangkok. To the conservative, elitist imagination, the city's urban life—its tourist appeal—presents as disorder, showing Thailand ‘in a bad light’, provoking the desire for a regime of discipline and ‘good order’, duly prosecuted by a military junta following a 2014 coup. Bangkok's streets have also long presented a different sort of chaos, in polluting gridlock where any resolution has been plagued by rivalries between competing politico-bureaucratic fractions, also duly confronted by the post-2014 junta. The streets and public places of Bangkok have long presented yet a further level of disorder that challenges the military mind, as these are the stage on which the theatre of national life plays out, in rallies, protests, uprisings, coups, and massacres. At a tactical level this has commonly manifested as royalist-elitist-military versus students. Thailand is almost completely dependent on imported fossil fuels, while its limited hydro is also mostly imported; hence addressing the city's inefficiencies through a metro and other electrification is fraught. Finally, the city is flood prone, facing existential catastrophe from global warming. So, is Bangkok sustainable?.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableBuilding on Indigenous homelands in Arnhem Land since the 1980s: Harnessing appropriate technology and partnerships as a new procurement vernacular(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023-11-16)Design and the Vernacular explores the intersection between vernacular architecture, local cultures, and modernity and globalization, focussing on the vast and diverse global region of Australasia and Oceania.
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ItemDecolonizing leisurescapes: Sri Lanka's aesthetically integrated resort designs(Taylor and Francis, 2022-07-29)This essay examines the cultural reinvention and validation of exclusive hotel- and particularly beach-side resort architectures in Sri Lanka during the late 20th century, following the establishment, during the 1960s, of tourism as a national industry catering to foreign visitors from Western nations. It uses a critical architectural history of “leisurescapes” that are spatially and programmatically shaped by economic and political conflicts to highlight trenchant social discrimination within the decades-long decolonizing process. The industry has survived initial economic instability, followed by 26 years of civil conflict to enter an era of economic liberalization as convenors of cultural production for local elites, expatriates, and international tourists. Meanwhile, impoverishment caused by the protracted conflict makes ordinary Lankans more reliant on invasive tourism economies. This essay historicizes the industry’s achievements examining the agency it has afforded architects, arguing that resort architectures’ aesthetic integration conceals social disparities.
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ItemMarket Borrowing by Small and Medium-sized Urban Local Bodies Using a Pooled Fund Mechanism for Urban Infrastructure in India(Asian Development Bank Institute, 2023)This chapter reviews the applicability of a pooled financing mechanism to sanitation projects in smaller and medium sized cities including a review of cases of pooled financing initiatives in the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to distill lessons from these initiatives.
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ItemPlanning and maintaining nature-based solutions: lessons for foresight and sustainable care from Berlin, Jakarta, Melbourne, and Santiago de Chile(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023-08-15)Nature-based solutions in their most basic and accessible form as public green spaces and urban trees are often in dire condition, exacerbated by the effects of climate change. Lack of maintenance further reduces the ability to provide ecosystem services and hinders long-term sustainability. Examples from four cities in Australia, Asia, Europe, and Latin America are used to discuss the importance of strategic planning for implementing nature-based solutions as well as proper maintenance. We suggest (1) specific legal and political frameworks, (2) foresight in planning stages, (3) optimized provision of benefits by considering scale, design, and distribution, (4) prioritization of nature-based solutions with both high social and ecological benefits, (5) careful retrofitting of existing green spaces, (6) balanced ratio of resource input and benefits, (7) sustained commitment for long-term care, and (8) enhanced public participation.
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ItemA Wide Open Road(Oro Editions, 2023-07-31)Most celebrated designers and academics have a good origin story: graduating from an esteemed design school or scoring a breakthrough moment working in a major designer’s office. Richard’s career has no such story—a rarity in the design disciplines, where networks and affiliations underpin much individual success. Shaped by a deep interest in design and a dose of serendipity, his career has taken him from Sydney to Berlin, to Perth, and to Philadelphia, with many side trips along the way.
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePolicy for Schools as Community Hubs: Insights Into a Fragmented Environment(Springer Nature Singapore, 2023)Abstract Schools as community hubs are recognised for their significant contributions to communities. Yet, these projects must negotiate complex and often fragmented policy environments that cross government jurisdictions and disciplines to achieve stakeholder support, funding, and operate over the longer-term to deliver benefits to communities. Policy research in this area is scarce. This chapter discusses policy for schools as community hubs through the lenses of Bacchi and Goodwin’s ‘problem representation’ approach and ideas about performative and locally enacted policy. This theoretical framework is applied to Yuille Park Community College, in Victoria, Australia, as an interpretive policy analysis to reveal insights into the policy environment that was negotiated to develop this community-facing school. Now proclaimed as a ‘whole of life’ community centre, Yuille Park relied on the skill and continuity of key actors who—with little formal policy direction—coordinated solutions across service provision, urban planning, and facility design to make a difference to a struggling community, generating neighbourhood uplift and helping to overcome entrenched intergenerational challenges.