Architecture, Building and Planning - Research Publications
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ItemThe Impact of Work Desk Shapes on the Utilisation of an Activity-Based-Working Environment(MDPI AG, 2024)The design of Activity-Based Working (ABW) environments embraces workers’ continuous mobility enabled by technology and the mindset of seeking work zones that best support the task at hand. This paper focuses on aspects of workspace selection within a facility designed to support ABW, focusing on the overall occupancy dynamics, temporal context, and information capturing less-explored details of the physical environment. This study analyses the active use of a workspace in relation to work desk shapes, rectangular and trapezial. Drawing from a longitudinal dataset spanning 12 months from an ABW facility, capturing the active workstation usage of 964 occupants through individual computer logins, this study employs descriptive statistics to analyse the active use of workspace relative to total work hours over the year. Inferential statistical techniques are utilised to compare active use measurements between and within specific workspace areas, revealing significant differences and highlighting the importance of temporal and spatial contexts in workspace utilisation patterns. The presented results demonstrate both tendencies and statistically significant differences, confirming the relevance of the studied variables in examining workspace utilisation. The results show significant usage variations throughout the day across different zones of the observed workspace, with peak activity between 11:00 and 13:00 h for both work desk shapes. This study’s insights are relevant to improving the utilisation of facilities designed for ABW and contribute to a longstanding interest in designing and arranging workplaces to better fit the people who use them.
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePublic support for proposed government policies to optimise the social benefits of autonomous vehicles(ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2024-04)
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ItemA comparison of content from across contemporary Australian population health surveys(Wiley, 2024-06)Objective: Associations between place and population health are of interest to researchers and policymakers. The objective of this paper is to explore, summarise and compare content across contemporary Australian geo-referenced population health survey data sets. Methods: A search for recent (2015 or later) population health surveys from within Australia containing geographic information from participants was conducted. Survey response frames were analysed and categorised based on demographic, risk factor and disease-related characteristics. Analysis using interactive Sankey diagrams shows the extent of content overlap and differences between population health surveys in Australia. Results: Thirteen Australian geo-referenced population health survey data sets were identified. Information captured across surveys was inconsistent as was the spatial granularity of respondent information. Health and demographic features most frequently captured were symptoms, signs and clinical findings from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems version 11, employment, housing, income, self-rated health and risk factors, including alcohol consumption, diet, medical treatments, physical activity and weight-related questions. Sankey diagrams were deployed online for use by public health researchers. Conclusions: Identifying the relationship between place and health in Australia is made more difficult by inconsistencies in information collected across surveys deployed in different regions in Australia. Implications for Public Health: Public health research investigating place and health involves a vast and inconsistent patchwork of information within and across states, which may impact broad-scale research questions. The tools developed here assist public health researchers to identify surveys suitable for their research queries related to place and health.
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ItemArchitectural Neuroimmunology: A Pilot Study Examining the Impact of Biophilic Architectural Design on Neuroinflammation(MDPI AG, 2024)Recent research in architectural neuroscience has found that visual exposure to biophilic design may help reduce occupant physiological stress responses. However, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the complex ways in which biophilic design impacts on building occupant neurophysiology. The relationship between visual exposure to biophilic design and neurophysiological responses such as neuroinflammation have yet to be directly investigated. This paper examines the results of a pilot study that was established to investigate the relationship between visual exposure to biophilic design and neuroinflammation, as mediated by physiological stress responses. The pilot study utilised a 32-channel quantitative electroencephalograph (qEEG) to assess the relative changes in neuroinflammatory markers (relative alpha and relative delta power band activity) of 10 participants while they were exposed to 2D digital images of buildings that visually expressed varying degrees of biophilic design. Participants exhibited a decrease in relative delta power when exposed to higher levels of biophilic design. No statistically significant changes in relative alpha power were observed. These findings suggest that exposure to buildings with higher degrees of biophilia may result in decreased neuroinflammatory activity. In doing so, this research works to further develop our understanding of the complex ways in which the built environment impacts on occupant neuroinflammation and physiological stress.
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ItemReevaluating the Land Use Impact of a Li-ion Battery Related Mining Project: A Case Study of Greenbushes Mine(Elsevier BV, 2024)The mining industry plays a pivotal role in the global transition towards clean energy, driven by the escalating demand for critical elements like lithium. However, this growth raises profound environmental concerns, particularly regarding land use, global warming potential, water consumption, acidification, eutrophication, and toxicity. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has historically relied on approximations and theoretical methods, resulting in systematic underestimations of these impacts. This study begins to address part of this discrepancy by leveraging remote sensing technologies to gather empirical evidence. Focusing on the Greenbushes mining site in Australia, a comprehensive investigation was conducted to quantitatively evaluate the direct land use impact from satellite imagery over the life of the project. Comparative analyses were performed against various mid-point Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. The findings unequivocally reveal a substantial under-reporting of the land use impact, highlighting the critical need for more accurate assessments in the context of mining activities. This research underscores the importance of empirical data in refining our understanding of the environmental footprint associated with mining operations, particularly in the critical context of clean energy transition. The study emphasises the imperative to reevaluate and adjust existing approaches to accurately account for the full scope of environmental impacts associated with mining operations.
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ItemAn exploration of public perceptions of place character in the Pathuriaghata neighborhood of Kolkata, India(AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), 2023)People living in one location for a considerable period of time often form what has been termed ‘place attachments’ to those locations and their associated features. In historic cities continuously inhabited by generations of people, long-time residents interact with the landscape settings, associating meanings, uses, and values to different landscape features to form person-place bonds, such that these features in the landscape become integral to their own sense of personal identity― Proshanky has termed this as ‘person-place identity’ since it conveys the person’s own aspect of individual identity that gets mediated by the physical environment and the meanings and values associated with particular places and associated features to which they have become attached. In this way certain features in the landscape can serve as perceptual cues that remind residents of where they belong and who they are and can become ingrained as their ‘place-memory’. As early as 1925 it was suggested by Maurice Halbwachs that landscape features in a place are not remembered in isolation, but together as ‘collective memory’ of a landscape setting. Groups of people residing in one place for long periods of time can share similar memories and person-place bonds that give rise to ‘cultural memories’ allowing the ‘concretion of identity’ of a place to occur. This is experienced as the distinctive ‘feel’ or ‘character’ of a place as expressed by its landscape and associated place features, people, history, and ways of life. In the case of any historic city, historical urban patinas collage together conveying place identity through cultural memory that is often of heritage value and an important resource for sustaining good quality of life. Natural and cultural (tangible and intangible) heritages support the livability of residents through providing sustainable local economies, traditional livelihoods, use of local resources in traditional arts and crafts, and environment-friendly methods of construction. According to the ICOMOS Burra Charter 1999 “places of cultural significance enrich people’s lives, often providing a deep and inspirational sense of connection to community and landscape, to the past and to lived experiences”; this charter further suggests that changes to such places should entail “as little as possible so that its cultural significance is retained.”
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ItemExploring residents' definition and use of neighbourhood leftover spaces in Colombo, Sri Lanka(Amps (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), 2023)Urban leftover spaces are the residual spaces or cracks in cities that form due to rapid urban development. "urban voids" These types of spaces have also been referred to as "lost spaces", "loose spaces", They are typically vacant, neglected, or underutilized spaces within highly urbanized areas and can be permanent or temporary. They are often considered urban spaces awaiting future use. and "informal urban green spaces". These types of spaces have been studied for over five decades, with much of that research aimed at understanding their characteristics and potential uses in urban environments. The specific socio-economic and environmental context in which the spaces occur often influences the results. While these spaces occur at different urban scales and land use zones, their presence at the neighbourhood level has often been overlooked. Furthermore, although interest in these spaces has dramatically increased in recent years, their specific uses and definitions are often unclear due to the various ways they are interpreted and perceived.
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ItemImpacts of irrigation scheduling on urban green space cooling(Elsevier, 2024-08)The increasing heat stress in cities due to climate change and urbanisation can prevent people from using urban green spaces. Irrigating vegetation is a promising strategy to cool urban green spaces in summer. Irrigation scheduling, such as daytime vs night-time irrigation and the frequency of irrigation in a day, may influence the cooling benefit of irrigation. This study aimed to investigate whether irrigation scheduling can be optimised to increase the cooling benefit and determine how the cooling benefit changes with weather conditions. A field experiment with twelve identical turfgrass plots (three replicates × four irrigation treatments) was set up to measure the afternoon cooling benefits of irrigation. The four treatments included: no irrigation, single night-time irrigation (4 mm d–1), single daytime irrigation (4 mm d–1) and multiple daytime irrigation (4 x 1 mm d–1). The cooling benefit was defined as the air temperature difference measured at 1.1 m above the turfgrass between the irrigated and unirrigated treatments (air temperature sensor accuracy ± 0.2 °C). The afternoon (12:00–15:59) mean cooling benefit of multiple daytime irrigation (–0.9 °C) which was significantly stronger than that of single night-time irrigation (–0.6 °C) and single daytime irrigation (–0.5 °C). Regardless of irrigation scheduling, the afternoon mean cooling benefits of irrigation were greater for days when background air temperature, vapour pressure deficit and incoming shortwave radiation were greater. The findings suggested that irrigation scheduling can be optimised to increase the cooling benefit of urban green space irrigation without increasing overall water use.
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ItemCommunity-perceptions of place-character and associated meanings in the context of a contemporary cultural landscape: the case of the historic neighbourhood of Pathuriaghata in Kolkata, India(AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), 2023)In 1925, Carl Sauer defined a cultural landscape as the “union of physical and cultural elements of the landscape” wherein “cultures … grow with original vigor out of the lap of a maternal natural landscape, to which each is bound in the whole course of its existence.” In 1992, for the first time, UNESCO considered cultural landscapes as holding Outstanding Universal Values (OUV) based on heritage values and promoted the idea of the necessity of protecting such landscapes. Cultural landscapes are shaped through the interaction between humans and the natural geography of places wherein different features in these settings become associated with human activities, memories, and histories over time, thereby accruing meanings and values. Such human-nature interactions contribute to specific settings' place identities. Place identity represents that part of people’s self-identity is defined by elements within their everyday environment to which they are affiliated. Communities living in a particular cultural landscape for a considerable period often share similar perceptions with others inhabiting the same landscape setting. They form emotional bonds, or place attachments, with key features in the landscape that others can also share in the same environment. As places and their societies evolve, new meanings and values concerning the landscape emerge, adding new features to urban landscapes, often transforming valuable heritage settings to ones of global uniformity devoid of deep meanings. Over time, important features in the landscape develop patinas and coexist as collective memories that convey meanings and values from different periods referred to this as the collective historic urban fabric composing a ‘collage city’, suggesting that places with distinctive identities can transform over time the image of a city, within cultural landscapes. Rowe and Koetter over generations, to attain heritage value for society. thereby defining ‘cultural identities’ Identifying the tangible and intangible cultural and heritage value associated with landscape features can provide clues as to what is most important to be conserved to maintain the distinctive character of the place into the future and, conversely, what might be able to be sacrificed for newer development.