Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemAn investigation into an urban community value systems model( 1992)A standard practice of using factor scores to optimally classify communities into similar groups using one factor at a time would have been innefficient. A multivariate approach was then chosen to classify communities and iterative discriminant analysis followed to complete the classification. The algorithm used provided a measure of the probability of misclassifying initially grouped members into their most probable group. This statistical approach provided an efficient means for classifying members into their respective groups. The algorithm also yielded groups with interesting and stable supply or trade off surfaces. The qualities and characteristics of the supply surfaces were then able to be summarized using a two group discriminant analysis method. The actual nature of each one of their component slopes was analyzed by a dichotomous dummy dependent variable regression analysis. In the process of relating community values to attributes, the prices of land plus houses and the demand for them was found to indicate willingness to pay perceived net benefit or utility associated with each property. This provided a means of evaluating other related factors. Although the aggregated factor of accessibility was found to be conflicting and self compensatory it was found to be extremely important in their contribution to utility of a location, house or land. The other aggregated factors such as the environment, social and cost related factors however did contribute substantially to urban utility. The utility of a particular product needed for consumption by the community was then described in terms of the attributes or characteristics. A consumer demand approach was then used to relate communities trade-off surfaces to a single measure of residential land and property price. Multiple regression analysis confirmed that characteristics of land or building were separable and their individual contributions to demand can be evaluated at the transaction level of a particular property. The demand for each supply surface factor was also evaluated. The different levels of demand for characteristics reflected community values on substitution, trade off and indifference between characteristics. The supply and demand surfaces were seen to possess certain mathematical properties such as homogeniety and comparative statics. Such properties were therefore used to compare each of the different surfaces of communityvalue and to also provide insight into the behavioural mechanisms of each surface. The analysis of surfaces representing strategies for improving performance or the supply of desired characteristics in areas should carefully consider the nature of the areas's supply and demand surface structure. For example, the inner areas of Melbourne are relatively deprived in the supply of social characteristics but high in potential accessibility characteristics. This suggests that planning strategies should introduce or improve the social attributes of the area. Planners in inner areas should then integrate the positive element of accessibility into the overall community value structure. Other structures studied will also highlight and illustrate the usefulness of detailed analysis of community values. The studies attempt to relate the demand surface of a community to the supply surface of the area. The degree of fulfillment of demand is then a measure of the relative performance of a given area in relation to community needs and their values.
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ItemThe development of group self build housing in Victoria( 1992)This thesis involves the overall development and implementation of the Group Self Build Housing program for the Victorian State Government. It is an enabling strategy to help lower income people to achieve home-ownership by building their own homes. Public housing agencies everywhere, are now faced with the challenge of providing sufficient housing and other associated services to meet the needs of an ever increasing urban population. However, with limited resources, they are increasingly forced to act as "enablers" rather than direct providers. This is most prominent especially in the poorer developing countries where their housing problems are of a different magnitude. Housing agencies and governments have tried for many years to address their housing needs through various "more conventional" means. This was only capable of assisting a fraction of the people. Since then, a large proportion of them have turned to their own resources to house themselves. At times, they seemed capable of achieving this with the most minimal of governmental and social support. Such efforts by people to house themselves, have come to be known as "self help housing". Victoria's housing problems differ in scale from those of the poorer developing countries. Nevertheless, in a land where the national dream is that of "home-ownership", an increasing number of households are finding it more difficult to achieve this dream. Self help housing programs, through the generation of sweat equity can assist such households to acquire their home. The new program developed in this thesis, allows groups of families to work together on the construction of their homes. The effort that they contribute, will help lower the cost of their house and thus make home-ownership more affordable to them. Experience from existing self help housing schemes in Victoria and overseas provided the foundation for the development of this new program. A Victorian prototype program was then developed and tested over a two year period through a two staged pilot program where 52 households were assisted into home-ownership. Five pilot projects, each with between ten to twelve households were successfully completed and the lessons learnt from them were used to implement a mainstream Group Self Build housing program for the State Government. The success of this program was instrumental in increasing efficiencies to self help housing programs operating in Victoria and also offered another option for Victorians to achieve home-ownership..
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ItemModelling visual complexity of landscapes( 1990)In the past, development projects such as transmission lines and other facilities have been constructed to meet the criterion of lowest cost. However, increasing community concern for the environment has led to changes in this attitude. In particular, concern over the visual impact of facilities such as transmission lines has led to the development of techniques to enable planners to assess the effect of these projects on the visual quality of the landscape. This study commences with a discussion of the techniques which have been developed to quantify the visual environment. The development of a computer-based method of analysis of the visual effect of transmission lines, devised by Hadrian et al (1988), is examined in detail. The importance of visual complexity of a landscape as a measure of the ability of the landscape to absorb changes is also examined. In general the study focuses on the development of a method for determining the visual complexity of a landscape scene from biophysical characteristics of the landscape. Two landscape areas were selected for the study which included three major landscape types of interest to transmission line planners. The landscaped scenes to be studied in each of these areas were photographed and their complexities as perceived by observers were determined. A series of measurements of biophysical data for the scenes was made using two methods which involved taking physical measurements directly from the photographs. Measurements for each scene were also taken from a Geographic Information System databases of the areas. These various biophysical measurements were then correlated with the perceived complexity and a number of models for the perceived complexity were developed. The best correlations were found to be those which related perceived visual complexity to landscape features recorded in the Geographic Information System database.