Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 7 of 7
-
ItemTransformation of Jalan Malioboro, Yogyakarta : the morphology and dynamics of a Javanese street( 2001)Streets are an important element of urban form and function. For their future development it is essential to understand the processes of transformation they have undergone in the past. This thesis is specifically concerned with Jalan Malioboro, the principal street of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which has had many historic roles and has undergone many transformations since its establishment in 1756. The various plans and regulations put forward in the past for the development of this street have proved to be inadequate to manage its invaluable but fragile local character. The aim of this research project is to understand and define the prevailing processes and forces that have brought about the transformation of Jalan Malioboro's streetscape since its establishment up to the present. Two approaches were used: morphological analysis for the physical-spatial characteristics of the streetscape through graphical representations and their qualitative descriptions; and socio-cultural analysis of the functions, meanings and activities taking place on the street, also done descriptively and qualitatively. A retrospective method was applied to reveal the processes that had occurred in the past and a prospective method to analyse the current condition and envisage its prospects. The overall process of transformation shows both continuities and changes of both the morphology and functions and meanings of Jalan Malioboro. The only true continuity is that of the very original axis. Everything else was and is in constant flux depending upon the contemporary forces. Although Jalan Malioboro forms a prominent linear space that provides a vista from Kraton to Tugu as part of a cosmological axis, it has grown spontaneously and incrementally. Socioculturally, the most striking transformation has been from its royal ceremonial function to its current predominant commercial function. The processes of transformation also demonstrate the dialectic between the form and function of the spaces along Jalan Malioboro, which has produced a hybridised and lively street. Its linearity, an orderly form derived from its function as a cosmological axis, has had superimposed on it different forms and activities, thus producing an ambiguous and chaotic streetscape. There are five key forces that have brought about the transformation: (a) the religious syncretism of the Javanese culture; (b) the political subversion, (c) lack of planning control, (d) modernisation, commercialisation and commodification of space; and (e) the 1997 economic downturn. Any development efforts for Jalan Malioboro arising from an examination of its process of transformation should attempt to ensure that its cultural significance, including its complexity and the dynamism of the street environment, is maintained.
-
ItemDesiring docklands : Deleuze and urban planning discourse( 2003)This thesis is about urban planning processes associated with the Melbourne Docklands area, some 220 hectares of public land and water adjacent to the central city of Melbourne. More specifically, it is about how these processes make sense of the world and how this `making of sense' has worked to order the Docklands' landscape. More specifically still, it is about fundamental changes in the form and content of Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, between 1989 and 1999, which would seem to represent a radical departure from planning's `normal paradigm', the rational comprehensive model. The thesis draws on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to provide an account of these changes, considering how Deleuze's concepts provide a certain `orientation' for thinking about urban planning practice, one which directs thought towards immanent engagement with the virtual forces (of desire, of movement, of time, amongst others) underpinning the production of space. It examines how these forces are expressed in Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, with a view to understanding how the discourse `works' to support processes of social desiring-production and the exercise of control power under capitalism. In the analysis of this discourse, the thesis outlines an account of urban planning practice as flows of desire and capital. It will show how such discourse moved from a grounding in site, history and community, through an unbounded, ungrounded and dream-like phase of deterritorialization, to a process of reterritorialization with the production of new identities and desires. The thesis concludes with an examination of what this analysis entails for understandings of; urban planning practice; urban planning's relationship to capital; the exercise of power in urban planning; the 'discursive turn' in urban studies; the relationship between theories of space-time and urban planning; and the relevance to urban planning of certain key Deleuzean concepts.
-
ItemSex and the slum : imperialism and gender in nascent town planning, Australia and New Zealand, 1914-1919( 2003)This thesis explores early 20th century town planning discourse in two of Britain's dominions, Australia and New Zealand. It uses the first national town planning conferences held in Australia and New Zealand (1917, 1918 and 1919) as a vehicle for examining themes of imperialism and gender within town planning discourse. In both dominions, women had a visible presence and an increasing voice in the nascent town planning movement. The women planning advocates were predominantly middle-class, they supported the continuation of women's traditional domestic role and they celebrated women's position as the `mothers of the race'. They wanted improved housing standards in order that women could undertake their important work of mothering to better effect. Similarly, they wanted more extensive kindergarten and playground facilities in order to shape and mould the citizens of tomorrow. But more than this, the women who took the most active role in the Australian and New Zealand town planning conferences were imperialist, win-the-war loyalist and in some cases even militarist. It was the imperial race that was at stake. The term `planning's imperial aspect' has been used by others to describe the initiatives of imperial powers in exporting town planning to their colonies and dominions. However, in view of the Australian and New Zealand enthusiasm for importing town planning, and the extent to which Australian and New Zealand planning advocates promoted town planning in terms of its potential to benefit the imperial race, this thesis expands the usage of the term to encompass colonial/dominion initiatives in importing town planning from the relevant imperial power, in this case from Britain. The thesis shows that in early 20th century Australia and New Zealand, the activities of women planning advocates clearly demonstrate planning's imperial aspect. This is because the women recognised the particular plasticity of children's bodies and minds and the consequent opportunities that infancy and youth provided for the instillation of middle-class values and behavioural norms, and thus focused their attention on the sites and activities that had the greatest potential to positively modify the fitness, health and morality of children - the imperial soldiers, workers, wives and mothers of tomorrow.
-
ItemPlanning on difference in public space( 2002)Public spaces in Western cities are often regarded as sites of free and open exchange where one can most readily rub shoulders with different social groups. However, public spaces are also being increasingly privatised and different social groups are excluded. This thesis looks at the way urban planning responds to difference in public space through an in-depth analysis of three public spaces in St Kilda, Melbourne. These three case studies represent public spaces that are used by street sex workers, Aboriginal Australians and traders. Through these case studies the thesis asks whether urban planning treats public spaces as sites where the knowledge and meaning of different social groups can be expressed, or whether urban planning limits difference in public space. The thesis sheds light on the role of urban planning as a disciplinary practice that controls and limits difference in contemporary cities.
-
ItemThe retreat from public planning in Melbourne 1972-1999( 2001)This thesis investigates the shift towards market-led urban policy and planning practice in Melbourne over recent decades with a particular focus on the 1990s when the Liberal-National Coalition were in office in Victoria. In the context of inter-city competition and the emergence of neo-liberalism there has been a retreat from public planning and the pursuit of social and environmental goals in shaping the city. The choices and strategies adopted in other cities reveal that the purpose and process of planning does not necessarily require the exclusion of social and environmental goals despite the pressure for governments to become more entrepreneurial. Public sector planning has experienced a number of challenges to the extent that its meaning or purpose has become uncertain. In its modernist guise, planning was a state-led technocratic activity largely concerned with the physical dimensions of urban development. During the 1960s and 1970s planning was criticised from both the right and the left, for attempting to impose a static order on a complex and changing world and for not accounting for difference and the needs of the community in its decision making process. As the focus of western politics shifted sharply to the right during the 1980s and 1990s, planning became one of the many casualties of the trend towards reducing the size and scope of government, privatisation and using economic efficiency criteria to determine public policy. As a result, the social and environmental dimensions of planning have become sidelined in favour of economic growth goals and market principles. This study shows how planning in Melbourne has been particularly shaped by the ideology of the right or neo-liberalism during the 1990s as well as the shift toward urban entrepreneurialism and place-marketing practices. A selection of choices and strategies adopted by the State Government and Melbourne City Council are examined and contrasted with similar metropolitan and central city planning initiatives in two comparable cities, Vancouver and Copenhagen. While Melbourne has chosen a narrow economic growth model for developing urban policy and planning practice, Vancouver and Copenhagen have maintained a more balanced agenda in determining the shape of their cities. The research shows that public participation, inter-governmental and inter-agency co-ordination and the pursuit of social justice and environmental sustainability are critically important in `revaluing' urban policy and planning in the future for the purpose of creating the `just-city'.
-
ItemSelling the city : retail planning and Central Melbourne( 2001)This thesis investigates the effects that recent economic and political changes in Melbourne have had on the practice of strategic urban planning. In particular, it focuses on the multiple challenges of inter-city competition, academic critique and neo-liberalism have had on the practice of planning, through a case study, that of planning for retailing within the central city. Public sector planning has been subject to many pressures and challenges in recent years. The notion that cities are competing with each other for the attraction of mobile capital has led to pressure on planning to remove regulatory requirements. The urban agenda of many cities has become dominated by entrepreneurial strategies focusing on large scale projects and events, around which city marketing campaigns are run. The adoption of neo-liberal economic policies reached its height in Victoria under the Kennett Government, during the years 1992 to 1999. Neo-liberal styles of governance are essentially at odds with public planning, concerned as it is with directing investment and shaping development in the urban environment in pursuit of some conception of the collective good. This study shows how the adoption of the neo-liberal agenda in Melbourne has affected both the ability of planners to plan, and the range of policy choices available to them. The current climate of inter-city competition and urban entrepreneurialism focuses particularly on the promotion of central cities as the sites for both investment and consumption. Within this city retailing has a critical role to play both as a symbol of economic success and desirable lifestyle. Yet there has been a persistent discourse within Melbourne that the metropolitan area will develop an urban form similar to that seen in many cities within the US. In this scenario retailing within the CBD will inevitably decline under competition from suburban shopping malls, which will ultimately result in a doughnut-shaped city with an empty centre. Without an economically viable retail sector the central city would be reduced merely to its business function threatening its cultural, social and symbolic place in the life of metropolitan Melbourne. There are strong environmental grounds for supporting the retention of retailing within the CBD, as the Melbourne city centre is at the hub of the radial public transport network, and achieves by far the highest public transport usage rates. A close examination of available data shows that whilst central city retailing in Melbourne declined in significance during the 1960s and 1970s, the decline has all but halted. The way the threat of decline has been both conceived and responded to, provides insight into the current state of public sector planning. An analysis of planning strategies for the central city of Melbourne since the 1950s demonstrates a steady move away from the interventionist, relying increasingly on marketing and promotion as tools to assist economic development. The cities of Toronto, Copenhagen and Manchester are investigated here as three different models of more positive and interventionist planning. These examples show that there is room to move within the constraints of the competitive global economy. These cities provide alternative possibilities for strategic planning in the future, and the knowledge that alternative strategies can be successfully followed without compromising economic competitiveness.
-
ItemPlay in urban public spaces( 2001)Play has always been part of the social life of urban public spaces. This thesis is a focused examination of the ways in which urban public spaces both stimulate and facilitate play. The hypothesis underpinning the research is that play arises out of the tensions and contradictions of urban social space. The research aims to broaden our understanding of what social behaviours and values might be considered when siting and designing public spaces. Practices of play can be recognised by their dialectical tension with predetermined social goals and productive functions. Practices of play have use value, as pleasurable, escapist ends in themselves. Yet at the same time play can be seen as a critique of instrumentally rational action, and as a means of discovering new needs, exploring identities and developing new forms of practice. By playing, people find temporary escape from social demands and restrictions, and test the boundaries of their existence, living more intensely. The research is guided by Caillois' articulation of four basic forms which play takes: competition, chance, simulation and vertigo. This framework highlights a variety of ways that play transgresses social norms. Urban public space structures opportunities for playful acts because it frames unfamiliar, stimulating perceptions and unplanned, non-instrumental encounters between strangers. The research centres on observation and discursive analysis of playful behaviour in public spaces in central Melbourne, Australia. The analysis draws upon Lefebvre's theoretical insights into urbanism, everyday life, and the production of space, to explore the complex interrelations between social experience and the physical properties and meanings of urban form. The analysis examines five types of urban spaces where play occurs: paths, intersections, thresholds, edges and props. It explores how these spaces nurture practices of play, both because of the social activities which typically occur there, and by the ways they frame certain perceptions, meanings, relations between bodies and possibilities for action. The conclusion of the thesis highlights three dimensions of urban social life where the design of space has a critical influence: performance, representation and control. These dimensions highlight how meanings, desires, behaviours, and even the built forms of urban public spaces do not arise directly from the intentions of designers, but through a constant dialectical interplay between instrumentality, normativity and play.