Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemThe idea of robust technology in the definition of a third-world practice : architecture, design and labour training(University of Melbourne, 2011)
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ItemExamining the knowledge interface : metropolitan plan-making and deliberative engagement(University of Melbourne, 2010)
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ItemDeveloping a life cycle energy model for office buildings( 2012)A Life Cycle Energy Model (LCEM)was successfully developed for assessing the performance of energy efficient design features in office buildings. The LCEM comprises an operational energy model that was developed in TRNSYS based on an existing case study / building and verified via thermal comfort measurements and an energy audit. The other major component of the LCEM is an embodied energy model applied to the case study building using an input-output-based hybrid analysis. The LCEM developed in this research has the ability to assess various combinations of energy efficient design features (EEDFs) in order to optimize the building's life cycle energy and carbon footprint performance. In this regard, several design solutions were assessed where it was found that operational energy demands and embodied energy of materials and their associated greenhouse gas emissions can be significantly reduced when the appropriate combination of EEDFs is applied. This study has concluded that a LCEM can he applied in the modelling of office buildings and used by designers during design stages to better understand a building's life cycle energy (LCE) and carbon footprint performance based on various EEDFs and other building elements interacting with each other. An optimized sustainable solution can be found using the LCEM which can help to reduce climate change impacts resulting from the construction and operation of the built environment.
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ItemBeneath the veneer : negotiating British and colonial Australian relationships in Queensland domestic interiors, 1880-1901( 2012)Australian histories of design have largely characterised furnished interiors as passive imitations of European models, with Australia seen as marginalised by time and distance, and lacking in agency from the centres of international design. These interpretations have over-shadowed a range of cultural meanings attached to furnishings at this time. The examination of the discourse of design, business trade and consumer choice on furniture in this thesis, using the case study of Queensland in the late nineteenth century, exposed the dynamic co-dependent relationship between Britain and the Australian colonies, where issues around the materials and making of furniture figured prominently in the construction of colonial identity. Using a wide range of primary source material, including furnishing guides, trade journals and catalogues, parliamentary debates and inventories, the study showed that colonial Australians used their knowledge of the material and cultural aspects of furnishing acquired from British-based texts to maintain the overall appearance of British genteel middle-class interiors. Colonial Australians faced contested local issues around climate, local materials, race and labour relations, which saw colonial loyalty divided between Britain and their local industries. In response, they adopted new construction and branding techniques to subtlety distinguish locally made items from British ones based on native timbers, their functional performance and the employment of local European labour, rather than their visible aesthetic design. This thesis contributes further context for Australian interiors, and argues that the inclusion of more detailed business histories for objects designed for global consumption, such as domestic furniture, are required understand the subtle transfers of cultural meaning between imperial powers and settler nations which change over time. Ultimately, a combination of locally made and imported items and practices observable in different rooms of the home reflected the composite or hybrid nature of an emerging colonial Australian identity. Issues of materials and labour revealed agency on the part of colonies, which has hitherto been obscured by an over-reliance on surviving images of complete interiors and single nation studies. This is to certify that: - the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated in the Preface; - due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used; - the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices.
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ItemArchitectural design studio and the real world out there : an investigation of content in Architectural Design Studio at three faculties of Architecture in Australia from years 1-5 (2003-2007)( 2011)In Anglophone countries, architects appear disengaged from the public realm despite professional bodies' policies. Critics frequently blame architectural education's core pedagogy, design studio. This research examined studio handouts from Australian universities against professional design brief criteria, and by discourse analysis, seeing how studios might contribute. Few studios aimed to solve problems, most focusing on form-making and aesthetics, under-stressing social, environmental and financial issues, sometimes unintentionally. But rare, conceptually 'thicker' proposals often targeted social housing and engagements with the 'real world.'
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ItemColony and climate: positioning public architecture in Queensland, 1859-1909( 2010)Since the writing of the first substantive national histories of Australian architecture, the development of architecture in Queensland has been positioned as different from that of the southern Australian states and former British colonies. An essential platform for this difference has been an assumption about the influence of a hot and humid climate contributing to the development of a distinctive, climatically responsive architecture, most notably the traditional Queensland house, or `Queenslander', which developed in the late nineteenth century and has since come to define an image of Queensland architecture,, and indeed Queensland identity. Queensland's nineteenth century civic buildings have received less critical attention in this romantic construction of a historical tradition of climatically attuned Queensland architecture, as historians have grappled to reconcile the representational imperatives of civic structures with the exigencies of a hot place. This thesis examines public architecture in Queensland — Britain's largest nineteenth century settler colony in the tropics — from the separation of the colony in 1859, through to the early years of the twentieth century, subsequent to the Federation of the Australian nation in 1901. The thesis uses a nineteenth century idea of `appropriateness' — defined in terms of design coherence, both within buildings and in relation to their settings — to examine the design choices that impacted the realisation of these buildings. It argues that Queensland's nineteenth century public buildings represent a collective search for appropriate public architecture specific to its colonial context, influenced by colonial aspiration, political and personal ambitions as well as Queensland's position as a settler society in unfamiliar, sub-tropical and tropical surrounds, all which influenced stylistic choice and expression. By locating the issue of climatic response within a broader matrix of concerns, the thesis questions the potentially anachronistic construction of a historical tradition of climatically responsive architecture in the former colony. The thesis contends that it is not possible to understand responses to climate in the public building without first understanding the motivations behind their design.
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ItemThe evolution of central Melbourne: a morphological analysis 1837-2011( 2011)Melbourne's colonial core has been influenced by diverse political, economic and social relations intersecting with planning and urban design concepts: gold rush, periodic bursts of speculation, World Wars, and waves of immigration. These relations reflect the city's process of urban transformation and are typified by cycles of boom and bust. This research examines the characteristics of the major morphological periods associated with specific planning ideologies and contemporary influences of politics, economy and culture. In addition to assessing the morphological history of the city's core by reproducing a series of maps, the city's morphological history is analysed, particularly in terms of its spatial and block form, from a colonial to a modern context. This study therefore outlines the morphological evolution of an urban organism: the physical transformation of central Melbourne from 1835 until 2011. It gives special attention to the characteristics of the physical changes that have occurred; the socio- economic factors responsible; and the precise treatment of data sources which record those transformations. The compilation of data from state and institutional libraries, planning authorities and regulating agencies related to fire protection and water supply is described. The various types of physical changes undergone by the city centre, including functional alterations, plot division (or amalgamation), rebuilding and additions to existing structures, are analysed. The variations over time in the locations of these changes are examined in relation to the characteristics of contemporary social factors. Morphological mapping has been widely used in this research. The transformation of central Melbourne has been precisely documented and measured in its history through nine sets of figure-ground maps from 1837-2005, transcribed from historical block plans and maps. A thorough anatomical analysis depicts a vivid panorama at every stage of growth of central Melbourne. What is revealed is a city transformed from a singular civic vision to a layered and collaged image, and at the same time, the imprint of the original colonial street grid remains. This transformation signifies the morphological evolution of central Melbourne. This comprehensive morphological study is the first of its kind in relation to the historical transformation of an Australian capital city.