Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemFrom Environmental Data to Landscape Design: Responding to urban heat in inner city Melbourne( 2023-05)External site design is traditionally the domain of landscape architecture and urban design, yet the challenges of climate change in inner urban projects require joint expertise from the sciences, engineering, planning, architecture, and landscape architecture. Despite the increasing need for collaboration, little research examines how these diverse disciplinary values, methodologies, and knowledge come together in the design of the built environment. With a focus on Melbourne, Australia, a city known for its fluctuating climate, this thesis addresses this gap through an interrogation of the multi-disciplinary processes which inform the conceptualisation of designing for urban heat. Part One (chapters 2-4) comprises an extensive literature review tracing the development of environmental data, simulation, and thermal sensation research. This section documents the major theoretical and technical drivers influencing how architects, landscape architects and engineers conceptualise and engage with thermal conditions for designing external urban space. Part Two (chapters 5-7) then turns to the challenges of designing for heat in the unique climate of Melbourne, Australia. Chapter five establishes the core models of built environment interdisciplinarity and further draws on theory from social and political geography to highlight the influence of institutional, sociological, and epistemic values in shaping how disciplines come together in response to complex problems like urban heat. These values provide the analytical lens for exploring the policy and design case studies in the final two chapters. Chapter six focuses on the evolution of climate policy related to heat in inner Melbourne, where the institutional response, aided by the rise of digital tools, has shifted from risk assessment towards collaborative planning models, followed by design guidelines and tools. Chapter seven focuses on a major built project that foregrounds the landscape's value and addresses urban heat in the initial project proposal. This final analysis traces the evolution of that project through the design brief, interviews with designers and the constructed outcome. This study reveals layers of misalignment from policy to practice, which shape how urban heat is addressed in external site design. Fragmentation of the Australian climate governance structure and the adoption of loading-dock models privilege science in policy development and contribute to persistent implementation gaps between research priorities, policy-led ambitions, and design in the competitive built environment industry. In all contexts, the role of external space is overloaded with competing demands, from climatic and ecological performance to community engagement, social programming and functional concerns like access and maintenance. Finally, this thesis demonstrates that while technology, simulation, and data provide more knowledge and tools for working with the complex conditions of urban heat, it cannot be assumed that they offer the answer. Instead, institutional frameworks, power dynamics and conflicting disciplinary values continue to shape the success of policy and design in addressing the demands of climate change.