Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemSummertime Sadness: A planning perspective on the future of music festivals in rural Victoria( 2024)Like many other facets of our social and cultural landscapes, music festivals are increasingly impacted by the intensity and frequency of the changing climate, resulting in cancellations of multi-day festivals globally, nationally, and statewide. In response to this, my thesis explores, how increased climate-related risks are perceived to be affecting the success and longevity of music festivals held in rural Victoria. Considering the cultural, social, and economic importance of live music across the state, my thesis sought to determine whether land use planning, strategic and statutory, has the potential to intervene to help alleviate the risks posed to festivals. A multiple case study approach was employed, drawing from three festivals in rural Victoria: Hopkins Creek, Loch Hart Music Festival and Goomfest. Primary data was collected from interviews with the directors of each festival, supplemented by secondary data from online materials. The key findings illustrate that climate-related incidents have been devastating for festivals and, the associated biophysical and social impacts of this growing phenomenon continue to materialise in complex and volatile ways that festival organisers feel ill-equipped to navigate. The hardships facing the festival sector amidst the climate crisis will continue to worsen unless the challenges festival organisers are experiencing are confronted. More advocacy is required for meaningful changes to materialise and as planners, we could play a critical role in determining the future of festivals in rural Victoria.
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ItemChallenging Automobility Through Rail Trails: The Case of the Caboolture to Wamuran Rail Trail( 2024)There is a lack of cycling infrastructure in Australia’s regional and rural areas. These areas already face significant transportation challenges due to an underinvestment in modes other than the car. Investment in cycling infrastructure often contends with the widespread belief that people in regional areas do not cycle for purposes other than exercise, recreation, or tourism. Automobility is a key concept that sheds light on the cultural norms and societal structures that perpetuate car use and car-centric planning. Rail trails may offer a unique opportunity for providing a transport alternative and a potential to disrupt automobility in regional areas. My thesis uses the Caboolture to Wamuran Rail Trail as a case study to investigate: 1) in what ways did the paradigm of automobility inform the vision, planning and design of the Rail Trail, and shape the assumptions of how the Rail Trail would be used?; 2) how has the Rail Trail been used since its opening, and what meanings are associated with these uses?; and 3) what do these uses and meanings tell us about the potential for rail trails to disrupt planning approaches to allow for a greater challenge to assumptions around car-dependence in regional Australia? By taking an informed grounded theory approach to analyse qualitative interviews and micro-ethnographic data, my findings highlight how the subordination of cycling against the car was manifested in the physical design, planning complexities, funding allocation and assumed uses of the Rail Trail. However, current uses go beyond assumptions of planners and community representatives. New meanings and needs associated with these uses were created. My research shows that mobility is heavily structured through underlying assumptions. Planners, policymakers, and decision-makers should continuously re-assess, re-frame and challenge their understandings of mobility if they wish to see driving as optional in these areas and make transport more equitable.
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ItemAre we local enough yet? A Cross Examiniation of international and domestic students’ segregation amongst education precincts of different suburban development patterns( 2024)Social segregation between communities is created through the interplay of spatial and social attributes urbanities. Amongst the various communities that co-exists in urbanities, international students, as a social cohort, is a vulnerable group towards social segregation. In 2010, Fincher and Shaw conducted a study amongst students who study within the City and Melbourne and discovered that social segregation occurs within the municipality because its overall geopolitics discourages integration between international and domestic students. Yet, when considering the segregation of students across the institutional divide, Melbourne City might not be the only precinct where the phenomenon could manifest because universities are located throughout Melbourne’s urban fabric. Hence, this research takes an exploratory approach to better understand the experience of social segregation amongst international students who study in Bundoora, an education precinct where the spatial and social attributes are different than Melbourne City. If the execution of cross-cultural interaction within Melbourne City is constrained due to its geopolitical dynamics, would international students who attend universities elsewhere enjoy a better social landscape in developing friendships with domestic students due to a change in geopolitics? To explore this issue, a quantitative research approach was adopted to address the following research questions: 1. How do suburban development patterns of different designs consolidate social segregation between international and domestic students? 2. To what extent do the socio-economic dispositions of international students deter the prospects of integration with domestic students? 3. How do international students utilize their universities’ surrounding environment as socializing platforms? Analytical methods such as Chi-square tests, descriptive data analysis, and t-tests were used to address these questions. Overall, the results indicated that international students in Bundoora do not enjoy better integration with their counterparts even when conditioned to an environment with different geopolitics. Instead of attributing students’ segregation to factors such a systematic difference in culture, urban development patterns surrounding universities that do not promote after school hours interaction between international and domestic students might be a primary contribution to segregation. It is suggested that medium density housings should be built around the university campus to promote integration across the institutional divide. Further research points towards the university’s architectural design. The design of universities should achieve a high degree of assimilation with the urban fabric.
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ItemThe impact of the organizational relationship between landscape designer and landscape constructor on the client experience(University of Melbourne, 2003)
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ItemEvaluating the Effectiveness of Integrated Transport Solutions in Reducing Traffic Congestion in Melbourne( 2023)Melbourne is often considered among the world’s best places to call home. It has a low crime rate, a thriving economy, first-rate medical care and schools, and exciting cultural events and venues (Li & Dodson, 2020). There is growing concern that Melbourne’s infrastructure is not yet adequate to handle our present and future transport needs despite the development boom the city is experiencing at present. The city’s rapid and unparalleled expansion has severely strained transportation infrastructure. The current study examines the congestion and potential solutions to mitigate congestion through integrated transport modes that allow seamless micro mobility in Melbourne City. The study will use a descriptive methodology to answer critical research questions. The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The primary method of data collection was the use of survey data analysis. Data was analyzed through descriptive and content analysis.
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ItemRethinking the Inflexible City: what can Australian planning learn from successful implementation of ‘temporary uses’ across the world?( 2013)Temporary uses have been identified as a low-cost, participatory, and economically beneficial method of managing urban change. As planning practice increasingly deploys temporary use, good outcomes require an understanding of how the two interact. Using the case study methodology, this thesis examines the ways in which formal planning practice can encourage, support, complicate and hinder informal temporary urbanism. The thesis does this by analysing the experiences of four agencies facilitating the implementation of temporary uses worldwide, examining their interaction with the planning system, and identifying common constructive and obstructive policy mechanisms. Temporary use projects can be initiated without high levels of support from formal planning; however, having to comply with the formal planning process is a significant hurdle. Traditional planning does not make provisions for short-term urbanism, imposing costly and time-consuming processes incommensurate with the short duration and low cost of the temporary use. Applications for change of use, requirements for building safety triggered by the planning process, and the perceived arbitrariness of the decision-making process are the biggest hurdles that formal planning imposes on temporary use. Temporary uses are best supported through dedicated processes, staff, and relaxed regulations. The findings confirm that temporary uses are a successful method for finding opportunity in situations of uncertainty and crisis. Formal planning practice can strategically deploy temporary projects to achieve long-term planning objectives. These findings should spark more debate about, research on, and experimentation with temporary uses.
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ItemThe Impact of Public Transport Network Design Strategies in the Reduction of Urban Inequalities: A mapping and policy analysis case study of Bogota, Colombia( 2023)The reduction of urban inequalities is one of the most difficult challenges to be addressed nowadays and strategic urban planning can play a vital role in this quest. Due to the complexity and the several factors that are involved in the reinforcement of urban inequalities through urban planning, this research focus on accessibility strategies in transportation planning and its concordance with equity theories. Considering a sensitive scenario, such as Global South cities, with rapid urbanisation processes occurring in the last decades, a mapping analysis will be developed by the author aiming to overlap key socio-economic and geographic data from Bogota, Colombia, in order to support a policy analysis from the city’s most recent Master Plan, focusing on public transport network design strategies and its impact for low-income inhabitants. The study found that Bogota’s Master Plan does present proposal strategies to improve accessibility to public transport network, although, based on the capabilities approach, the results found that there is no substantial improvement in equity levels through transportation planning for low-income groups in Bogota. Furthermore, it is important to understand the strategies developed in cities aiming to reduce inequalities, in this case, by improving accessibility as a provision of opportunities for inhabitants to have access to basic services, but does not considers the importance to provide the capacity to use these opportunities, as a fundamental aspect to generate meaningful impacts in inequality levels.
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ItemTowards a cycling future: Exploring the institutional barriers to the implementation of safe cycling infrastructure in Melbourne( 2023)Safe cycling infrastructure is key to achieving higher rates of cycling in cities, a transport mode which offers wide-ranging health, social, environmental, and economic benefits. However, many Anglo-American cities are dominated by car use and lack safe cycling infrastructure, which reduces the viability of cycling for transport. Developing a better understanding of the barriers to the implementation of safe cycling infrastructure represents the next major frontier in cycling research. This thesis identifies the institutional barriers to the implementation of safe cycling infrastructure from the perspective of local government staff, using Metropolitan Melbourne as a case study within the Anglo-American context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine local government staff members involved in the cycling infrastructure planning process, with their responses analysed through a theoretical framework of institutional dimensions. The institutional analysis revealed a complex decision-making environment with an interplay of institutional factors. Institutional barriers to the implementation of safe cycling infrastructure include a lack of funding, strong car culture, transport governance power imbalance, outdated and car-oriented design guidelines, and high burden of proof on cycling as a transport mode. Furthermore, this thesis identified a stronger car culture in middle and outer areas of Melbourne relative to inner areas, but a consistent politicisation of the infrastructure decision-making process throughout the metropolitan area. By providing a better understanding of the institutional environment within transport planning, this research will help policymakers to navigate the decision-making environment while attempting to overcome the barriers to implementing safe cycling infrastructure in Melbourne and other similar Anglo-American cities.
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ItemLeaving no one behind in the race to net zero: Renters and the renewable energy transition( 2023)Climate justice is now recognised by policymakers around the world as a vital part of climate change strategy. The renewable energy transition in the housing sector has the potential to reduce energy bills and improve quality of life for everyone. However, it is imperative governments take active measures to ensure the benefits of the renewable energy transition are equitably distributed. Dwellings in the private rental sector typically have lower rates of energy efficiency and renewable energy technology than those which are owner-occupied. Renters are therefore more susceptible to rising energy prices, which is likely to get worse with climate change as more frequent and intense weather events place an upward pressure on energy consumption. This minor thesis investigates how government policy addresses the renewable energy transition in the private rental sector from a climate justice perspective. Research methods comprise qualitative policy analysis and interviews with key stakeholders. Two Australian inner-city municipalities with a high proportion of renters serve as case studies. Based on the findings, a more tailored policy approach towards the private rental sector is considered necessary to ensure no one is left behind in the renewable energy transition.