Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemNegotiating a people’s space: a historical, spatial and social analysis of the People’s Square of Shanghai from the colonial to Mao to post-Mao era( 2014)This research investigates spatial formations of the People's Square of Shanghai from the 1840s to the 2000s against a shifting history of political and ideological backdrops. The research explores how the Square was formed and reformed, how it was used, how it facilitated and restricted certain social uses, and how it both reflected and subverted, to an extent, a predominant political and ideological control. The thesis reveals new layers of spatial politics of the Square and adds new dimensions to our reading of the meaning of the city centre of the Chinese metropolis.
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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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ItemPhenomenology and experiential learning as an approach to teaching studio in architecture( 2014)This thesis proposes an approach to teaching design Studio in architecture which is phenomenological in theory, experiential in practice, constructivist in pedagogy, and phenomenographic in method. This is demonstrated in three graduate Studios: Live/Work, Sub Rosa, and Silence. Observations at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Rural Studio, and the University of Melbourne, interviews, student work, and student and academic peer feedback are drawn upon. It is concluded that the proposed approach should be used as a catalyst in the spectrum of conventional university architectural design Studio teaching with particular emphasis on establishing this method of teaching and learning at a Studio in a remote rural location.
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ItemExamining the viability of geopolymer concrete: carbon dioxide emissions and key attributes( 2012)Concrete underpins ancient and modern engineered cities, and combined with steel is a key material used in modern construction. Architects have the capacity to influence the uptake of energy efficient systems used in construction. The 3.3 billion tonne p.a. Portland cement industry generates almost 10% of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. With the latent and rapid industrialisation of China and India and other developing countries, cement demand is projected to double to 6 billion tonnes p.a. by 2050. An alternative technology, geopolymer, uses an alkali activator which combines high portions of industrial by-product to form an alternative binder for concrete. There is much debate in industry regarding the environmental and structural performance of geopolymers. This thesis re-evaluates the carbon dioxide emissions associated with geopolymers, and examines key material attributes affecting viability. The appropriate manufacturing path for the alkali activator can achieve a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 59 - 92% compared to Portland cement. At present there is some limited commercial uptake of geopolymer concrete in select markets such as Russia, Australia and China. However, there is no wide global-scale utilisation. Barriers and opportunities for uptake are reviewed in this thesis. A saving of 600 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the next four decades will be needed to achieve the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions concentrations between 450 and 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide emissions equivalent. With this mounting challenge, combined with the activation of global carbon markets predicted to be worth in excess of AUD 1 trillion within 5-10 years, there is likely to be growing interest in cement sector technologies which can deliver major reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
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ItemRemote participation and the distributed court: an approach to court architecture in the age of video-mediated communications( 2011)The taking of evidence via video-mediated communications has become commonplace in many countries, with adoption for other court-related business occurring at an increasing rate. In some Australian courts, trials are now being held where the jury will not see a live witness. This is seen by many as the beginnings of ‘virtual courts,’ although the term distributed court is perhaps more apt to describe what is actually occurring. Previous research has been piecemeal and focused on particular instances of use; as such, they miss the wider trend of what I term remote court participation as a whole. Widespread use of audio-visual technologies in courts in their present form raises important questions about the ways in which communication technologies extend the boundaries of the court over multiple sites and alter the performance of justice in significant, and at times problematic, ways. I argue that far from being a neutral insertion, videolinked technologies as they currently operate fundamentally change the experience of court proceedings and the role of the courtroom and courthouse to structure events. In this analysis, it was found that significant shifts are occurring at each level of experiencing the court: from that of the individual, of the group involved in court proceedings, as well as the wider community. It is argued that current remote court participation practices may not only question several fundamental principles of the justice system — including the right to a fair trial — but may also be challenging the very role of the courtroom and the courthouse in establishing the environmental conditions for court proceedings. In this thesis I ask: “how might remote court participation be achieved in a ‘just’ manner, and how might the court environment help achieve this?” Site visits and interview data centered on current practices of remote court participation in Victoria and Western Australia reveal legal actors lack awareness regarding the active and dynamic role that audiovisual technologies, in conjunction with the environment of the court, have in constructing the court event. Rather than fetishizing certain aspects of the discrete court in the form of the courtroom located within a courthouse, this thesis presents a view of ‘doing justice’ as the product of a network. It is argued that those qualities that are perceived to be ‘lost’ by current remote participation practices, may be re-established by alterations to the configuration of the technology, the human processes and the environmental conditions of the distributed court.