Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemConsolidating the Australian Dream: Housing Aspirations of Young Adults in Melbourne( 2022)The notion of ‘home’ as a house on a large block of land has been a key ideal of a longstanding ‘Australian Dream’. Chasing the Australian Dream is common in the psyche of a settler-colonial and immigrant society where, for several generations now, it has often meant a ticket to financial profit, conventional family comfort and a stake in the political agenda. The cultural concept is oft considered to be a powerful social norm in Australia, so much so that there continues to be de-facto democratic support for urban sprawl and restrictions on densification in established residential neighbourhoods, despite the impacts on sustainability and social equity. The thesis takes an exploratory approach to better understand how ideals of the Australian Dream may or may not be influencing the kinds of housing and neighbourhoods that young adults actually want to live in. An online survey was created in an attempt to answer the following research questions; 1) to what extent do young adults living in Melbourne aspire towards the Australian Dream?, and 2) what kinds of housing and neighbourhoods do young adults wish to see more of in Melbourne? Overall, the results show that ideals of the Australian Dream were substantially more private and inward focused than the contemporary issues that young adults were concerned about when considering notions of home. Young adults overwhelmingly prioritised proximity to services and public transport over dwelling size, amount of storage and private features. Despite some limitations in the sampling and survey methodology, the implications of this research are that much more needs to be done to plan and deliver on 20-minute neighbourhoods and to open up space for more medium density mixed use housing, particularly across established inner and middle suburbs of Melbourne.
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ItemEmbedding placemaking in planning Nature-based Solutions: A complementary case study of Nature-based Solutions’ policies in Melbourne and Guangzhou( 2022)Nature-based Solutions (NBS) is an adaptative measure addressing climate change and urban regeneration by restoring the ecosystem services of the natural system. However, existing research has illustrated a lack of consideration of local context and community participation in the current planning and implementation of NBS. Therefore, there is an urgent need to promote ‘nature-based placemaking’, which embraces local context and community perspective in practice. This research examines how placemaking principles are reflected in the Nature-based Solutions policies in Melbourne and Guangzhou. This research will investigate the functions and implications of placemaking strategy in Nature-based Solutions (NBS) planning, with a complementary case study on two river management policies: 1) Yarra Strategic Plan 2022-2032 in Melbourne, Australia; 2) Guangzhou Ecological Belt Master Plan 2019-2035 in Guangzhou, China. Qualitative policy analysis is based on the five transformative elements in the ‘Nature in Place’ framework (Bush et al., 2020). The comparative analysis found that both case studies illustrate a transformative nature-based placemaking in river management, though with different focuses. Melbourne’s plan embedded placemaking principles in the planning stage, while Guangzhou’s plan embedded placemaking in co-design and co-management in the implementation stage. The different focuses of Melbourne and Guangzhou present context-specific planning governance with different levels of community participation. The top-down planning approach effectively delivers the concept of NBS and intergovernmental collaborative governance. Nevertheless, community participation and empowerment in NBS are the keys to maximising multiple co-benefits and achieving integral environmental management and nature stewardship.
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ItemA spatiotemporal analysis of private garden area in North-East Melbourne: 2010-2021( 2021)Urban densification and expansion are occurring simultaneously in Melbourne, Australia; manifesting in a loss of nature outside and within the urban environment. However, Australian cities are biodiverse hotspots due to the interconnection of vulnerable native species and variation of habitat sizes, with 40.7% of urban vegetation cover in private residential land. The absence of urban planning regulations on garden retention and practices of urban densification in Melbourne have degraded the ecological networks and risk the social ‘extinction of everyday nature experience’ as greater dwelling density decreases both public and private spaces, and once land has been built upon it has lost its potential for conservation. Despite the importance of private spaces for ecological sustainability in Melbourne, there has been no attempt to spatially analyse the changes of private garden area in relation to densification over the past decade. The research objective is to spatially analyse the changes in area of private gardens in sixteen Statistical Areas Level 1 (SA1) sites, over two time scales 2010 and 2021 in the North East Melbourne municipal councils of Banyule and Darebin. The analysis was conducted to address the following research questions: 1) what is the spatiotemporal change of private gardens and public green space in the North East of Melbourne?; and 2) to what extent are land-use planning mechanisms and spatial dependencies effecting changes in private garden size? The results showed that a potential total loss of private gardens equivalent to 229.79 ha, which is equal size to Albert Park and Lake in Melbourne, has occurred in Banyule and Darebin between 2010 and 2021 while public green space quantity and size has not increased. Meanwhile, loss of private garden has occurred independent from spatial effects such as proximity to public green space and major transportation routes. Similarly, although land-use planning regulations have disproportionately affected the scale of private garden loss, they are not a dependent variable as loss has occurred extensively across zones and overlays.