Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

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    Comparison of measured and perceived fundamental characteristics to identify strategies for increasing the rate of daily walking in suburban areas
    Panawannage, Thanuja Dilrucshi Nandapala ( 2020-07)
    Future cities will increasingly face health, socio-economic and environmental problems, including disease, social isolation, economic breakdown, excessive carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, and fossil fuel depletion. The planning and design of neighbourhoods which provide high levels of pedestrian accessibility to daily needs destinations such as schools, grocery shops, greenspaces and public transport could contribute to solutions to these problems by the reduction of car-based travel. Future cities need to be walkable based on solutions that can be achieved through better planning and design which takes into consideration accessibility as well as Key Urban Place Characteristics (KUPCs). The author considers walkability to be formed by two factors: the first, accessibility, is the distance to daily needs destinations, and the second is KUPCs, the safety and security, comfort, and attractiveness of the walk to those daily needs’ destinations. Although many suburban neighbourhoods in Melbourne have good access to daily needs, people who live in these areas often choose to drive to their destinations rather than walk. This may be due to negative perceptions of the place and the lack of fundamental place characteristics. The aim of this research is to identify strategies to increase rates of daily walking based on an understanding of the relationship between urban place characteristics and accessibility in suburban neighbourhoods. Therefore, the author has chosen four case studies; two international best practice case studies to validate a theoretical framework obtained from the best practice literature, and an in-depth examination of two local case studies in Melbourne using the validated theoretical framework to assess the scale of walkability in the most accessible areas in selected suburban samples. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this study, in keeping with a sequential explanatory design mixed-method approach. Data collection was conducted using mapping, urban informatics, desktop analysis, field observations of KUPCs, and face-to-face interviews with residents. The analysis of walking-related values using key research studies provided opportunities to reveal the most important characteristics needed for walking to daily needs in the case studies. These results were used to identify strategies for increasing the rate of daily walking in suburban areas.
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    Transaction Costs and Entrepreneurial Discovery in House Building Innovations: A Study of Developers’ Behaviour in Ghana
    Kavaarpuo, Godwin ( 2022-12)
    Innovative housing is necessary to address crucial housing problems in Sub-Saharan Africa, including inferior quality and unaffordability while delivering sustainable housing. That notwithstanding, innovation housing investments are limited, and adoption failures are common. At the same time, despite several innovation barrier studies, there are limited insights into developers' discovery of viable opportunities to adopt specific innovative technologies and adoption outcomes (failed, successful or otherwise). This dissertation develops and implements an institutional approach (integrating transaction costs economics and entrepreneurial theories of opportunity discovery) to understand the innovation experiences of the earliest adopting developers of walling innovations (first movers) in Ghana. The specific research questions examined are: 1. what are the critical constituents of transaction costs (TCs) to the developer in the context of walling innovation, and to what extent do they influence actual technological innovation choices of developers? 2. to what extent do these TCs influence innovation adoption outcomes? 3. whether and to what extent does the relationship between different perceived uncertainties and TCs determine developers’ walling innovation choices? 4. what governance mechanisms do developers use in reducing the TCs associated with discovering innovation opportunities and their adoption? The study applied a mixed research method design, with Accra and Kumasi, Ghana's main real estate markets, as case studies. In total, eighty-two developers validly completed the survey questionnaires (Accra – 78, Kumasi - 4), providing data on their perceived innovation uncertainties, TCs and innovation history, among others. Their responses were analysed using correlations, principal component analysis and regressions to examine the uncertainties and TCs associated with their walling technologies adopted. Content analysis techniques were used to examine the qualitative data from in-depth interviews with the first movers, walling technology suppliers, sector ministry and departments, bank, key informants and a building research institution (15 respondents total). The findings reveal limited walling innovation among developers. Eighty-six per cent of the 82 developers always or mostly used conventional sandcrete blocks. Six per cent of developers discontinued the use of pozzolana, burnt clay bricks (7.6%), compressed earth (1%), interlocking blocks (4.6%), aerated concrete (9.1%), and modular prefabricated housing (15.2%). Positive intentions to adopt an innovative walling material were distinct from historical practices. Among the first movers, identified walling innovations (burnt clay bricks, modular prefabricated housing, aerated concrete, compressed earth, pozzolana, expanded polystyrene system, and aluminium formwork) have limited sustainability dimensions. They are also mainly sourced exogenously. Prototyping developments/building showhouses through mainly vertical integrated development processes was the commonest governance approach to opportunity discovery and reducing the associated TCs with the increased administrative control offered by in-house coordination. It allowed developers to coordinate information from relevant stakeholders (incl. financial institutions, planning authorities and potential homebuyers). Moreso, at the pre-technology adoption stage, a mix of governance mechanisms, the lone genius, outsourcing, vertical integration, and spot market transactions were observed, each with different TCs depending on whether the adopter was a developer and technology supplier, a developer-builder or both. The study further identifies and discusses the critical TCs incurred in coordinating dispersed non-price knowledge associated with the different innovation outcomes (e.g. four failed adoptions, one discontinued). Contrary to popular conceptions that the high TCs associated with innovations adversely affect innovation tendencies, their effects are mixed. Those adopting a new technology did not perceive lesser TCs. Their impact is also conditional on the uncertainties around the discovery of market value. Market uncertainties have the most significant and consistent influence on innovation intentions and technology choices. However, reducing uncertainties does not linearly improve adoption probabilities. The study’s implications are that innovation policy should address the broad aspects of transaction costs to enable developers inexpensively identify and exploit innovation opportunities.
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    Home, Hospitality and Confinement: The Villawood Migrant Hostel
    Miller-Yeaman, Renee ( 2022-10)
    The Villawood Migrant Hostel, open from 1949 to the 1980s, was one of the Commonwealth of Australia’s longest-running migrant hostels, providing temporary housing for migrants and refugees arriving under various assisted passage schemes. During the 1960s, selected hostels, including Villawood, underwent significant alterations, moving from portable structures inherited from the military to purpose-designed hostels. In 1976, on the same site but separate from the hostel, the federal government constructed detention facilities for deportation. When the migrant hostel ceased operation, some of its buildings were adapted for use in the expanding Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, which held refugees and asylum seekers subject to detention and, subsequently, mandatory detention. Central to the thesis are the spatial and architectural changes on the Villawood site relating to on-arrival accommodation and detention. The thesis asks whether the built forms demonstrate an association between the Commonwealth’s resettlement of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers and the framing of national identities in connection to ideals of house and home. Varying degrees of nation-state hospitality underscore this association. Commonwealth on-arrival accommodation is considered as an entry point into Australian citizenship and examined in connection to physical constructions of idealised ‘homes’ in Australia. Pivoting on this single case study, the site of the Villawood Migrant Hostel, the thesis investigates the built facilities in relation to the trajectory of immigration policies as they shifted: from official strategies to increase and organise the nation’s population after the Second World War, to the introduction of mandatory detention for refugees and asylum seekers the federal government classified as ‘unauthorised’ from 1992. The thesis’s site exploration ends in 1992, as the introduction of mandatory detention significantly shifted the landscape of immigration detention facilities emerging under the Commonwealth’s administration. In considering the parallel development of detention on site, the focus of the thesis is on the architecture of the new migrant hostel apartments constructed during the 1960s, which are examined as a platform to explore dwelling types used for temporary tenures. The buildings’ physical, spatial and material fabric are introduced alongside the racialised narratives circling migrant and refugee resettlement. These historical transformations on site reveal the complexities of nation-state hospitality to displaced people and assumptions about house and home as fixed phenomena in a settler-colonial context. Through the lens of architecture, this thesis approaches the history of nation-building in connection to migration and examines how national identities were influenced by and changed due to migrant and refugee arrivals during the period of study. The thesis’s underlying argument is that ideological and physical conceptions of home influence the political and public narratives surrounding historical migrant and refugee arrival and temporary housing options. The notion of home, as a form that is visualised and spatialised as an Australian ideal, has frequently been transitory and discursively marked by cultures of both hospitality and spatial violence. In making this link, the thesis offers a reading of housing as connected to the nation-state to investigate the configuration and influence of housing ideals.
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    Parks, bins and bags: Socially engaged art practice supporting young people’s hope and agency about the future of the environment
    Kantor, Katherine ( 2022)
    Most young Australians are keenly aware of the increasing and worsening global environmental issues arising from human activity including climate change, rising sea levels, water and air pollution, habitat destruction, extreme weather events and species extinction. These young people understand the urgency of the situation and have been passionate about combatting this complex global issue. Despite their repeated demands for action in the largest climate focused rallies in history, few pro-environmental policy changes have been made. Young people’s hopes for their future are being replaced with a sense of powerlessness, anxiety and despondency. There is a pressing need to develop new strategies that honour young people’s ideas about actions for the environment, and that develop and celebrate their agency and sense of hope for the future. In undertaking this research, my aim was to explore the potential of contemporary socially engaged art practice/s as one such strategy. This Thesis by Creative Works involved the development and facilitation of three socially engaged art projects with young people (aged ten to seventeen years old) within primary and secondary school settings in Melbourne, Australia. My thesis explores how these young people were empowered to feel agency and hope for the future of the environment producing tangible, proenvironmental outcomes through a range of practical, creative activities and events. These were the transformation of disused land into a park, making and selling recyclable produce bags at the local supermarket and the creation of an environment-friendly waste processing system in a school. The activities and events involved, developed by the students and myself, had an emphasis on conversation and collaboration as key facilitators of change. Specifically focusing on social engagement, the projects supported students to explore, articulate and activate their ideas, and operated as both a mode of enquiry and an expressive artform. The participants’ responses to interviews, questionnaires, surveys and the projects themselves demonstrate how the use of socially engaged art practices significantly shifted and supported the students’ sense of hope and agency about the future of the environment. The findings, analysis and discussion presented in this thesis contribute to theories of socially engaged art practice, education and young people, providing vital, new and engaging approaches to pro-environmental arts practice, education and action with young people.
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    The City of Melbourne’s Designed Ecology: Potentials for the Future Practice of Landscape Architecture
    Greene, Brent Francis Conway ( 2022)
    This research reveals how the City of Melbourne’s perception of ecological design, as exemplified in Royal Park and Birrarung Marr, has shifted since 1835, the year of permanent British colonisation. Attitudes are influenced by twentieth century nationalism and environmentalism, extreme climate events of the early 2000s, the neo-liberal economic preferences of successive Victorian governments from the 1990s onwards and community expectations of designed urban environments. These diverse perceptions have resulted in a poor alignment of ecological values between stakeholders such as policymakers, maintenance teams, landscape architects, governments and the wider community. By comparing the local case studies against designed urban ecologies in European and North American cities, this research reveals how the City of Melbourne’s approach has so far restricted local landscape architects in their experimentation with spontaneous ecosystems through practice.
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    Consolidating the Australian Dream: Housing Aspirations of Young Adults in Melbourne
    Lim, Ja Hue ( 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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    Risking It: Transformational Art in Primary Education
    Walton, Clare Patricia ( 2022)
    Over the past 30 years, children’s access to risky activities and play has significantly decreased despite the mounting evidence that it supports children’s development. Discourse on children’s citizenship and right to engage in risky activities has been examined in the fields of child psychology, geography, urban planning and more recently, socially engaged arts, but there has been very little work investigating how the socially engaged arts practice can create an enabling environment for risky play situated inside the walls of the traditional school. Working across two campuses of a primary school in a regional city in south-east Australia with children (aged 9 to 11 years), this project used a socially engaged arts practice to support participants to build their own adventure playgrounds. The research was documented using photography, and audio recordings, and journal notations by the participants and the researcher. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with parents and teachers, the assisting teacher and artist’s assistant. Applying practice-led research methods and critical ethnography, the thesis found that measured risky play activates children’s citizenship and enables them to build stronger communities. It also revealed the challenges of addressing perceived risk to the school and to the lead researcher’s own practice as an artist. The creative component of this thesis has been developed as an Adventure Playground called Kids’ Urban Dreaming, built in collaboration with students across two campuses of a primary school in south-west regional Victoria. The documentation of the building of Kids’ Urban Dreaming is embedded within the thesis and includes photographic and video documentation. A summary of the creative component is a short video that features members of the Kids Urban Dream Team working together to create their adventure playground, highlighting how measured risky play can support children in the development of their active citizenship.
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    Do It Properly and Make The Most Of It: Western Australian Architects And The UK Working Holiday 1946-1960.
    Murray, Andrew Marshall ( 2022)
    This thesis examines the working holiday to the United Kingdom (UK), as undertaken by Western Australian architects between 1946 and 1960. Specifically, it charts the institutions, mechanisms and influences that shaped the development of this phenomenon, and the effect it had on the architectural profession in Western Australia. During this fifteen-year period, approximately thirty young architects made the journey from Perth to the UK to pursue work experience and further education. Here, they would typically spend several years working as architectural assistants, directly participating in the postwar rebuilding of Britain through the documentation and design of schools, factories, residential units, commercial buildings and cultural centres. Adopting a group biography approach, this study explores the paths and influences that shaped this tradition, which, by the end of the 1950s, was so entrenched in the lived experience of Perth architects that it was colloquially known as the ‘sixth year’ of the diploma course. The thesis charts the students’ routes travelled to and from the UK, the kinds of practices and type of work encountered, and the professional and social networks that were formed during their time there. Significantly, it looks at the role that this working holiday had in the making of a local architecture culture in Western Australia upon their return to Perth. Those architects who travelled and returned were able to funnel their experience and enthusiasm into producing buildings, editing journals, giving lectures, teaching, and performing in plays, in an effort to stimulate the local architectural profession and galvanise the local architectural community. This thesis argues that the working holiday had a major effect on the shaping and development of the architectural profession in Western Australia in the postwar period, and as a phenomenon that has yet to be acknowledged. The thesis also acknowledges the contribution that Western Australian architects, and by extension architects from across Australian and New Zealand, made to the architectural profession in Britain, providing labour, expertise and alternate perspectives across a range of major architectural projects.
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    Transitional strategies for innovation in landscape architecture practice
    Ivankovic-Waters, Jela ( 2022)
    Technological innovation in the built environments is rapidly evolving. Building Information Modelling (BIM) exemplifies how newly available technologies are influencing industry practices and theoretical approaches. Yet landscape architecture has been slow to progress beyond the early adopter phase in Australia. This lag is due to perceptions about technological incompatibilities with the practical needs of landscape architecture, but it also highlights limited discourse about innovation within the discipline. Landscape architecture is therefore at risk of falling further behind the advances made with BIM by its major disciplinary partners in engineering and architecture. This research investigates how landscape architecture is adopting BIM as an innovation. It aims to identify the main drivers, facilitators, inhibitors, and outcomes. The TOE framework is developed to explore the responses of four case studies in the technological, organisation and environment contexts. This lens enabled an examination of the contexts and transition between the stages of innovation from pre-adoption through to adoption and implementation. Data is primarily collected through qualitative methods of semi-structured interview. Cross-case analysis is based on a Grounded theory approach. Findings indicate environment factors, such as the market and industry forces are the main catalysts for innovation with BIM. Strategies reveal how landscape architecture is adapting organisation structures and processes to meet the shifts in business relations and digital design practices. Key to these strategies is leadership, collaboration, and skills specialisation. This empirically based research provides a theoretical method for analysing innovation at an organisation level, which has implications for the practice in the rapidly changing industry.
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    Policies for Sustainable Mobility: Investigating the Role of Transport Policies in Enhancing Sustainable Mobility
    Chung, Johnny ( 2022)
    As there is more awareness to global climate change, there is an emergence of sustainable transport plans, which address this issue from a planning perspective. However, sustainable transport policies have been promoted quite heavily with overly ambitious goals. In addition, the legacy of path dependence approach to transport planning, the efficacy of these new policies must thus be scrutinised. This thesis investigates transport policies and their role in enhancing sustainable mobility. For a better understanding of the topic, this thesis has also explored the literature on transport planning in Melbourne and sustainability in transport planning. The research operates under a framework that is adapted to the Ideologies of Mobility concept. This research uses the City of Melbourne as a case study as it is the centre of the Metropolitan’s transport network. The first half of the research is a policy analysis that investigates transport and planning documents associated with the City of Melbourne and their role in enhancing sustainable mobility. The second half investigates the obstacles of achieving sustainable mobility from local transport planners through semi-structured interviews. From there, the data collected from the two methods is further analysed through a thematic analysis to determine how transport policies can promote sustainable mobility.