Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

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Type: Masters Research thesis × Start date: 2020 × End date: 2021 ×

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    Active frontage design: architecture, affordances and atmospheres
    McAllister, Jennifer Clare ( 2021)
    Active frontages are promoted in planning policy as ‘best practice’. While acknowledging the importance of public-private interfaces for street-life vitality, this research questions the effectiveness of ‘active everywhere’ frontage codes requiring extensive areas of transparent glazing, and the associated aversion to all forms of frontage ‘blankness’. The conceptual framework for this research is based on affordance theory which offers a pathway for understanding relationships between environment and occupants; looking beyond affordances as opportunities for action, this research also explores sensory affordances, or atmospheres. Through a case study in the Forrest Hill precinct in South Yarra, Melbourne, observed behaviours, and users’ sensory perceptions (captured in walk-along video/audio recordings), in relation to built-form outcomes are analysed. Alternative strategies to ‘active’ transparent frontages are investigated through analysis of global exemplars of non-standard frontage design. The case study research reveals that transparent shopfronts do not always afford the diversity of street-level use, users, and sensory perceptions recognised as impacting on street-life vitality and perceptions of urban quality; and while very long, non-transparent interfaces may be ‘deadening’, pockets of blankness can contribute to street-life, if part of a mix. The analysis of exemplars of alternative frontage designs identifies key themes for alternative strategies and tactics that may, conceivably, more successfully afford diversity of use, users and sensory experience. These key themes inform a series of design principles that are applied to a ‘re-imagining’ of street-level interfaces in the case study area. Using insights gained from the case study and exemplar research, this research seeks a more critical approach to urban codes impacting frontages i.e. a flexible, ‘open’ framework that affords innovative strategies, and a broader range of assessment tools to be employed. For urban research, the thesis builds on existing methods for studying frontages by providing a mixed-method, affordance-based analysis framework that could be applied to the investigation of street-level public-private interfaces in other urban areas. For theory, the thesis shows the value of affordance theory as a pathway for analysing existing urban conditions, and for re-imagining alternative scenarios. For urban design, planning, and architecture practice, it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the impact of active frontage codes on the street-level public realm and identifies alternative urban design strategies and tactics for street-level interfaces.