Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Paradoxes and Paradigm Shifts in the Utopic Desire for High-rise Housing in Melbourne and Surfers Paradise, in Australia between 1945-2005.
    Shafer, Sharon Rachelle ( 2021)
    This study is about paradoxes and paradigm shifts in the utopic desire for high-rise housing in Australia between 1945-2005. Three different contexts that occasioned desires for high-rise housing were selected as case-studies for investigation: The Housing Commission of Victoria; Surfers Paradise, and Melbourne Docklands. The time-span is from 1945, tracing the post WW2 desire for public high-rise housing till 2005: a long enough period to examine paradigm shifts in the utopic desire for high-rise housing. The study adapted Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm theory to investigate paradigm shifts in the utopic desire for high-rise housing in the three case-studies. Three trends were drawn out in the analysis. Firstly, that utopic-desires for high-rise housing were paradoxical at a number of levels. Secondly, utopic-desires for high-rise housing were nomadic as they changed in relation to emerging problems and paradoxes. Thirdly, utopic paradigms were an expression of the political ideologies of stakeholders. The study established that by situating utopic-desires for high-rise housing within the political ideologies of stakeholders, utopic-desires became focused on addressing the needs of one group in society, overlooking other social groups’ needs. Furthermore, the study’s findings show that utopic desires don't lead to utopic solutions, and concludes that deconstructing contradicting utopic-desires may reduce the magnitude of paradoxical and heterotopic outcomes. This can be achieved by questioning whose needs are addressed, and by investigating how utopic solutions in housing may affect different groups in society and the larger context.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Spaces of Belonging: Indian women migrants' everyday spatial practices in Hyderabad, India and Melbourne, Australia
    Nadimpalli, Sripallavi ( 2021)
    Contemporary migration patterns are complex and diverse; the reasons for migration are multiple. Further, the relationships migrants share with different locales extend beyond places of origin and reception. In the context of globalisation, the social location of individuals within local and global networks, constrains and enables their spatial mobility and their level of inclusion and exclusion (Massey 1994). Against this backdrop, this thesis analyses migrant women’s sense of belonging experienced through their everyday spatial practices. The specific focus is on women of Indian origin in two contexts: as internal migrants within multilingual, multicultural India, and as international migrants to Australia. The spatial routines of these women are analysed using Hagerstrand’s time-geography notational diagrams to arrive at different migrant typologies of belonging. The emphasis is on movement (particularly habitual time-space routines) and the affective dimensions attributed to everyday spaces to arrive at a conceptualisation of place-belonging. Further, an intersectional lens is overlaid to understand the variation in these experiences of belonging with time and context, based on the migrant women’s complex identities. Place-belonging is shaped continually by both external structures and individual subjectivities during the women’s life course, which determine their spatial activities and patterns at a given context and time. Maintaining kinship ties is considered an integral part of Indian culture; thus, Indian women migrants often navigate patriarchy and other socio-cultural practices in old and new contexts. Agency is, therefore, an important aspect of understanding how gender is articulated in different places through migration. The findings of this thesis aim to offer new insights into the relationships between migrant women and cities and contribute to the literature on everyday experiences of place-belonging for women of Indian origin. This thesis also proposes a replicable methodology for analysing the everyday life of an individual, particularly to identify spaces of belonging from a gendered perspective.