Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemBeneath the veneer : negotiating British and colonial Australian relationships in Queensland domestic interiors, 1880-1901( 2012)Australian histories of design have largely characterised furnished interiors as passive imitations of European models, with Australia seen as marginalised by time and distance, and lacking in agency from the centres of international design. These interpretations have over-shadowed a range of cultural meanings attached to furnishings at this time. The examination of the discourse of design, business trade and consumer choice on furniture in this thesis, using the case study of Queensland in the late nineteenth century, exposed the dynamic co-dependent relationship between Britain and the Australian colonies, where issues around the materials and making of furniture figured prominently in the construction of colonial identity. Using a wide range of primary source material, including furnishing guides, trade journals and catalogues, parliamentary debates and inventories, the study showed that colonial Australians used their knowledge of the material and cultural aspects of furnishing acquired from British-based texts to maintain the overall appearance of British genteel middle-class interiors. Colonial Australians faced contested local issues around climate, local materials, race and labour relations, which saw colonial loyalty divided between Britain and their local industries. In response, they adopted new construction and branding techniques to subtlety distinguish locally made items from British ones based on native timbers, their functional performance and the employment of local European labour, rather than their visible aesthetic design. This thesis contributes further context for Australian interiors, and argues that the inclusion of more detailed business histories for objects designed for global consumption, such as domestic furniture, are required understand the subtle transfers of cultural meaning between imperial powers and settler nations which change over time. Ultimately, a combination of locally made and imported items and practices observable in different rooms of the home reflected the composite or hybrid nature of an emerging colonial Australian identity. Issues of materials and labour revealed agency on the part of colonies, which has hitherto been obscured by an over-reliance on surviving images of complete interiors and single nation studies. This is to certify that: - the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated in the Preface; - due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used; - the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices.
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ItemImpersonal effects : architecture, Deleuze, subjectivity( 2007)This thesis imagines and articulates an image of architectural subjectivity in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Subjectivity for Deleuze does not refer to a person but is rather a power to act and to produce effects in the world. Deleuze in fact tends not to use the word subjectivity, speaking instead of what he calls prepersonal singularities, meaning those irreducible qualities or powers that can be seen to act in the world, independently of any particular person with fixed traits. To walk, to see, to love-these are general or anonymous capacities that function in a very real sense prior to the personological subject. Singular, here, does not mean specific or rare, but the reverse: the function "to sleep" or "to laugh" is singular for Deleuze because "a sleep" always retains a certain abstractness and `impersonality,' no matter who sleeps. For Deleuze, the world is composed of so many singularities, which together resonate silently towards a mystery of something yet to come; this primary field of a pure encounter transcends formed identities and things. The `subject' is understood therefore not primarily as identity but as a convergence of singularities immanent to the encounter. While to speak of the `subject' in these terms-to rid oneself of identity-is a difficult thing, we might say architecture is already such a singular encounter and deindividualisation of self. There is, as soon as I step into a room, a street, or a town, a palpable mystery of the singularity "to walk inside," "to see an unfamiliar street"; each echoing and anticipating in that moment every other instance, past and future, of this primitive encounter. It is an anonymous sense of a primary production that lies beyond the individual, spatio-temporal experience I call "mine." To encounter, then, does not mean an in-between, a space between persons and concrete forms; rather, it is an event that comes before the crystallisation of these things, it is the abstract surface of all singularities. I will call architectural singularities the impersonal effects, to think the inchoate, not-yet determined fragments of architectural encounter (these I oppose to the `personal' effects of identity, such as a watch, a wallet, a cigarette case). I use "effect" in Deleuze's sense of production, in which the effect is not ephemeral, an effect of something more primary, but is in itself a primary production, an effect that works, and creates. The project here is to express, by architectural means, the image of effects. Image, here, does not mean a representation, such as a photograph or a media image, but refers to a live "arrangement" of effects. What individuates an image is precisely the mode in which it causes the effects to proliferate. I begin the project with an account of Deleuze's reception in the American architectural academy, so as to reveal the historical conditions that make Deleuze's theory of subjectivity important now. Chapter Two introduces the concept of the effect and the architectural formulation that functions in the dissertation; Chapter Three extends this work in the effects-image; Chapter Four turns to Guattari's reception in Japan, and what I observe to be a pursuit after the effects-image in Guattari's encounter with architecture; finally in Chapter Five I explore the psychoanalytic lining of Guattari's project, further engaging the working of the effects-image.
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ItemCommunity struggles for land in Jakarta( 2004)In Jakarta, kampung settlements have provided access to urban land and housing for a large part of the population. Some kampung settlements have been integrated and part of the city through the granting of administrative status. However, for residents in particular kampung settlements continuing to live in their kampungs has been a struggle because of the constraints imposed on them by the state. The fall of the New Order government in May 1998 marked the beginning of the reformasi era, and with new hope for better governance and democracy. Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing movement of kampung communities led by NGOs struggling for their right to the city. This dissertation is concerned with the struggles of kampun communities how they have evolved under the changing social and political changes in the reformasi era. It argues that the kampung communities' claims to lands were essential in gaining their social rights as citizens, and that the success of the outcomes depended on their ability to seize political opportunities. Through fieldwork in two kampungs, Kelurahan Kebon Kosong and Kampun Penas Tanggul, the research showed the complexities of power relations in land resulting from weak land management by the state. The distinction between legality and illegality is unclear, and depends on the social attitudes and relations between. the residents and government officials. The analysis of the findings showed the importance of the communities' claims on land and how they are related to gaining their social rights as citizens. The success of gaining claims to land depended on the empowerment of the community, which includes understanding their rights to land evolving from a locally based struggle to a network-based struggle with other kampung communities in Jakarta. The role of NGOs was crucial in the empowerment process, as well as in building strategic alliances with government officials. However, despite the change in the reformasi era that opened up opportunities for greater participation in development, the process is dependent on the response of the state, which unfortunately, is still trapped in the ways of the New Order government. These findings show the necessity of acknowledging the diversity of legality and illegality of land tenure at the kampung level, and finding alternative tenure arrangements for kampung settlements that are more feasible than individual land titles, yet could provide long-term certainty for the residents. The empowerment of kampung communities demonstrates the creation of a stronger civil society that could play a larger role in local land management. However, the major barriers have been the unaccountability of the state and the reluctance of state officials to open the door to wider participation. Without these changes, there is no doubt that any policy to improve security of tenure will fail.
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ItemSex and the slum : imperialism and gender in nascent town planning, Australia and New Zealand, 1914-1919( 2003)This thesis explores early 20th century town planning discourse in two of Britain's dominions, Australia and New Zealand. It uses the first national town planning conferences held in Australia and New Zealand (1917, 1918 and 1919) as a vehicle for examining themes of imperialism and gender within town planning discourse. In both dominions, women had a visible presence and an increasing voice in the nascent town planning movement. The women planning advocates were predominantly middle-class, they supported the continuation of women's traditional domestic role and they celebrated women's position as the `mothers of the race'. They wanted improved housing standards in order that women could undertake their important work of mothering to better effect. Similarly, they wanted more extensive kindergarten and playground facilities in order to shape and mould the citizens of tomorrow. But more than this, the women who took the most active role in the Australian and New Zealand town planning conferences were imperialist, win-the-war loyalist and in some cases even militarist. It was the imperial race that was at stake. The term `planning's imperial aspect' has been used by others to describe the initiatives of imperial powers in exporting town planning to their colonies and dominions. However, in view of the Australian and New Zealand enthusiasm for importing town planning, and the extent to which Australian and New Zealand planning advocates promoted town planning in terms of its potential to benefit the imperial race, this thesis expands the usage of the term to encompass colonial/dominion initiatives in importing town planning from the relevant imperial power, in this case from Britain. The thesis shows that in early 20th century Australia and New Zealand, the activities of women planning advocates clearly demonstrate planning's imperial aspect. This is because the women recognised the particular plasticity of children's bodies and minds and the consequent opportunities that infancy and youth provided for the instillation of middle-class values and behavioural norms, and thus focused their attention on the sites and activities that had the greatest potential to positively modify the fitness, health and morality of children - the imperial soldiers, workers, wives and mothers of tomorrow.
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ItemAustralian flats : a comparison of Melbourne and Sydney flat developments in the interwar period( 1998)The differences between the architecture of flats in Melbourne with flats built in Sydney during the 1920s and 1930s, suggests that these differences were manifest by factors in addition to topography. This study compares the development of architectural forms and expression in the two cities, discussing them in relation to concepts of architectural regionalism and modernism. The planning and urban redevelopment contexts result in differences in number, location, building height, lot size, site coverage, flat size, image, lifestyle and modern technology.
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ItemTranslation and transfer: the role of the traditional Japanese house in the design of the post-war Australian house( 2008)The Australian house of the early 1960s was a melange of international influences. The role that traditional Japanese architecture played in this mix is the subject of this thesis. The thirty-year period following the end of World War II was one of hardship, shortage, possibility and experimentation. It was a new beginning for Australia, a time of loosening ties with Britain, and turning toward the United States and Asia for inspiration. The houses of the West Coast of the United States were better suited to the Australian climate than those of Britain and Europe, while Asia, being on Australia's doorstep, offered possibilities for the development of a new regional style of architecture. Architects at this time dared to do things unheard of in Australian houses prior to World War II, and new technologies and products made it possible. Whole walls were filled by glass, roofs and balconies cantilevered precariously without visible support, kitchens merged with living rooms, and houses turned their back on the street and embraced the courtyard.
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ItemIranian modernity: its expression in the daily life of public spaces in Tehran( 2009)The thesis investigates how modernity is manifest in the public spaces of post-Revolutionary Tehran. Contemporary everyday life and interactions were investigated in three types of public spaces (park, street, square) in suburban and urban areas that had been developed during the two periods of modernization associated with the two Pahlavi reigns and after the Revolution. Modernization and modernity are explored as they relate to cities, public spaces and everyday life. First the effects of different stages of modernization on social and spatial structures in European and north-American cities are investigated including changing community relations and the division of cities into the urban and suburban realms. The way public spaces are transformed from places of socialization to realms of spectacle, commodity and control via different planning ideas are also considered, along with the relative lack of theory on suburban environments and parks. Theories that focus on the way different ways in which public spaces are regulated by physical, institutional and socio-cultural frames and how users respond and resist these through their everyday life practices and interactions by using different tactics and the activity of walking provide a particular focus. After reviewing the literature and Tehran's socio-spatial transformation since its connection to the global economy in the pre- and post-Revolutionary periods, a theoretical framework is established that weaves together concepts from cultural studies, environmental-behaviour, psychology, sociology and structural and post-structural theory. A case study method is then applied, using that framework to provide the criteria for evaluation, contrasting and comparing the three types of spaces (streets, squares and parks) in central city areas and a middle class suburb designed by French consultants in 1951. The findings suggest that daily interactions in both contexts are framed by regulations and rationalities that differ from the forces of instrumental rationality, surveillance and commodification described in the literature of modernity and everyday life. Different groups defined across lines of age, gender and access to power, use different tactics to negotiate space. The provision of a diverse range of user settings supports an equally diverse range of uses and demographics with interaction mediated spatially by behaviour settings, policing, temporal negotiation and the practice of civility. The dichotomies that are prevalent in the literature such as the urban/suburban appeared less significant here, as both contexts have experienced increasing intensification, commodification and migration. Differences between the two contexts were however, revealed in terms of: 1 - Communal activities and neighbourhood identity, with these more strongly manifest in the suburban cases; 2 - Major users/walkers and rhythms of activities, with more females, elderly and youths observed interacting in the suburban cases; 3 - Parks support deeper levels of interaction amongst users and a greater variety of uses than streets and squares which are the focus of flanerie activity. Although they use a rational design, the spaces in the suburban site designed by the French planners using a combination of urban typologies (parks, squares and boulevards), have been remarkably resilient/robust through time. They provide spaces of local meaning and encourage more traditional forms of activity, association and civility in a non-traditional urban environment by including traditional forms and elements such cul-de-sacs. Rather than the predicted displacement or replacement that accompanies modernisation, the co-existence of modern and local traditions was evident here, suggesting an evolving form of specifically 'Iranian' modernity. The findings also reveal a city of social complexity that differs from the simplified image projected by global geo-politics. Everyday life practices, apparently based on both resistance to and communication of both local and global culture, accommodate the paradoxes embedded in the juxtaposition of Iranian, Islamic and modern culture.
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ItemEffects of state power on daily practice in Vali Asr (Pahlavi) Street( 2007)The relationship between power and urban spaces, more specially streets, is investigated in this project. Although the issue of power has been studied from different viewpoints, this project is dealing with the issue of power and its effects on people's everyday life through investigation of changes in everyday practices in the spaces of the city. The investigation has mainly concentrated on the users' appearances and behaviours, and documented the changes that have happened since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. The geographical focus of the research is Vali Asr (Pahlavi) street, the historical north-south axis of Tehran, approximately 20 km long, which was built in the Reza Shah Pahlavi reign connecting the railway station at the hot, dusty plateau of the south to his Palace at the north, in the cool foothills of the Alborz mountains. The selected study area of Vali Asr street is its central part, including one of the main squares of Tehran, Vali Asr (Vali ahd) square. The temporal focus of the study is the period since the 1979 Islamic revolution, in which the state's policies concerning the daily practices of people in public spaces has changed radically. The specific concentration is on the current situation. The change in state policies has been underpinned by change in state ideology toward Islamization. The target group in this research is the educated middle-class of Tehranians who are the most frequent users of the study area. The methods of data collection include various secondary sources such as books, together with surveys through distributed questionnaires, informal in-depth interviews, historic photos and the internet. One of the major difficulties of this research has been to balance the pessimistic view of Iranian society particularly held by people who are trawling their memories about the past in relation to the current situation. Therefore it has been necessary to seek different sources from both inside and outside of Iran, to compare different voices and ideas. Moreover, my personal twenty-five years of experience in this society helped me in the process of data collection. Previous generations' experiences remembered from conversations can be added to these, albeit with due caution. The project has tried to map the changes in the spaces of the city through investigation of this group's appearances and behaviour before and after the Islamic revolution. The incomplete observation of Islamic rules in public space by this group, and against that control exercised by the moral police to oblige them to follow Islamic rules, has resulted in spatial contestation between this group and state power. While the moral police control on people's daily practices appropriates the spaces of the city, this group is trying to 'expropriate' them through acts of disobedience. Although some people may not care about the Islamic control, this struggle is seen in the spaces of the city, particularly in central and northern parts of Tehran. In addition, it is highly intertwined with the political climate of the country. The mapping of appearances and behaviour in the study area is mainly based on collecting and analysing photos and statements from various sources of data, collected about the study area and the places that people most remember from it. In order to escape from Islamic controls in the spaces of the city, some public places in the study area have become public refuge-spaces for this group, with a relative freedom from Islamic regulations compared to other places. Those places have been mapped through andarouni and birouni concepts, which relate to private and public realms of Iranian traditional houses in the nineteenth century, and based on Islamic values. Andarouni and birouni concepts have shifted in scale from that of the individual house to the wider spaces of public and private realms for this middle-class group, whereby private homes have become a 'free' place for socializing versus the controlled public places. This shift also could be seen in a dramatic expansion of the internet as a new public realm, particularly among this class, as a new free avenue which connects opposite genders, people inside and outside of Iran, and as a way to discover the world outside from the shrouded world inside Iran. Again, there is the same struggle of appropriation and expropriation of this new public realm by state power through continuous censorship of websites on news, human rights, religion, women as well as weblogs. Internet users are trying to overtake the government by finding new techniques to pass those filtrations. Finally, the autocratic political approach of state power toward public realms has affected Iranian society throughout modern history where one group has been suppressed and others supported. This has always resulted in a contest for the spaces of the city. This dilemma stems from a society which is wandering between tradition and modernity.
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ItemRefutations and conjectures: prolegomena to the study of architectonic themes( 1995)An examination, in two parts, of aspects of contemporary architecture concerned with issues of history, meaning and the practice of architecture as a form of intellectual discipline. The first part investigates the work of Italian born American architect, Romaldo Giurgola, one of the last architects in the lineage of Louis Kahn still abiding by many of the latter architect's architectural philosophy. The range of his works, built and unbuilt, are examined and seen to take up important theoretical and social themes in American architectural culture originating from the Jeffersonian era. Through an analysis of Giurgola's writings and theoretical statements on a range of issues his work is shown to contribute to a continuation of the tradition of modern architecture. The viability of this tradition is questioned, in the light of both theoretical and socio-political deficiences. Four Questions is an ontological interrogation of the meaning of a series of thematic terrains held to be significant for the formulation of a viable contemporary practice of architecture: the Public, The City, The House and Theory. Through an analysis of these themes, the study highlights what is seen to be a major shortcoming in the discourse of contemporary architectural culture- a lack of awareness of its acutely historical situation. Each section theorizes issues of architectural representation and relates these back to a condition of modernity. On this basis, those current trends which aim to locate the meaning of architectural work either in the field of social commitment, in the formulation of new urbanities or in new domestic typologies are criticized for insufficient awareness of the conditional and problematical nature of such pursuits. The last section, an excursus on architectural theory, indicates that an important species of contemporary architectural theory- Deconstruction- is indicative of a general trend that seeks to put aside the difficult conditionality of architectural production in the contemporary situation. Architectural theory which aims to share ground with philosophical discourses is argued to have become too abstract. As an alternative, it is suggested that the responsibility of the architectural theorist and the practitioner alike towards a discursive endeavour is located in a search for an engagement of architecture with reality which does not, however, sacrifice intellectual probity or transgress the limits of an architectonic definition of this reality. The projects included in the folio explore the small margin still allowable within a practice of architecture that seeks to explore the full range of architectural expression whilst maintaining the above described conditions of intellectual probity.