Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 44
-
ItemHow far can community engagement go in EIA?: A case study for the MMRP in the Parkville community.( 2019)As a planning tool, public participation has been encouraged in environmental impact assessment (EIA) to evaluate the possible impacts any development project could cause to the urban setting (Christie, 2008). Nonetheless, public participation has been sparsely addressed in the Australia EIA process (Thomas & Elliot, 2005). Hence, my research examined the extent to which EIA enables public participation in the context of a large project in Melbourne, Victoria. I expanded on my analysis by examining the limitations, challenges and opportunities of the EIA’s community engagement process to foster citizen participation. I used a single-case study methodology using the Melbourne Metro Rail Project (MMRP) in the Parkville community as the case. I collected the data through an extensive document and media analysis, and a semi-structured interview. For the data analysis, I developed a collaborative planning evaluation framework (CPEF) which builds from Healey’s (2006) imperatives of collaborative planning. The CPEF constitutes in evaluating (1) the identification of stakeholders considering their social networks, systems of meaning, and power relations, (2) the integration of innovation and different types of knowledge which covers as well the participation of stakeholders in the problem framing phase, (3) the inclusion of stakeholders, and (4) the accountability of the participation process. The analysis showed that an EIA’s engagement process is rigorous in at least one characteristic of each of these 4 evaluation categories. The EIA’s engagement process identifies and includes stakeholders, while safeguarding the accountability of the process and integrating local initiatives into the EIA process. Nonetheless, the participation of the stakeholders in the problem framing phase is limited by the Victorian legislation. Additionally, the engagement activities (stakeholder inclusion) are predetermined by the stakeholders’ identification, which is faced with the challenge of not considering the social networks of the stakeholders. EIA’s participation process is faced with the challenges of identifying the stakeholders’ social networks, acknowledging the power relations between stakeholders, and integrating different types of knowledge into the EIA process. Finally, EIA’s participation process has the opportunity to foster citizen participation by expanding on the assessment of the stakeholders’ systems of meaning. Further opportunities to encourage participation remain outside the EIA process itself, such as engaging stakeholders before the start of the EIA process or creating a new participation platform as part of the Environment Performance Requirements (EPRs) of the EIA.
-
ItemPlanning for dogs in urban environments( 2016)Dogs are the most common pet in Australia and increasingly occupy both social and cultural norms. There is a growing interest in more-than-human geography and my thesis extends this critical concern to the planning of urban environments as a human habitat. Contemporary literature in more-than-human geography typically and unconsciously anthropomorphises the experience of those other species and in turn accounts for other species from a human perspective. My thesis recognises this gap and endeavours to provide a critical account of planning for dogs through a lens of justice for animals. My research problem is predicated on the basis that Australian society lacks consensus on the appropriate treatment of dogs in urban environments, reflecting in local differentiation of opportunities available to dogs and yielding different outcomes of justice for dogs. My thesis accordingly examines how institutions and planners affect such freedoms through their language and actions. My thesis comprises a similar systems case study design that examines the phenomenon of planning for dogs using the case of Melbourne, a city of four million people and the capital of the state of Victoria, Australia, through the institutional discourse of eight representative councils (local government authorities). In order to critically address the fundamental uncertainty of anthropomorphism introduced by the dependent companion relationship, I elect to examine the discourse of government institutions as a credible, consistent and comparable reflection of society. Themes and theory emerge from the data through a disciplined application of qualitative content analysis underpinning a grounded theorisation of planning for dogs in cities. An operational framework describing justice for dogs is developed from first principles, suggesting the importance of animal management, open space planning and urban planning professions in planning for dogs. These roles demonstrate a clear ontological distinction, with the dominance of ontology shown to be exceedingly important to understanding planning for dogs. In operationalising a justice for dogs, I capture the pervasive anthropocentrism of planning which manifests in the animal management practices of councils and in how human agency is defined and exercised in the process and outcomes of planning for dogs. Whilst my thesis is ostensibly about planning urban environments and the role of local government, it also contributes to the social sciences more broadly. My approach distinguishes from what may be typical to other more-than-human geography literature through its treatment of planning for dogs as attending to underlying considerations of justice for dogs. A natural concordance with the justice as capabilities (derived from the Capabilities Approach espoused by Sen and Nussbaum) emerges, suggesting more authentic and just outcomes for dogs than in the utilitarian anthropocentric tradition where actions are guided by the demarcation of humans from animals. My thesis is a valuable contribution to this growing body of more-than-human geography literature and advances the philosophy of planning of urban environments beyond humanity, in doing so strengthening the bonds which connect the broader social sciences.
-
ItemPlanning as a democratic practice : antinomy and mediatisation( 2004)The thesis seeks to reconcile planning with its role as an aspect of democratic governance in liberal societies. Planning is directly considered as an instrument through which people seek to govern themselves. Planning problems are seen as analogous to the problems of democracy, using the idea of antinomy - that democracy contains internal contradictions between its various desirable precepts which tend to 'pull' against each other as irreducible dilemmas, requiring trade-offs to be made. Focusing upon democratic antinomy allows the essential qualities of a given democratic system, including planning, to be revealed. However, an assessment of the traditions of urban planning indicates that in practice and theory, planning has not dealt with the antinomy of democracy in any comprehensive fashion, leaving it impoverished in terms of its role and meaning in liberal democracy. The body of work loosely described as communicative planning, however, provides the basis for a reappraisal of planning as a democratic practice, based on the work of Jurgen Habermas, to account for the antinomy of democracy. Two central concepts of Habermas's work are focussed upon. Firstly, the idea of democracy as knowing and steering is used as an overall ideal. To know itself, a people must understand the challenges and opportunities it faces, and inclusively determine what outcome they wish to achieve. To steer, a people must have the capacity to act in the knowledge they inclusively developed. Secondly, however, Habermas suggests that the central impediment to democracy is mediatisation - the increasing influence of instrumental logics, such as law or money, upon the manner in which we manage collective affairs. The planning systems of The Netherlands and Singapore are used to ground the theoretical basis of the research, establishing that distinct planning systems can be characterised as particular resolutions of democratic antinomy. Further, these planning systems are used to establish that certain media do appear to be deployed in distinct ways in each system, and that this influences the 'communicativeness' of these systems. Building upon this grounding, the planning system of Victoria, Australia is subsequently examined in detail to demonstrate the manner in which media influence knowledge and steering in the chronically repeated processes of Victorian planning. This analysis, focussing on local planning, suggests that certain resolutions of democratic dilemmas are better, tested against the ideal of knowing and steering, and that the deployment of media in a planning system is integral to these resolutions of democratic dilemmas. It is concluded that communicative planning could be modified to include understandings of mediatisation, allowing it to address the practical difficulties of planning as an aspect of democratic governance.
-
ItemDesiring docklands : Deleuze and urban planning discourse( 2003)This thesis is about urban planning processes associated with the Melbourne Docklands area, some 220 hectares of public land and water adjacent to the central city of Melbourne. More specifically, it is about how these processes make sense of the world and how this `making of sense' has worked to order the Docklands' landscape. More specifically still, it is about fundamental changes in the form and content of Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, between 1989 and 1999, which would seem to represent a radical departure from planning's `normal paradigm', the rational comprehensive model. The thesis draws on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to provide an account of these changes, considering how Deleuze's concepts provide a certain `orientation' for thinking about urban planning practice, one which directs thought towards immanent engagement with the virtual forces (of desire, of movement, of time, amongst others) underpinning the production of space. It examines how these forces are expressed in Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, with a view to understanding how the discourse `works' to support processes of social desiring-production and the exercise of control power under capitalism. In the analysis of this discourse, the thesis outlines an account of urban planning practice as flows of desire and capital. It will show how such discourse moved from a grounding in site, history and community, through an unbounded, ungrounded and dream-like phase of deterritorialization, to a process of reterritorialization with the production of new identities and desires. The thesis concludes with an examination of what this analysis entails for understandings of; urban planning practice; urban planning's relationship to capital; the exercise of power in urban planning; the 'discursive turn' in urban studies; the relationship between theories of space-time and urban planning; and the relevance to urban planning of certain key Deleuzean concepts.
-
ItemDevelopment of a visual compatability model for suburban landscape : a pilot study in City of Melbourne and its eastern suburbs( 2003)The aim of this research project is to develop a procedure which will lead to the development of a landscape model, applicable to the urban and suburban landscape in Melbourne or other cities. Such a model will enable landuse planners to deal with the intricate problem of conflicts between visual character of a place and the threat of development impacts likely to impinge on the character. The author is interested in identifying and quantifying the visual characters and gauging the public perception of these characters so that a landscape model can be developed. It can be in the form of a set of equations, a list of significant factors in quantitative or descriptive format, a measuring scale of preference scores or a combination of these. The intent is to devise a comprehensive method which would be useful as a tool in assisting landscape planners and designers in decision-making about preserving existing landscape character subject to development pressure or changes. The landscape model may consist of predictive, quantitative, descriptive or perceptual landscape sub-model or some combination of these sub-models. Its role is to provide a yardstick for planners to process development proposal by comparing how the potential impacts would affect the original site with the standard landscape model. Firstly, it is necessary to look at how to identify the landscape character of residential landscape. From literature review and site analysis, five key visual landscape factors contributing to the landscape characters were identified. The factors are Vegetation, Land, Density, Design and View, most of which can be quantified under a set of criteria in any specific residential area. Amongst these factors, Vegetation has been the most popular subject in past literature in landscape assessment studies. There were other landscape studies involving some aspects of the factors of Land and View. However, very little research has explored components of the Density and Design factors. Public perception surveys are also a useful means of measuring residents' preference about their living environment which is considered to be a more objective or rigorous valuation procedure. Field and public perception surveys combined with expert judgments are employed to identify the following: the visual characteristics of a place ; the landscape types of residential suburbs in Melbourne; the public perception of visual characteristics of these suburbs ; the development of a Composite Landscape Model consisting of the following landscape sub-models: 1) Predictive Landscape Sub-Model 2) Quantitative Landscape Sub-Model 3) Descriptive Landscape Sub-Model 4) Perceptual Landscape Sub-Model From analysis of the field and perception surveys, sixty streets from fifteen eastern suburbs in Melbourne have been classified into three groups of residential landscape types. Quantitative factors showing significant correlation with suburban visual appeal were identified from correlation and regression studies. Categorical and descriptive factors were analyzed by paired t-test, ANOVA and multiple response analysis. Multi-dimensioning scale analysis is used for identifying the extent of variation in certain characteristics of suburbs and their groupings. The results of perception surveys from Melbourne and Hong Kong were compared and found to be highly correlated which is consistent with other cross-cultural preferences studies elsewhere in the past and therefore were combined for further analysis. The results formed the basis for the development of Composite Landscape Models for the study area as a whole and landscape sub-types for sixty streets from fifteen suburbs within it. These landscape models and types can be developed by quantifying the key factors contributing to visual characteristics and by carrying out public perception surveys in specific areas. This would lead to the development of Visual Compatibility Models (VCM). The application of these ICI would be useful in comparison of the possible changes caused by the proposed development with the predetermined VCM landscape models. It will assist landuse planners to assess the merits and demerits of any development whether it would contribute to the existing visual characteristic and how well. Therefore this procedure would be useful in decision making in dealing with development and planning proposals. The findings of the research appear to be promising in the determination of visual characteristics and landscape types and demonstrate its potential in developing a landscape model aiming at preserving or even enhancing the visual character of a place. This research appears to be timely given that the Victorian Government intends to consolidate the sprawl of residential areas around Melbourne by increasing the density of residential landuse in the suburbs which would have implications for the visual character of these suburbs.
-
ItemPlanning on difference in public space( 2002)Public spaces in Western cities are often regarded as sites of free and open exchange where one can most readily rub shoulders with different social groups. However, public spaces are also being increasingly privatised and different social groups are excluded. This thesis looks at the way urban planning responds to difference in public space through an in-depth analysis of three public spaces in St Kilda, Melbourne. These three case studies represent public spaces that are used by street sex workers, Aboriginal Australians and traders. Through these case studies the thesis asks whether urban planning treats public spaces as sites where the knowledge and meaning of different social groups can be expressed, or whether urban planning limits difference in public space. The thesis sheds light on the role of urban planning as a disciplinary practice that controls and limits difference in contemporary cities.
-
ItemHybrid representations : the public architecture of migrant communities in Melbourne( 2002)Given the extent to which cultural diversity is intrinsic to Melbourne's self image, it is surprising that a glance through architectural publications reveals a general absence of architecture for or by the city's increasing population of non-Western origins. However, a trip through suburban Melbourne reveals substantial areas of the city are being physically transformed by the architectural interventions of a multiplicity of cultures, as different communities adapt and construct their own public buildings. A clue to the lack of interest lies in the architectural character of these buildings. They often appear traditional, even hyper-traditional, in expression. The traditions alluded to are also ones unfamiliar to the. Western-oriented eye. Consequently they lie outside Western preconceptions of architectural development. I would suggest that the emergence of their forms in the contemporary Australian city confounds conventional notions of what constitutes 'Australian architecture'. To investigate this suggestion, the buildings of Melbourne's non-Western immigrants are critically evaluated within the theoretical frameworks of multiculturalism, diasporic cultures and postcolonialism. Their architecture has a hybrid character, the precedents for their form and detail being inflected and translated through migrancy and settlement. At the same time, they help to create a new sense of place for their disparate communities. In doing so, they are forming the framework for new layers of Melbourne, and so their establishment problematises conventional perceptions of Australian multiculturalism and national identity. The critical evaluation of such non-Western building in Australia also complicates the epistemological boundaries of western-dominated architectural discourse. The increasing presence of these buildings suggests that it cannot be assumed that all paths lead to Western modernity. It is argued that the architecture of such buildings embodies orientations that are not easily assimilated into the dominant taste-culture, and so have a certain resistance to the commodification that seems to befall architectural avant-gardes. These buildings could be described as harbingers of a 'postwestern' culture for Australia, signalling that the architectural cultures of the non-West are not simply reducible to the dead-end lower branches of Bannister Fletcher's famously Eurocentric tree of architectural history. They instead herald a possible shifting of the West from the position of centrality that it has taken for granted since the days of conquest and colonialism, and open up new possibilities for cultural entanglement and multiplicity.
-
ItemThe retreat from public planning in Melbourne 1972-1999( 2001)This thesis investigates the shift towards market-led urban policy and planning practice in Melbourne over recent decades with a particular focus on the 1990s when the Liberal-National Coalition were in office in Victoria. In the context of inter-city competition and the emergence of neo-liberalism there has been a retreat from public planning and the pursuit of social and environmental goals in shaping the city. The choices and strategies adopted in other cities reveal that the purpose and process of planning does not necessarily require the exclusion of social and environmental goals despite the pressure for governments to become more entrepreneurial. Public sector planning has experienced a number of challenges to the extent that its meaning or purpose has become uncertain. In its modernist guise, planning was a state-led technocratic activity largely concerned with the physical dimensions of urban development. During the 1960s and 1970s planning was criticised from both the right and the left, for attempting to impose a static order on a complex and changing world and for not accounting for difference and the needs of the community in its decision making process. As the focus of western politics shifted sharply to the right during the 1980s and 1990s, planning became one of the many casualties of the trend towards reducing the size and scope of government, privatisation and using economic efficiency criteria to determine public policy. As a result, the social and environmental dimensions of planning have become sidelined in favour of economic growth goals and market principles. This study shows how planning in Melbourne has been particularly shaped by the ideology of the right or neo-liberalism during the 1990s as well as the shift toward urban entrepreneurialism and place-marketing practices. A selection of choices and strategies adopted by the State Government and Melbourne City Council are examined and contrasted with similar metropolitan and central city planning initiatives in two comparable cities, Vancouver and Copenhagen. While Melbourne has chosen a narrow economic growth model for developing urban policy and planning practice, Vancouver and Copenhagen have maintained a more balanced agenda in determining the shape of their cities. The research shows that public participation, inter-governmental and inter-agency co-ordination and the pursuit of social justice and environmental sustainability are critically important in `revaluing' urban policy and planning in the future for the purpose of creating the `just-city'.
-
ItemSelling the city : retail planning and Central Melbourne( 2001)This thesis investigates the effects that recent economic and political changes in Melbourne have had on the practice of strategic urban planning. In particular, it focuses on the multiple challenges of inter-city competition, academic critique and neo-liberalism have had on the practice of planning, through a case study, that of planning for retailing within the central city. Public sector planning has been subject to many pressures and challenges in recent years. The notion that cities are competing with each other for the attraction of mobile capital has led to pressure on planning to remove regulatory requirements. The urban agenda of many cities has become dominated by entrepreneurial strategies focusing on large scale projects and events, around which city marketing campaigns are run. The adoption of neo-liberal economic policies reached its height in Victoria under the Kennett Government, during the years 1992 to 1999. Neo-liberal styles of governance are essentially at odds with public planning, concerned as it is with directing investment and shaping development in the urban environment in pursuit of some conception of the collective good. This study shows how the adoption of the neo-liberal agenda in Melbourne has affected both the ability of planners to plan, and the range of policy choices available to them. The current climate of inter-city competition and urban entrepreneurialism focuses particularly on the promotion of central cities as the sites for both investment and consumption. Within this city retailing has a critical role to play both as a symbol of economic success and desirable lifestyle. Yet there has been a persistent discourse within Melbourne that the metropolitan area will develop an urban form similar to that seen in many cities within the US. In this scenario retailing within the CBD will inevitably decline under competition from suburban shopping malls, which will ultimately result in a doughnut-shaped city with an empty centre. Without an economically viable retail sector the central city would be reduced merely to its business function threatening its cultural, social and symbolic place in the life of metropolitan Melbourne. There are strong environmental grounds for supporting the retention of retailing within the CBD, as the Melbourne city centre is at the hub of the radial public transport network, and achieves by far the highest public transport usage rates. A close examination of available data shows that whilst central city retailing in Melbourne declined in significance during the 1960s and 1970s, the decline has all but halted. The way the threat of decline has been both conceived and responded to, provides insight into the current state of public sector planning. An analysis of planning strategies for the central city of Melbourne since the 1950s demonstrates a steady move away from the interventionist, relying increasingly on marketing and promotion as tools to assist economic development. The cities of Toronto, Copenhagen and Manchester are investigated here as three different models of more positive and interventionist planning. These examples show that there is room to move within the constraints of the competitive global economy. These cities provide alternative possibilities for strategic planning in the future, and the knowledge that alternative strategies can be successfully followed without compromising economic competitiveness.
-
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.
- 1 (current)
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5