Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemTwo Scots in Victoria: the architecture of Davidson and Henderson( 1983)Research for this dissertation began in February 1970 with a part-time post graduate, study to identify and document the architectural heritage of the Western District of Victoria. The initial program of study, which was centred on my birthplace, Camperdown, and the surrounding municipality of the Shire of Hampden, concentrated on an investigation of the many pastoral homesteads located in this rich grazing region of Victoria. Although the task proved to be both expansive and expensive, it was quickly established that throughout the nineteenth century, Scottish immigrants to the Port Phillip Colony of New South Wales exerted a strong, distinctly Caledonian influence on the patterns of settlement and cultural development of the lands known as 'Australia Felix'. In many instances, it was apparent that Scottish architectural traditions had been directly transplanted into an Australian context with a landscape altogether reminiscent of the Lowlands and Border Country of Scotland. In mid 1972, my research program was reduced in extent and redirected towards an investigation into the nature of this Scottish presence, and the influence of Scottish architects in the development of identifiable architectural traditions in Western Victoria. An index of the building and architectural data contained in the files of the Geelong Advertiser from 1840-1888 was prepared and a chronological account of the development of homestead architecture in the Western District was subsequently framed. Although several architectural firms were associated, with varying degrees of success, with the pastoral industry of the region, one firm, that of the architects Alexander Davidson and George Henderson, dominated the building industry at the height of the wool boom in the 1870's. A chance follow up to a footnote in Margaret Loch Kiddle's authoratitive, social history of the Western District Men of Yesterday (1961), during a visit to Scotland in 1972 led to the discovery of George Henderson's papers in Edinburgh. This extensive collection of letters, drawings and photographs, which was kindly made available to me by Mrs. E.S. Phillipps, the daughter of George Henderson, relates to the careers of the architects Davidson and Henderson in Australia and also to the earlier practice of their mentor, the noted Edinburgh architect John Henderson. Included in the collection are 115 letters, written by George Henderson to his mother in the period 1867-1877, whilst working in Australia. These monthly epistles provide a unique and extremely frank, personal and detailed account of an architectural practice in Western Victoria in the nineteenth century and form the basis of this dissertation, which is essentially a study of the architecture of Davidson and Henderson.
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ItemGlass' Creek and Hay's Paddock: the background history of a park( 1984)This case study relates the history of a controversy in the Melbourne suburb of Kew, about the development of public open space. The space consisted of an existing park, through which a creek flowed and proposed parkland adjacent to it, which was private farmland when the history began. The controversy was activated by a group of residents who opposed the Municipal Council's plans to underground the Creek and to build three ovals. They wanted the Creek reconstructed and the site developed as a "natural" environment. The dispute focused on three issues: treatment of the degraded, urban creek; use of the land for active or for passive sport, and the values ascribed to the land. The case study is based on documentary material from the files of the main organisations involved, and on interviews with some participants. It covers the period 1971 to 1981, describing the area, the interests of the main organisations, the history of their attitudes, proposals and decisions. The problems of urban creeks are outlined. The report describes how Glass' Creek was reconstructed and some of the problems associated with that. It considers why the recreation conflict was protracted and concludes that this was due to differing belief systems about the value of the land itself, which could only be resolved by political means. Finally, the case study examines what "natural" meant and how participants expressed their values towards the land through physical and symbolic proposals for development of the site. The case study illustrates problems in the planning structure and raises questions for landscape architects about the relationship of people to their physical environment and the way in which they invest it with meaning.
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ItemAn investigation of salt marsh dynamics: a study of salt marsh at Jack's Beach, Westernport Bay, Victoria( 1982)Many studies of the environmental factors influencing the occurrence and zonation of salt marsh (and mangrove) communities may be found in the literature, however few of these studies consider all of the environmental and vegetation factors as integral components of a dynamic system. The present study gathers together quantified environmental and vegetational information, including the vertical zonation of vegetation, the relation of vegetation to tide levels, weather data, soil characteristics, and the relationships between these factors and soil salinity and soil water content, as an integrated investigation of salt marsh dynamics. Because of time and resource restraints, the collection of quantitative data was restricted to a relatively small area of salt marsh (including mangroves) at Jack's Beach in Westernport Bay, Victoria. However the wider implications for the salt marshes of Westernport Bay are discussed and some general inferences are drawn.