Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemThe instruments of transitional urbanism: The mobilisation of temporary-use projects in state- and market-led urban development( 2020)Research in “temporary-use” urbanism — the interim use of vacant land and buildings — has identified a shift from a citizen-driven process to one enabled and managed by the state and the market. Amid this colossal pantomime of actors, projects, plans and capital, however, the field lacks studies of the value in co-opting this short-term activity for larger-scale urban development. These values, or useful benefits of temporary-use projects, impact a range of areas including urban design, architecture, planning, policy and property development. This dissertation argues that the longer-term value of temporary-use projects for urban development are embedded in knowledge hidden within organisations and actors. Through a comparative research framework, this dissertation examines how specific value can be transferred to larger-scale urban development via people and projects.
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ItemMaking Civic Space: A Comparative Study of Civic Space Design in the Contemporary Settler Societies of Australia and New Zealand( 2019)Designers in settler colonial cities around the world are being asked to respond to the demands of decolonisation as nations increasingly acknowledge their ethical obligations to redress colonialism. This thesis explores the state of decolonising practice in design through the lens of civic space in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, as compared through two exemplary projects - Adelaide’s Victoria Square/Tarndanyangga and Wellington’s Waterfront. The politics of settler nations are intrinsically spatial, as legislative and symbolic processes of sovereignty negotiate territory. Traversing conflicting layers of history in the spatial present is very complex, as physical ecologies and topographies both disrupt and support the legacy of colonialism. This research examines the textual, conceptual, spatial and architectural modes of practice which together collectively ‘make’ civic space. Civic space offers the opportunity to explore shared histories, experiences and practices, between indigenous and settler subjectivities However, the very notion of ‘civic’ is problematic within the settler context, where space and politics are inherently ‘unsettled’. The study considers the approaches to the design of civic space from placemaking and planning through to the scales of landscape architecture and architecture. This study found that despite progress and good-will on the part of design practitioners and stakeholders, the position of designers in Australia continues to be compromised by the arrested development of reconciliation in terms of legislation, governance and the redress of history. In the absence of meaningful change, designers are reliant on creative placemaking practices of acknowledgment, applied through techniques of interpretation and curation. When viewed in contrast, the constructs established by the legislative and policy redress of New Zealand have provided designers with a stronger footing from which to explore finer grade spatial design responses to decolonisation. When viewed together these two spaces offer a revealing collision of design, policy and indigenous reconciliation.
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ItemParticipation in architecture: agonism in practice( 2018)Literature about participation in architecture promised architecture the restoration of a moral dimension, arguing that participation would offer opportunities for empowerment and deliver broad benefits. To its disservice, the field of participation has been dominated by a rational ideology, and a focus on agreement and decision-making – incorporated in the term ‘consensus’. The dominant approach to participation has been at the expense of difference, passions, arguments, resistances and tensions present in the participatory process – incorporated here in the term ‘agonism’. Exacerbating this gap between consensus and agonism, a lack of real-world examples and analysis of everyday participation, has led to a quite limited practical language about participation or descriptions of the concrete process of participation in action, and arguably an avoidance to design and critique participatory processes in architecture and urban design. This Doctor of Philosophy attempts to do participation in architecture through a series of Creative Works in practice, by carefully considering approach, and, designing for difference and bottom-up empowerment of others with social, physical, emotional and psychological benefits specific to each project. The methodology exposed the realities of participation in architectural design practice with communities, highlighting social themes for exploration and multiple modes for practice. This research project demonstrates that agonism is an action-orientated way forward for participation, arguing that the tension between architecture and participation is actually productive. It concludes that difference rather than consensus is crucial to participation, suggesting for architectural and urban design practice that the philosophical role of an architect is to consciously create and maintain opportunities to keep alive the participatory process in the world, by critically designing participation.
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ItemNegotiating a people’s space: a historical, spatial and social analysis of the People’s Square of Shanghai from the colonial to Mao to post-Mao era( 2014)This research investigates spatial formations of the People's Square of Shanghai from the 1840s to the 2000s against a shifting history of political and ideological backdrops. The research explores how the Square was formed and reformed, how it was used, how it facilitated and restricted certain social uses, and how it both reflected and subverted, to an extent, a predominant political and ideological control. The thesis reveals new layers of spatial politics of the Square and adds new dimensions to our reading of the meaning of the city centre of the Chinese metropolis.