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This paper uses a combined method -- survey and semi-structured interviews -- to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of digital design environments for supporting architects' sustainable design practices. In most contemporary firms, architects' sustainable design aspirations are reliant on the use digital design tools and associated computational platforms. Past research, however, suggests that a level of uncertainty exists about whether these tools and platforms are sufficient for this purpose. To investigate this issue in an Australian context, architects were invited to take part in an online survey to identify general trends and perceptions, leading to a series of semi-structured interviews, to analyse the issues in detail. The survey results (n = 70) suggest that despite considering sustainable design an important objective in their design practice, participants believe that digital design tools require further development and improvement. Detailed interviews (n = 15) then identified specific factors affecting the usefulness of digital design tools. These results enhance our understanding of Australian architects' experiences using digital design tools. It also contributes to improving the tools that support sustainable design practices throughout the architectural, engineering and construction industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a conference paper about "Next Generation" libraries. It cites changes that impacted library design such as developments in active collaborative and discursive learning and the transformation brought about by information technology. It discusses the Workshop Process utilized by the Iahznummo architects in building consensus for innovation in library design that involves all stakeholders, citing processes involved in libraries in Australia.

The author examines the role of Daniel Dering Mathew in the early architectural history of Australia and his recognition as the country's first trained architect. Topics discussed include Mathew's upbringing and his educational background, his work in Great Britain, a problem on his design of a Palladian-style courthouse and the conclusion.

The proposition that the urban built environment can, and indeed should, be made more visually attractive is a long-standing feature of the governance of Australian cities. In this vein, this paper examines how 'good design' in terms of visual aesthetics is currently pursued including through the development assessment process and thework of government architects. The paper begins by tracing the background of contemporary regulatory practice from longstanding ideas around beauty and its value through to the urban design movement of today. Next, it considers in more detail various rationales for aesthetic governance and what might be better forms of regulatory practice. In short, it will be argued that while there can be scope for regulation to deliver superior outcomes, this practice must be sensitive to a high degree of contingency in what the public values and that deliberate empirical inquiry into the latter is desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That architects leave the profession is something that seems ‘known’. In addition, there has been continuous concern that women in particular leave. However, the extent of departure is unclear. Much of the information around these observations come from surveys, is anecdotal or study women in isolation from men. This paper provides some firmer data on the movement of men and women into and out of the profession using Australia as a case study. It collates and analyses historical and contemporary data to delineate the complex patterns of participation in and leaving of architecture. While the sources of data are often limited and approximate, this analysis nonetheless highlights a number of factors affecting the tenure of architects in their profession. The economy is an obvious factor and the data mirrors the economic fate of the country. The paper firmly demonstrates that gender is a factor with a strong impact on leaving the profession – a movement that clearly adversely affects the diversity of the profession. A further factor in leaving is age, which interacts with gender: women begin to leave when young and men when older. Diversity is increasingly proving to be an important factor in the ability of an organisation or a profession to survive, let alone meet, the challenges and opportunities of the globalised twenty-first century. The paper concludes with a plea for better data sources to better clarify how, and to what extent, biases nudge many architects out of the profession. Understanding the extent and nature of these biases helps the formulation of tactics to foster greater diversity to engender a more resilient profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - To report on architect reactions to the use of non-prescriptive design and construction briefs in the delivery of private prison projects in Australia. Design/methodology/approach - The introduction of the private prison projects in Australia saw the introduction of alternative delivery methods, such as Design-Construct, for the delivery of prison facilities. The resulting design brief, forwarded as the "Request for Proposal", was typically a non-prescriptive document. Those architects who participated in such private prison design projects were interviewed using a semi-structured interview questionnaire. Beliefs regarding the use of such briefs were gauged from the interview data. Findings - The interviews revealed conflicting beliefs regarding the usefulness and appropriateness of the design brief. The responses were divided between a minority who found the briefs adequate, owing principally to the belief that it facilitated innovation. However, the majority considered the briefs as inadequate for prison construction. They believed that it allowed for manipulation by contractors, and that it compromised the design process and the integrity of the facility. As architects question the suitability of such design briefs for the delivery of prison facilities, the paper highlights the advantages and limitations in using prescriptive and non-prescriptive prison design briefs. Originality/value - This paper fulfils a need for data regarding the role of design briefs in prison design and construction. It offers a valuable comparison of the diverse approaches that can be taken, and the impacts this has upon how architects operate in prison projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011-12, greenhouse gas emissions from the Australian residential sector were 101.6 Mt and are expected to grow by 38% by 2050. In order to reduce these emissions, much emphasis has been placed on increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and appliances. Occupant behaviour, however, is probably the single most significant factor which determines energy use and emissions. This paper describes research undertaken to rank the most common occupant behaviours, based upon their impact on greenhouse gas emissions associated with residential energy use, in an architect-designed house in Australia. The occupant behaviours investigated were changing: the heating and cooling temperature set points, window openings, external blind use and lighting use. Simulations were carried out using Primero and EnergyPlus software. Based on the simulation results of greenhouse gas emissions, the following ranking of overall influence (from most influential to the least) has been determined: external blind use was one of the most effective measures to reduce emissions. Cooling set point temperature was similarly important with the magnitude of impact depending on the set point e.g. a 2°C increase had an impact comparable to the use of external blinds. The impact of the heating set point temperature was also dependent on the set point and overall slightly lower compared to the cooling set point temperature. Lighting use was the least influential parameter in the context of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1929, the Australian architect and author William Hardy Wilson (1881-1950) identified architectural practice within Australia as degenerate and in decline. He attributed this regression not to changing tastes or styles but to the increasing number of native-born architects and their long-term exposure to a subtropical or tropical climate. Wilson believed that Australia's warmer climates negatively affected the nation's future capacity for innovation and invention and the development of national style. Central to Wilson's thesis was the proposition that climate was the primary determinant of artistic agency. The importance of this idea was twofold. First, it enabled Wilson to develop a critique of the White Australia policies which were introduced in 1901 and which grew in influence in the early decades of twentieth-century Australia. Second, it helped Wilson to locate Australian architectural practice within a global theory of civilisation. In documenting the crisis that Wilson saw within the architecture of Australia, the paper considers this aspect of his work in detail for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the lessons that architects could learn from the changes in Australia. Topics covered include the support of the country for climate change efforts as well as the threat posed by climate change to its citizens. Also mentioned are the problems experienced by Australia due to climate change such as cyclones, drought and floods.

Canberra is now a century old, and locals are recovering from a year of centenary celebrations. One of the factors that emerged during this year was the gap between its two states of being: Canberra is both the national capit[al] – the ‘head’ of the nation; and at the same time a community's hometown. The centenary celebrations also generated discussion about its history, and the process of its development from territory, through ‘sheep paddock’, to at once a federal capital and a small regional city. To a large extent, this history is story: a set of possibilities and lines of thought that have coalesced in the idea of a capital. Expounding sometimes ideals and sometimes practicalities, and complying with policy, legislation and aesthetic theories, the initiators of Canberra established a way of living in, and thinking through, what it is to be within a landscape, within discourse and within particular ideas of history. We draw on insights from Jean Baudrillard, and Deleuze and Guattari, and reference the work of landscape architects and of historians, we discuss this history and explore the tension between the lived and the imagined Canberra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents Plantagon's spherical-greenhouse. Architects at Australia-based firm CK Designworks have designed the world's first vertical street, a 35-storey high-rise to be built in Melbourne, in which every sixth floor will have gardens planted with trees growing up to 10m tall. According to project architect Robert Caulfield, 'Crystal Gardens' is the first time that five communal gardens have been attempted in the same high-rise. Purpose-built planter boxes allowing tree roots to grow in the confined 120m2 gardens have been designed while novel structural supports that hold the weight of the soil and trees will be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celebrated architect and city planner Daniel Hudson Burnham enjoyed a rise to fame in the aftermath of his widely acclaimed achievement as Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition, held in his adopted Chicago in 1893. Roughly in parallel with Burnham's rise, town planning movements were coalescing in Australia, and it would not be long until the Chicagoan's name was circulating in Australian professional circles. This is a pilot study broadly aimed at chronicling and interpreting Australian awareness of Daniel Burnham at the turn of the twentieth century. More specifically, it is concerned with the reception of Burnham's civic design ideals and why some believed them to be of antipodean relevance. Their Australian impact, however, is beyond the present study's scope. Reciprocally, this essay also surveys Burnham's knowledge of Australia. Special emphasis is given to Burnham within the context of the Australia's Federal Capital competition (1912), arguing that although the Chicagoan did not compete, he profoundly, albeit vicariously, impacted the capital's design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2004, at the age of eighty-four, the Australian architect of Italian origins, Aldo Giurgola, designed his very first home, a country house, una casa in campagna, in Australia, in the regional inner country site, one hour north of Canberra, overlooking the extraordinary natural beauty of Lake Bathurst. A lake with a particular nature: a changing attitude, now dry adapting to the dry season, afterwards full of water to accept the rainy season. The condition of this lake with its constant mood of adapting to atmospheric circumstances raises a number of questions in relation to Giurgola's adaptation to a diverse culture and place. Arguably, la casa in campagna responds to these issues with its architectural constants of forma and contenuto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term genre is usually associated with literary and filmic texts; however, this article also considers other communicative events such as foyers of contemporary high-rises as text types. While it might seem obvious to note that the fundamental purpose of these foyers is to shuttle users back and forth between the entrance and the elevator, it is more intriguing to discern the ways in which this function is achieved. By using the theoretical framework developed within the discipline of systemic functional linguistics and by employing the analytical tool of intertextuality, this article undertakes a comparative semiotic reading of the foyers of Harry Seidler's corporate and residential high-rises in Sydney, Australia, in order to explicate the generic structure of high-rise foyers, to elucidate the similarities and differences between his foyers and to foreground the ideological stance that Seidler has consistently taken throughout his oeuvre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly after John Grainger arrived in Australia in 1877 he won competitions for the design of three bridges in Adelaide, Sale and Melbourne. During his life, despite being subjected to recurring bouts of debilitating illness, he designed at least 14 bridges, five water supply and irrigation schemes, and a large number of buildings, many of which are on heritage registers in both Australia and New Zealand. Today he is largely forgotten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern Cross Station is one of the largest public-private partnership (PPP) projects undertaken in Australia. In this project the architects played a significant role in developing an iconic design which has received international professional design awards and much media attention. In the media the architects' design was perceived as having impacted negatively on capital costs. Given these contradictory perceptions, the aim of this study was to better understand perceptions of the architects' role in relation to project risks arising out of their design. A survey of key project executives working in the PPP consortium responsible for delivering the project was undertaken. The survey was structured by a framework combining the PPP life cycle, project risks and the idea that architectural design can be viewed as a research and development activity rather than simply as a problem-solving activity. The survey responses point to the fact that the architects mitigated technical and operating risks and their activities had little bearing on the project's substantial write-downs. This counters media perceptions of the project that the design activities of the architects created more risks than they mitigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the skill of writing architectural history as documentary. The author has tested the boundaries of writing architectural history by side-stepping into documentary film making. In Australia, he collaborated with a young filmmaker, Shaun Charles to produce a twenty minute independent film entitled Building Mayne Hall. In Building Mayne Hall, the architects interviewed talk about a component of architectural practice not normally discussed in public but talked about in private.

The role of architectural education in facilitating the international flow of ideas and developing the local profession during the interwar period is relatively underexplored. In Australia, the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier (1919–1947) was instrumental in introducing foreign methodologies while promoting a locally inflected paradigm of modern architecture. Based initially on the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the atelier's emphasis on composition and form, rather than a single accepted architectural style, fostered a culture of experimentation among Australian architects. But its focus on scholarship instead of professional qualification led to its eventual demise, highlighting the complex relationship between global design culture and local architectural practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]