Imagining in the spatial design process

This thesis aims to expand our understanding of imagining in the spatial design disciplines of architecture and interior design. More than three decades after Lawson’s statement, the matter of “what goes on in a designer’s head”, or imagining and mental problem solving remains just as mysterious and just as pertinent, possibly more so given the social and environmental challenges facing humankind. The lines on a page, the small perspective sketches, the connection of lines and scrawled notes and other clues help us understand what may be going on in the mind of the architect or designer. However, how designers know that space intimately before it is built is not greatly understood and articulated – even by designers themselves. There is a gap in the market in terms of informed exploration of the thinking that occurs during the design process, and how this is translated into physical outcomes. In other words, what do we see in our mind’s eye during the design process? This thesis explores design thinking and design process; what we ‘see’ when we draw, what we ‘see’ when we design.

Serum HE4 as a prognostic marker in endometrial cancer : a population based study

Objective HE4 has emerged as a promising biomarker in gynaecological oncology. The purpose of this study was to evaluate serum HE4 as a biomarker for high-risk phenotypes in a population-based endometrial cancer cohort. Methods Peri-operative serum HE4 and CA125 were measured in 373 patients identified from the prospective Australian National Endometrial Cancer Study (ANECS). HE4 and CA125 were quantified on the ARCHITECT instrument in a clinically accredited laboratory. Receiver operator curves (ROC), Spearman rank correlation coefficient, and chi-squared and Mann–Whitney tests were used for statistical analysis. Survival analysis was performed using Kaplan–Meier and Cox multivariate regression analyses. Results Median CA125 and HE4 levels were higher in stage III and IV tumours (p < 0.001) and in tumours with outer-half myometrial invasion (p < 0.001). ROC analysis demonstrated that HE4 (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.76) was a better predictor of outer-half myometrial invasion than CA125 (AUC = 0.65), particularly in patients with low-grade endometrioid tumours (AUC 0.77 vs 0.64 for CA125). Cox multivariate analysis demonstrated that elevated HE4 was an independent predictor of recurrence-free survival (HR = 2.40, 95% CI 1.19–4.83, p = 0.014) after adjusting for stage and grade of disease, particularly in the endometrioid subtype (HR = 2.86, 95% CI 1.25–6.51, p = 0.012). Conclusion These findings demonstrate the utility of serum HE4 as a prognostic biomarker in endometrial cancer in a large, population-based study. In particular they highlight the utility of HE4 for pre-operative risk stratification to identify high-risk patients within low-grade endometrioid endometrial cancer patients who might benefit from lymphadenectomy.

Design Minds Tomorrow's Classroom Toolkit

The Design Minds Tomorrow’s Classroom Toolkit was one of six K7-12 secondary school design toolkits commissioned by the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) Asia Pacific Design Library (APDL), to facilitate the delivery of the Stage 1 launch of its Design Minds online platform (www.designminds.org.au) partnership initiative with Queensland Government Arts Queensland and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, on June 29, 2012. Design Minds toolkits are practical guides, underpinned by a combination of one to three of the Design Minds model phases of ‘Inquire’, ‘Ideate’ and ‘Implement’ (supported by at each stage with structured reflection), to enhance existing school curriculum and empower students with real life design exercises, within the classroom environment. Toolkits directly identify links to Naplan, National Curriculum, C2C and Professional Standards benchmarks, as well as the student capabilities of successful and creative 21st century citizens they seek to engender through design thinking. This toolkit explores, through four distinct exercises, different design tools and ways to approach the future design of environments (classrooms/schools) to facilitate the Reggio Emilia philosophy of learning, while addressing diverse and changing social, cultural, technological and environmental challenges. The Design Minds Tomorrow’s Classroom Toolkit encourages students to explore architecture and interior design, and to think about their (life-long) learning as a product of inspiring interactions with people and the environments around them, and that their potential role in contributing to both delightful and functional design solutions requires a deep understanding of the user experience. More generally, it aims to facilitate awareness in young people, of the role of design in society and the value of design thinking skills in generating strategies to solve basic to complex systemic challenges, as well as to inspire post-secondary pathways and idea generation for education. The toolkit encourages students and teachers to develop sketching, making, communication, presentation and collaboration skills to improve their design process, as well as explore further inquiry (background research) to enhance the ideation exercises. Exercise 1 focuses on the ‘Inquire’ and ‘Ideate’ phases, Exercise 2 on the ‘Inquire’, Exercise 3 builds on ideation skills, and Exercise 4 concentrates on the ‘Implement’ phase. Depending on the intensity of the focus, the unit of work could be developed over a 2-5 week program (approximately 4-10 x 60 minute lessons/workshops) or as smaller workshops treated as discrete learning experiences. The toolkit is available for public download from http://designminds.org.au/tomorrows-classroom/ on the Design Minds website. This toolkit inspired the authorship and facilitation of a 2-day design workshop entitled Learning Environment 2050 at John Paul College, Daisy Hill, Brisbane on the 15-16 August 2013. 120 Grade 7 students and their teachers, under the mentorship of two design academics, 3 QUT design students and a professional architect, as part of a QUT School of Design Project Week community engagement activity, explored the formulation of a participatory design brief for the redesign of the school’s Wesley Precinct (including classrooms, a sustainable farm and recreation areas).

Women on the Heritage Register : the case of Nellie McCredie and Uanda House

Uanda house is of historical importance to Queensland both in terms of its architectural design and its social history. Uanda is a low set, single story house built in 1928, located in the inner city Brisbane suburb of Wilston. Architecturally, the house has a number of features that distinguish it from the surrounding bungalow influenced inter-war houses. The house has been described as a Queensland style house with neo-Georgian influences. Historically, it is associated with the entry of women into the profession of architecture in Queensland. Uanda is the only remaining intact work of architect/draftswoman Nellie McCredie and one of a very few examples of works by pioneering women architects in Queensland. The house was entered into the Queensland Heritage Register, in 2000, after an appeal against Brisbane City Council’s refusal of an application to demolish the house was disputed in the Queensland Planning and Environment court in 1998/1999. In the court’s report, Judge Robin QC, DCJ, stated that, “The importance of preserving women's history and heritage, often previously marginalised or lost, is now accepted at government level, recognising that role models are vital for bringing new generations of women into the professions and public life.” While acknowledging women’s contribution to the profession of architecture is an important endeavour, it also has the potential to isolate women architects as separate to a mainstream history of architecture. As Julie Willis writes, it can imply an atypical, feminine style of architecture. What is the impact or potential implications of recognising heritage buildings designed by women architects? The Judge also highlights the absence of a recorded history of unique Brisbane houses and questions the authority of the heritage register. This research looks at these points of difference through a case study of the Uanda house. The paper will investigate the processes of adding the house to the heritage register, the court case and existing research on Nellie McCredie and Uanda House.

Control design for positioning of underwater vehicles with control allocation

In this paper, we address the control design problem of positioning of over-actuated underwater vehicles. The proposed design is based on a control architecture with combined position and velocity loops and a control tuning method based on the decoupled models. We derive analytical tuning rules based on requirements of closed-loop stability, positioning performance, and the vehicle velocity dynamic characteristics. The vehicle modelling is considered from force to motion with appropriate simplifications related to low-speed manoeuvring hydrodynamics and vehicle symmetry. The control design is considered together with a control allocation mapping. This approach makes the control tuning independent of the characteristics of the force actuators and provides the basis for control reconfiguration in the presence of actuator failure. We propose an anti-wind-up implementation of the controller, which ensures that the constraints related to actuation capacity are not violated. This approach simplifies the control allocation problem since the actuator constraints are mapped into generalised force constraints.

Space within the surface : the patterned surfaces of Florence Broadhurst and Jim Thompson

The Woods Bagot 2007 refurbishment of the Qantas and British Airways Bangkok Business lounge in the Survarnabhumi Airport features wall finishes designed by wallpaper designer, Florence Broadhurst (1899-1977) and Thai Silk trader, Jim Thompson (1906-1967). This distinctive selection, which is proclaimed on the airport’s website, of patterned wall surfaces side by side draws attention to their striking similarities and their defining differences . Thompson and Broadhurst would appear to be worlds apart, but here in the airport their work brings them together. Thompson, the son of a wealthy cotton family in America, worked as an architect before joining the army. He moved to Bangkok to start The Thai Silk Company in 1948. Broadhurst was born on a farm in Mt. Perry, Queensland. She began her career as a performance artist, as part of an Australian troupe in Shanghai, moving onto pursue a career in fashion design, catering to the middle and upper classes in London. Upon her return to Australia, Broadhurst started a print design company in 1959. Both Broadhurst and Thompson pursued multiple careers, lived many lives, and died under mysterious circumstances. Broadhurst was murdered in 1977 at her Sydney print warehouse, which remains an unsolved crime. Thompson disappeared in Malaysia in 1967 and his body has never been found. This chapter investigates the parallels between Thompson and Broadhurst and what lead them to design such popular patterns for wall surfaces towards the end of their careers. While neither designer was a household name, their work is familiar to most, seen in the costume and set design of films, on the walls of restaurants and cafes and even in family homes. The reason for the popularity of their patterns has not previously been analysed. However, this chapter suggests that the patterns are intriguing because they contain something of their designers’ identities. It suggests that the coloured surface provides a way of camouflaging and hiding its subjects’ histories, such that Broadhurst and Thompson, consciously or unconsciously, used the patterned surface as a plane in which their past lives could be buried. The revealing nature of the stark white wall, compared with the forgiveness provided by the pattern in which to hide, is elaborated by painter and advocate for polychromatic architecture, Fernand Léger in his essay, “The Wall, The Architect, The Painter (1965).” Léger writes that, “the modern architect has gone too far in his magnificent attempts to cleanse through emptiness,” and that the resultant white walls of modernity create ‘an impalpability of air, of slick, brilliant new surfaces where nothing can be hidden any longer …even shadows don’t dare to enter’. To counter the exposure produced by the white wall, Thompson and Broadhurst designed patterned surfaces that could harbour their personal histories. Broadhurst and Thompson’s works share a number of commonalities in their design production, even though their work in print design commenced a decade apart. Both designers opted to work more with traditional methods of pattern making. Broadhurst used hand-operated screens, and Thompson outsourced work to local weavers and refrained from operating out of a factory. Despite humble beginnings, Broadhurst and Thompson enjoyed international success with their wall patterns being featured in a number of renowned international hotels in Bahrain, Singapore, Sydney, and London in the 1970s and 1980s. Their patterns were also transferred to fabric for soft furnishings and clothing. Thompson’s patterns were used for costumes in films including the King and I and Ben Hur. Broadhurst’s patterns were also widely used by fashion designers and artists, such as Akira Isogowa‘s costume design for Salome, a 1998 production by the Sydney Dance Company. Most recently her print designs have been used by skin illustrator Emma Hack, in a series of works painting female bodies into Broadhurst’s patterns. Hack’s works camouflage the models’ bodies into the patterned surface, assimilating subject and surface, hinting at there being something living within the patterned wall. More than four decades after Broadhurst’s murder and five decades since Thompson’s disappearance, their print designs persist as more than just a legacy. They are applied as surface finishes with the same fervour as when the designs were first released. This chapter argues that the reason for the ongoing celebration of their work is that there is the impalpable presence of the creator in the patterns. It suggests that the patterns blur the boundary between subject and surface.

Writing and the disappearance of architecture theory

One of the first architects to write a book was Vitruvius, the Roman architect who published De Architectura in the 1st century BC, a book that would become the foundation for Western Architectural Thought. When I was an undergraduate, the history of architecture was taught via a series of books by architects that were at least, if not more significant than the buildings. From De Architectura to Alberti’s rejoinder De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building) in the fifteenth century, Palladio’s Quattro Libri (The Four Books of Architecture) 1570, and Laugier’s Essai sur l'Architecture 1753. In the 1990s, we treasured the heroic architecture books of the 20th century from Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture, to Aldo Rossi’s the Architecture of the City, Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York, and of course Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas which for me was the very starting point for the postmodern movement.

The lily, client and measure of Bruno Taut’s Glashaus

The Glashaus is considered a significant exemplar of early modernist architecture and is generally accepted as having had Expressionist origins. However, current research has revealed that the design origins of this important building are not fully understood. While the historical record acknowledges the contributions of the bohemian poet Paul Scheerbart and the art critic Adolf Behne, the role of the Glashaus’ architect, Bruno Taut, has been moderated. In an attempt to rectify this situation this article proposes that the design origins of the Glashaus can be found in a strong architect-client interaction. It is argued that the Glashaus’ client, the Deutsche Luxfer Prismen Syndikat under the directorship of Frederick Keppler, exerted a significant influence on its design. In order to showcase the glazed products of Luxfer in the best manner possible, Keppler insisted that the design feature a glazed dome, electric lighting, a fountain as well as a cascade. Given the detailed stipulations of this brief, Taut had few options other than to offer interpretations of precedent that derived from the Victoria regia lily and Gothic proportioning. By expounding this architect-client relationship, this article expands our understanding of the Glashaus, and reinvigorates our understanding of this important early example of modern architecture.

Finding country

The Finding Country Exhibition seeks a pluralist contest between the traditions of aboriginal space (Country), and European space (property) in Australia. Aboriginal Country is excluded from the Australian city. The city of Brisbane, located on the aboriginal Country of the Turrbal people, is the common ground of this confrontation. It is the show Australia rejected. Despite the 1992 landmark Mabo case High Court decision, a decision that struck down the doctrine of terra nullius (an empty land belonging to no-one), architecture in Australia continues its 18th century European tradition of drawing on empty paper. The aboriginal position is that this paper is not empty, but is full of what can’t be seen. The aboriginal map of Australia reveals a continent with many Countries and many spaces. The prevailing spectrum of architectural positions, bookended by decorated sheds and metaphysical decks, continues to bring aboriginal Country into decline. If the opposite position is considered it is possible to find something lost. Cities historically enter states of decline, frequently associated with some form of catastrophe. Others end in a whimper. It is not unreasonable to imagine an opportunity for the recovery of Country through decline. The central exhibit is an 8×3m drawing of the city of Brisbane consisting of approximately 50 individual grid submissions emptied by half to find something special. Each grid is an explicit architectural negotiation with decline, whilst carrying an implicit personal challenge to non-aboriginal architects to engage Country. Since 2006, the Finding Country project has endeavoured to assert an aboriginal origin for architecture in Australia. It is led and directed by Kevin O’Brien a descendent of the Kaurareg and Meriam people of north-eastern Australia, and an architect working in Brisbane.

Scripting the journey

"The architect Christopher Alexander once said that design is but “a residue of the all important process.” This cluster views the creative process through the scrim of drafts, sketches, mock-ups, rough cuts, and prototypes—the secondary output of art and design. Curated by Kari Kraus Co-curated by Amalia Levi"

Form-based planning and liveable urban environments

This review article discusses form-based planning an din details analise the following books: Stepehn Marshall (2012) Urban Coding and Planning (Routledge, New York, USA, 272pp. pISBN 1135689202). Emily Talen (2012) City Rules: How Regulations Affects Urban Form (Island Press, Washington DC, USA, 254 pp. ISBN 9781597266925). Richard Tomlinson (2012) Australia’s Unintended Cities: the Impact of Housing on Urban Development (CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia, 194pp. ISBN 9780643103771). The history of the city has been written and rewritten many times: the seminal works of Benevolo (1980) and Mumford (1989) reconstruct how settlements, particularly their urban form, have changed over centuries. Rowe and Koetter (1978), Kostof (1991, 1992), Krier (2003), and Rossi and Eisenmann (1982) address instead the components that shape the urban environment: the architect can aggregate and manipulate squares, streets, parks and public buildings to control urban design. Generally these studies aim to reveal the secret of the traditional city in contraposition to the contemporary townscape characterized by planning and zoning, which are generally regarded as problematic and sterile (Woodward, 2013). The ‘secret rules’ that have shaped our cities have a bearing on the relationship of spaces, mixed uses, public environments and walkability (Walters, 2011)...

Advances in gyro-stabilisation of vessel roll motion

The use of gyro-dynamic forces to counteract the wave-induced roll motion of marine vessels in a seaway was proposed over 100 years ago. These early systems showed a remarkable performance, reporting roll reductions of up to 95% in some sailing conditions. Despite this success, further developments were not pursued since the systems were unable to provide acceptable performance over an extended envelope of sailing and environmental conditions, and the invention of fin roll stabilisers provided a satisfactory alternative. This has been attributed to simplistic controls, heavy drive systems, and large structural mass required to withstand the loads given the low strength materials available at the time. Today, advances in material strength, bearings, motor technology and mechanical design methods, together with powerful signal processing algorithms, has resulted in a revitalized interest in gyro-stabilisers for ships. Advanced control systems have enabled optimisation of restoring torques across a range of wave environments and sailing conditions through adaptive control system design. All of these improvements have resulted in increased spinning speed, lower mass, and dramatically increased stabilising performance. This brief paper provides an overview of recent developments in the design and control of gyro-stabilisers of ship roll motion. In particular, the novel Halcyon Gyro-Stabilisers are introduced, and their performance is illustrated based on a simulation case study for a naval patrol vessel. Given the growing national and global interest in small combatants and patrol vessels, modem gyro-stabilisers may offer a significant technological contribution to the age old problem of comfort and mission operability on small ships, especially at loiter speeds.

Little Boat Harbour Master Plan

Site analysis and landscape design developed for the Little Boat Harbour marine ecosystem and recreation area. Analysis conducted and design created by Dr Ian Weir QUT in collaboration with Mr Nathan McQuoid Landscape Ecologist and Mr Craig Lebens Bremer Bay Dive operater and marine ecologist (amateur). Includes A3 masterplan produced by Kylie Feher graduate architect in association with Dr Weir. Document presented to the 18 Dec 2013 Council meeting of the Shire of Jerramungup and subsequently adopted by that local government with implementation subject to funding.

The importance of the Deutsche Luxfer Prismen Syndikat, the Victoria regia lily and Gothic imitation in the design of Bruno Taut's Glashaus

Bruno Taut's Glashaus is considered a seminal example of early modernist architecture. Yet, some of the crucial factors behind the design of the Glashaus remain little understood. This PhD reveals that the Glashaus' patron, Frederick Keppler, exerted a significant influence over its design by insisting that it follow a prescriptive brief. Interpreting these rigid instructions, Taut as the architect, gained inspiration from the myths and symbols associated with the Victoria regia lily and the Gothic. This PhD therefore significantly expands the understanding of the Glashaus, and thus reinvigorates our comprehension of one of the most distinctive early examples of modern architecture.