An observational study of conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians in the city centre

City centres have large volumes of pedestrians and motorised traffic and increases in walking and cycling could potentially lead to more pedestrians and cyclists being injured. In this study, observers recorded cyclist characteristics, number of pedestrians within 1m and 5m radius and type of conflict (none, pedestrian, vehicle) for 1,971 cyclists in 2010 and 2,551 cyclists in 2012 at six locations in the Brisbane Central Business District. Only 1.7% of cyclists were involved in conflicts with a motor vehicle or pedestrian and no collisions were observed. Increased odds of a pedestrian-cyclist conflict was associated with: male riders, riders not wearing correctly fastened helmets, riding on the footpath, higher pedestrian density (within 1m but not within 5m), morning peak and 2-4 pm (compared with 4-6 pm), two-way roads, roads with more lanes, higher speed limits, and yellow marked bicycle symbols on the road.

Growing food in the city : Design ideations for urban residential gardeners

Urban agriculture refers to the production of food in urban and peri-urban spaces. It can contribute positively to health and food security of a city, while also reducing ‘food miles.’ It takes on many forms, from the large and organised community garden, to the small and discrete backyard or balcony. This study focuses on small-scale food production in the form of residential gardening for home or personal use. We explore opportunities to support people’s engagement in urban agriculture via human-computer interaction design. This research presents the findings and HCI design insights from our study of residential gardeners in Brisbane, Australia. By exploring their understanding of gardening practice with a human-centred design approach, we present six key themes, highlighting opportunities and challenges relating to available time and space; the process of learning and experimentation; and the role of existing online platforms to support gardening practice. Finally we discuss the overarching theme of shared knowledge, and how HCI could improve community engagement and gardening practice.

Projecting the new world city: The city as spectacle in an urban light festival

As a precursor to the 2014 G20 Leaders’ Summit held in Brisbane, Australia, the Queensland Government sponsored a program of G20 Cultural Celebrations, designed to showcase the Summit’s host city. The cultural program’s signature event was the Colour Me Brisbane festival, a two-week ‘citywide interactive light and projection installations’ festival that was originally slated to run from 24 October to 9 November, but which was extended due to popular demand to conclude with the G20 Summit itself on 16 November. The Colour Me Brisbane festival comprised a series projection displays that promoted visions of the city’s past, present, and future at landmark sites and iconic buildings throughout the city’s central business district and thus transformed key buildings into forms of media architecture. In some instances the media architecture installations were interactive, allowing the public to control aspects of the projections through a computer interface situated in front of the building; however, the majority of the installations were not interactive in this sense. The festival was supported by a website that included information regarding the different visual and interactive displays and links to social media to support public discussion regarding the festival (Queensland Government 2014). Festival-goers were also encouraged to follow a walking-tour map of the projection sites that would take them on a 2.5 kilometre walk from Brisbane’s cultural precinct, through the city centre, concluding at parliament house. In this paper, we investigate the Colour Me Brisbane festival and the broader G20 Cultural Celebrations as a form of strategic placemaking—designed, on the one hand, to promote Brisbane as a safe, open, and accessible city in line with the City Council’s plan to position Brisbane as a ‘New World City’ (Brisbane City Council 2014). On the other hand, it was deployed to counteract growing local concerns and tensions over the disruptive and politicised nature of the G20 Summit by engaging the public with the city prior to the heightened security and mobility restrictions of the Summit weekend. Harnessing perspectives from media architecture (Brynskov et al. 2013), urban imaginaries (Cinar & Bender 2007), and social media analysis, we take a critical approach to analysing the government-sponsored projections, which literally projected the city onto itself, and public responses to them via the official, and heavily promoted, social media hashtags (#colourmebrisbane and #g20cultural). Our critical framework extends the concepts of urban phantasmagoria and urban imaginaries into the emerging field of media architecture to scrutinise its potential for increased political and civic engagement. Walter Benjamin’s concept of phantasmagoria (Cohen 1989; Duarte, Firmino, & Crestani 2014) provides an understanding of urban space as spectacular projection, implicated in commodity and techno-culture. The concept of urban imaginaries (Cinar & Bender 2007; Kelley 2013)—that is, the ways in which citizens’ experiences of urban environments are transformed into symbolic representations through the use of imagination—similarly provides a useful framing device in thinking about the Colour Me Brisbane projections and their relation to the construction of place. Employing these critical frames enables us to examine the ways in which the installations open up the potential for multiple urban imaginaries—in the sense that they encourage civic engagement via a tangible and imaginative experience of urban space—while, at the same time, supporting a particular vision and way of experiencing the city, promoting a commodified, sanctioned form of urban imaginary. This paper aims to dissect the urban imaginaries intrinsic to the Colour Me Brisbane projections and to examine how those imaginaries were strategically deployed as place-making schemes that choreograph reflections about and engagement with the city.

Local Commons: A visual approach to collective city making through situated community engagement

Due to the numerous possibilities of voicing concerns and the flood of data we are exposed to, local issues are sometimes at risk of being overlooked. This study explores Local Commons, a design intervention in public space that combines situated digital and tangible media in order to engage communities in contributing and debating different perspectives on a given local issue. The intervention invited the community to submit images of their perspectives on the issue, which were displayed on a public screen. Via tangible buttons in front of the screen, community members then agree or disagree on the displayed perspectives, creating a space for deliberation. In a user study, we were specifically interested in testing three aspects of our intervention, which are discussed in this paper: The difference that situatedness, visual content, and tangible interaction can make to urban community engagement.

Growing food in the city: A study across interaction design and urban agriculture

The thesis offers the foundation of a design pattern language for urban gardening, as well as a prototype mobile storytelling platform through which urban gardeners can share gardening experiences. This study examined three urban agriculture communities – a city farm, a permaculture movement, and residential gardeners – in order to better understand some of the challenges in their food growing practices. The city is increasingly being rediscovered by gardeners, food activists, and local governments as an under-utilised opportunity space for land cultivation and local food production, and the findings of this research were analysed with a view to consider interactive technology and design interventions in response.

Designing 'other' citizens into the city: Investigating perceptions of architectural opportunities for wildlife habitat in the Brisbane CBD

Traditional perceptions of the human-animal relationship in the urban context typically see the spatial rejection of wildlife from the built environment and limiting of biodiversity conservation programs to areas of natural reserve. As urban growth places further spatial demands on natural habitat and contributes to continued global biodiversity loss, the recently introduced conservation approach of reconciliation ecology makes a call promoting ecological stewardship through embedding wildlife habitat within human dominated areas. Coinciding with this, the architectural sphere has seen a recent trend of design investigation addressing artificial animal habitat as features of the built environment. Although these precedents are currently a niche and scattered trend they show potential to address the human-animal dualism challenging the framework of reconciliation ecology. This research explores the role design plays in influencing perceptions of urban wildlife habitat, particularly considering the need to create and communicate value around wildlife biodiversity as a component of urban cultural place-making and ecological literacy. The study purpose sets out to establish a set of approaches and cultural preferences with which to direct further classification and development of this architectural trend. Brisbane is utilised as a case study city, as a locale containing proximities of relatively high wildlife and human populations in an urban setting and an established legislative biodiversity heritage and ethic. Through use of a qualitative and quantitative questionnaire targeting Brisbane residents, the research methodology established that although respondents perceptions generally aligned with traditional prejudice against wildlife around human buildings, artificial habitat intervention would be supported within the CBD provided it allowed for adequate distancing of humans from wildlife and conformed with contextual surroundings, or otherwise addressed habitat through redevelopment at an urban scale. As such further research directions for artificial habitat should focus on integration of artificial habitat as a component of façade design or green infrastructure programs.

No specific role for the manual motor system in processing the meanings of words related to the hand

The present study explored whether semantic and motor systems are functionally interwoven via the use of a dual-task paradigm. According to embodied language accounts that propose an automatic and necessary involvement of the motor system in conceptual processing, concurrent processing of hand-related information should interfere more with hand movements than processing of unrelated body-part (i.e., foot, mouth) information. Across three experiments, 100 right-handed participants performed left- or right-hand tapping movements while repeatedly reading action words related to different body-parts, or different body-part names, in both aloud and silent conditions. Concurrent reading of single words related to specific body-parts, or the same words embedded in sentences differing in syntactic and phonological complexity (to manipulate context-relevant processing), and reading while viewing videos of the actions and body-parts described by the target words (to elicit visuomotor associations) all interfered with right-hand but not left-hand tapping rate. However, this motor interference was not affected differentially by hand-related stimuli. Thus, the results provide no support for proposals that body-part specific resources in cortical motor systems are shared between overt manual movements and meaning-related processing of words related to the hand.

No Right to Live? Malaysia’s Islam and Implications for Its Sexual Minority Storytellers

This chapter discusses the fast emerging challenges for Malay and Muslim sexual minority storytellers in the face of an aggressive state-sponsored Islamisation of a constitutionally secular Malaysia. I examine the case of Azwan Ismail, a gay Malay and Muslim Malaysian who took part in the local ‘It Gets Better’ project, and who suffered an onslaught of hostile comments from fellow Malay Muslims. Azwan’s experience makes one question how a message of discouraging suicidal tendencies among sexual minority youths can be so vehemently misperceived. Azwan’s existential challenges – stemming from the tension between his own constructions of self and those of others – (re)present a unique challenge in the long struggle for human rights. In my examination of the arising contradictions, I highlight the challenges for Azwan’s existential self – one who is deemed morally bankrupt by hostile audiences. The purist Sunni Islam agenda in a constitutionally secular Malaysia not only rejects the human rights of the sexual minorities in Malaysia but has also influenced, and is often a leading hostile voice in both regional and international blocs. This self-righteous, supremacist and authoritarian Islam discourages discourse and attacks all differing opinions. This resulting disabling environment for vulnerable, minority communities and their human rights manifests in State-endorsed discrimination, compulsory counselling, forced rehabilitation and criminalisation. It places the rights of the sexual minorities to live within such a society in doubt. In discussing the arising issues, I draw upon literature that investigates the way in which personal stories have traditionally been used to advance human rights. Included too, is the significance and implications of the work by social psychologists in explaining the loss of credibility of personal stories. I then advance an analytical framework that will allow storytelling as a very individual form of witnessing to reclaim and regain its ‘truth to power’.

A Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 (# ACTA)

“If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas, what would they look like? This is pretty close.” David Fewer “While European and American IP maximalists have pushed for TRIPS-Plus provisions in FTAs and bilateral agreements, they are now pushing for TRIPS-Plus-Plus protections in these various forums.” Susan Sell “ACTA is a threat to the future of a free and open Internet.” Alexander Furnas “Implementing the agreement could open a Pandora's box of potential human rights violations.” Amnesty International. “I will not take part in this masquerade.” Kader Arif, Rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 in the European Parliament Executive Summary As an independent scholar and expert in intellectual property, I am of the view that the Australian Parliament should reject the adoption of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. I would take issue with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s rather partisan account of the negotiations, the consultations, and the outcomes associated with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. In my view, the negotiations were secretive and biased; the local consultations were sometimes farcical because of the lack of information about the draft texts of the agreement; and the final text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 is not in the best interests of Australia, particularly given that it is a net importer of copyright works and trade mark goods and services. I would also express grave reservations about the quality of the rather pitiful National Interest Analysis – and the lack of any regulatory impact statement – associated with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. The assertion that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 does not require legislative measures is questionable – especially given the United States Trade Representative has called the agreement ‘the highest-standard plurilateral agreement ever achieved concerning the enforcement of intellectual property rights.’ It is worthwhile reiterating that there has been much criticism of the secretive and partisan nature of the negotiations surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. Sean Flynn summarizes these concerns: "The negotiation process for ACTA has been a case study in establishing the conditions for effective industry capture of a lawmaking process. Instead of using the relatively transparent and inclusive multilateral processes, ACTA was launched through a closed and secretive “‘club approach’ in which like-minded jurisdictions define enforcement ‘membership’ rules and then invite other countries to join, presumably via other trade agreements.” The most influential developing countries, including Brazil, India, China and Russia, were excluded. Likewise, a series of manoeuvres ensured that public knowledge about the specifics of the agreement and opportunities for input into the process were severely limited. Negotiations were held with mere hours notice to the public as to when and where they would be convened, often in countries half away around the world from where public interest groups are housed. Once there, all negotiation processes were closed to the public. Draft texts were not released before or after most negotiating rounds, and meetings with stakeholders took place only behind closed doors and off the record. A public release of draft text, in April 2010, was followed by no public or on-the-record meetings with negotiators." Moreover, it is disturbing that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 has been driven by ideology and faith, rather than by any evidence-based policy making Professor Duncan Matthews has raised significant questions about the quality of empirical evidence used to support the proposal of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011: ‘There are concerns that statements about levels of counterfeiting and piracy are based either on customs seizures, with the actual quantities of infringing goods in free circulation in any particular market largely unknown, or on estimated losses derived from industry surveys.’ It is particularly disturbing that, in spite of past criticism, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has supported the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011, without engaging the Productivity Commission or the Treasury to do a proper economic analysis of the proposed treaty. Kader Arif, Rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 in the European Parliament, quit his position, and said of the process: "I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly. As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.” Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications. This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade." There have been parallel concerns about the process and substance of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 in the context of Australia. I have a number of concerns about the substance of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. First, I am concerned that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 fails to provide appropriate safeguards in respect of human rights, consumer protection, competition, and privacy laws. It is recommended that the new Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights investigate this treaty. Second, I argue that there is a lack of balance to the copyright measures in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 – the definition of piracy is overbroad; the suite of civil remedies, criminal offences, and border measures is excessive; and there is a lack of suitable protection for copyright exceptions, limitations, and remedies. Third, I discuss trade mark law, intermediary liability, and counterfeiting. I express my concerns, in this context, that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 could have an adverse impact upon consumer interests, competition policy, and innovation in the digital economy. I also note, with concern, the lobbying by tobacco industries for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 – and the lack of any recognition in the treaty for the capacity of countries to take measures of tobacco control under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Fourth, I note that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 provides no positive obligations to promote access to essential medicines. It is particularly lamentable that Australia and the United States of America have failed to implement the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health 2001 and the WTO General Council Decision 2003. Fifth, I express concerns about the border measures in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. Such measures lack balance – and unduly favour the interests of intellectual property owners over consumers, importers, and exporters. Moreover, such measures will be costly, as they involve shifting the burden of intellectual property enforcement to customs and border authorities. Interdicting, seizing, and destroying goods may also raise significant trade issues. Finally, I express concern that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 undermines the role of existing international organisations, such as the United Nations, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization, and subverts international initiatives such as the WIPO Development Agenda 2007. I also question the raison d'être, independence, transparency, and accountability of the proposed new ‘ACTA Committee’. In this context, I am concerned by the shift in the position of the Labor Party in its approach to international treaty-making in relation to intellectual property. The Australian Parliament adopted the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, which included a large Chapter on intellectual property. The treaty was a ‘TRIPs-Plus’ agreement, because the obligations were much more extensive and prescriptive than those required under the multilateral framework established by the TRIPS Agreement 1994. During the debate over the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, the Labor Party expressed the view that it would seek to mitigate the effects of the TRIPS-Plus Agreement, when at such time it gained power. Far from seeking to ameliorate the effects of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, the Labor Government would seek to lock Australia into a TRIPS-Double Plus Agreement – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. There has not been a clear political explanation for this change in approach to international intellectual property. For both reasons of process and substance, I conclude that the Australian Parliament and the Australian Government should reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. The Australian Government would do better to endorse the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2011, and implement its outstanding obligations in respect of access to knowledge, access to essential medicines, and the WIPO Development Agenda 2007. The case study of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 highlights the need for further reforms to the process by which Australia engages in international treaty-making.

The role of digital screens in urban life: New opportunities for placemaking

Large digital screens are becoming prevalent across today’s cities dispersing into everyday urban spaces such as public squares and cultural precincts. Examples, such as Federation Square, demonstrate the opportunities for using digital screens to create a sense of place and to add long-term social, cultural and economic value for citizens, who live and work in those precincts. However, the challenge of implementing digital screens in new urban developments is to ensure they respond appropriately to the physical and sociocultural environment in which they are placed. Considering the increasing rate at which digital screens are being embedded into public spaces, it is surprising that the programs running on these screens still seem to be stuck in the cinematic model. The availability of advanced networking and interaction technologies offers opportunities for information access that goes beyond free-to-air television and advertising. This chapter revisits the history and current state of digital screens in urban life and discusses a series of research studies that involve digital screens as interface between citizens and the city. Instead of focusing on technological concerns, the chapter presents a holistic analysis of these studies, with the aim to move towards a more comprehensive understanding of the sociocultural potential of this new media platform, and how the digital content is linked with the spatial quality of the physical space, as well as the place and role of digital screens within the smart city movement.

Submission to the draft Migration Assurance Policy - Improving the transition to the fixed-line national broadband network review

The rights of individuals to self-determination and participation in social, political and economic life are recognised and supported by Articles 1, 3 and 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966.4 Article 1 of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council’s Resolution on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights on the Internet of July 2012 confirms individuals have the same rights online as offline. Access to the internet is essential and as such the UN: Calls upon all States to promote and facilitate access to the Internet and international cooperation aimed at the development of media and information and communications facilities in all countries (Article 3) Accordingly, access to the internet per se is a fundamental human right, which requires direct State recognition and support.5 The obligations of the State to ensure its citizens are able, and are enabled, to access the internet, are not matters that should be delegated to commercial parties. Quite simply – access to the internet, and high-speed broadband, by whatever means are “essential services” and therefore “should be treated as any other utility service”...

Technology and the City: Systems, Applications and Implications

This book investigates and reveals the interplay between smart technologies and cities, a topic that has gained incredible currency in urban studies in recent years. Beginning with an elaboration of the historical significance of technologies in economic growth, social progress and urban development, the author then goes on to introduce the most prominent smart urban information technologies before demonstrating the use of these technologies in various smart urban systems. The book then showcases some of the most significant cases of smart city best practice from across the globe before discussing the magnitude and prospects of smart technologies and systems for our cities and societies. "The interplay between smart urban technologies and city development is a relatively uncharted territory. Technology and the City aims to fill that gap, exploring the growing importance of smart technologies and systems in contemporary cities, and providing an in-depth understanding of both theoretical and practical aspects of smart urban technology adoption, and its implications for our cities. Beginning with an elaboration of the historical significance of technologies in economic growth, social progress and urban development, Yigitcanlar introduces the most prominent smart urban information technologies. The book showcases significant smart city practices from across the globe that uses smart urban technologies and systems most effectively. It explores the role of these technologies and asks how they can be adopted into the planning, development and management processes of cities for sustainable urban futures. This pioneering volume contributes to the conceptualisation and practice of smart technology and system adoption in our cities by disseminating both conceptual and empirical research findings with real-world best practice applications. With a multidisciplinary approach to themes of technology and urban development, this book is a key reference source for scholars, practitioners, consultants, city officials, policymakers and urban technology enthusiasts."--Publisher website

Finding country: A strategy for the city

An essay, succeeding the Finding Country exhibition, which details three teaching studios for Queensland University of Technology Architectural students; associated with the slowly developed idea about a symmetrical context between City and Country, and into another now titled 'Burning City'. The first studio introduced fire as a practice tool of Country and to establish a case for Country to be brought into context with the City. Both the second and third studios engaged students to extend the '50 per cent emptying concept' from the first studio. The second studio moved past spiritual anxiety as a matter of manage production and to engage at an architectural scale. The third studio was accompanied by an axonometric drawing and the enquiry stemmed from the context between burnt Country and emptied City. The next frontier for this project is to progress the strategy into real architecture and actions on the City. This will require confrontation with Country as a genuine origin.

The ghost in the city industrial complex: Le Corbusier and the fascist theory of Urbanisme

Le Corbusier participated in an urban dialogue with the first group in France to call itself fascist: the journalist Georges Valois’s militant Faisceau des Combattants et Producteurs (1925-1927), the “Blue Shirts,” inspired by the Italian “Fasci” of Mussolini. Le Corbusier’s portrait photograph materialised on the front cover of the January 1927 issue of the Faisceau League’s newspaper Le Nouveau Siècle edited by the former anarcho-syndicalist journalist Georges Valois, its leader, who fashioned himself as the French Mussolini. Le Corbusier was described in the Revue as one of les animateurs (the “organisers”) of the Party1 – meaning a member of the technical elite who would drive the Faisceau’s plans. On 1 May 1927, the Nouveau Siècle printed a full-page feature “Le Plan Voisin” on Le Corbusier’s 1922 redesign of Paris : the architect’s single-point perspective sketch appeared below an extract lifted from the architect’s original polemic Le Centre de Paris on the pages of Le Corbusier’s second book Urbanisme published two years earlier, a treatise on urbanism.2 Three weeks later, Le Corbusier presented a slide show of his urban plans at a fascist rally for the inauguration of the Faisceau’s new headquarters on the rue du faubourg Poissonniere, thereby crystalising the architect’s hallowed status in the league...

Literature, tourism and the city: Writing and cultural change

Today national and regional tourism organizations look to sophisticated cultural tourism programs to enhance the visitor experience for tourists of their particular city. Yet research indicates that a challenge exists in designing and implementing programs that take full advantage of a city’s historical and emergent literary cultures. In this paper we offer critical insights into how literary cultural heritage can foster the development of an integrated and dynamic approach and provide the experience sought by local and global tourists. International exemplars are cited together with an analysis of the Australian city of Brisbane that describes itself as a ‘new world city.’ The findings of our research show that programs that harness diverse literary cultures, rather than adhering to a single literary representation, are better equipped to build identity and thus extend cultural tourism potential.