View of Geelong: ruin and viewin', transpanorama

Public Art installation by Cam Bishop and Simon Reis. Eugene von Guerard’s View of Geelong is iconic for a number of reasons, including its detailed interpretation of the landscape and its special place in the imagining of the region. Bishop and Reis seek to honour this by manipulating the science behind the view and at the same time question the viewer’s relationship to the scene and the work. We use the husk of a ruined fireplace to house a camera obscura and stereoscope – pressed concaved metal into which the viewer puts their head and looks through a divided hole into the unit. The camera obscura mimics the mechanics of the eye, and is able to capture the scene perfectly while the stereoscope splits the scene, makes it partial, layered and temporal. In doing this we layer von Guerard’s view with change, acknowledging the effects of European civilization and, peculiar to this historical panorama, suburbanization of the landscape. The creeping suburbs will be seen on the left side of the stereoscope through a camera obscura, which presents a real-time view of the scene from the point at which von Guerard allegedly painted it. On the right side, we again catch the light, but only to light a transparency of von Guerard’s original work. The technologies we draw upon – the camera obscura, stereoscope and landscape painting – create a confluence of images, both real and imagined. The iconic View of Geelong Painting can be seen at the Geelong Gallery.

Use of indicators to assess the sustainability of housing developments in Australia

Most new housing in Australia is occurring on greenfield sites on the edges of the capital cities. These housing developments are often criticised for their social and environmental unsustainability. These unsustainable suburbs are a legacy for future generations. They will create dire social and environmental problems if a serious economic downturn was to occur or a resource shortage e.g. oil was to make accessibility impossible. Coupled to these threats is that of the social ‘undesirability’ of isolated suburbs where only those on low incomes made their home. Most of those on higher incomes seek established suburbs which have ‘character’, social amenities and ease of access. Typically, these are in older suburbs close to city centres. This paper describes a methodology that has been developed to analyse past and future housing developments. The results of the analysis can provide a guide to improving the sustainability of these suburbs. The methodology uses several criteria to reflect the fact that no single criterion is adequate to describe or analyse the sustainability of a housing development. Sustainability should embrace social and environmental perspectives, so a multi-criteria analysis is appropriate. The theoretical framework for this methodology has been described elsewhere. However, in this previous work only five criteria were considered: energy use, resource use, neighbourhood character, neighbourhood connectedness and social diversity. In each case, high and low sustainability practice has been identified so that ranking is possible. This paper initially summarizes the way in which these previous five criteria are assessed but then adds a sixth criterion (social connectedness) because of a perceived gap in the previous assessment. The results of an analysis of three suburbs reported in the previous work are updated. They score poorly in terms of social connectedness underlining the need to ‘repair’ these suburbs in order to improve their overall sustainability.

Deep ecology and Australian suburbia: learning from Aboriginal Australia philosophy

Naess’ Deep Ecology [50] represents a fundamental philosophical and conceptual shift from the dominant Western thinking that can be traced back to the Greek and Roman Empires. Like all philosophy, Naess’ Deep Ecology was born of and is most relevant to a specific time and place being northern Europe. Although the fundamentals of the Deep Ecology philosophy were new to modern Western thinking, it is not new to traditional Indigenous cultures, including the world’s oldest culture, that of Aboriginal Australia. While the past four decades has seen an increasing recognition of Aboriginal philosophical approaches, there is very little understanding of what this philosophical approach is and means for the management of the Australian environment in which humans are a central part. Since European arrival, Australia has been one of the world’s most urban societies. Unlike northern Europe, urban Australia is low density and suburban, a legacy of British and North American influences. Nearly 90% of Australians live in detached houses surrounded by gardens. Managed by individual residents, this land use accounts for about 70% of the total area of cities like Melbourne. Deeply culturally embedded, the Australian desire for living in low-density suburbs is unlikely to change soon. Contemporary cities are widely recognized as causing severe environmental degradation and are not sustainable. Yet in Australia introduced philosophical and design approaches are still used to address the unsustainable impacts of urban forms introduced from another time and place. While impractical to remove the existing suburban form in Australian cities, there is a significant opportunity to retrofit them using Australian Aboriginal philosophical and land management understandings developed and tested over tens of thousands of years. This paper establishes a contemporary Australian Deep Ecology philosophical approach to sustainably living in the suburbs that recognizes and works with the legacies of Australian Aboriginal, English, North American and contemporary Australian influences.

Pavement cafes as the activity zone in the social life of neighbourhood centres

This paper reports the findings from a research project that examines the relationship between urban design and the physical environment, and aspects of social and communal life in suburbs. Australian suburbs are perceived to be lacking in vitality and sociability. To address this, three suburban commercial streets were selected for investigation. Through documents and maps of the residents’ activities and behaviour, this study aims to identify the popular zones of activity and investigate the physical characteristics that encourage a sociable atmosphere in activity zones. The observation of activities in the three streets has been registered in tables relative to the date and time of occurrence. According to the behavioural mappings, the zones of activity are mostly shaped around pavement cafes and popular everyday food stores. Since more than half the activities have been observed to be initiated from the pavement cafes, this paper will investigate how the physical qualities of commercial streets such as the width of the pavements, personalization, soft edges and greenery have contributed to the pavement café culture in the selected neighbourhood centres.

Urban growth and pedestrian thermal comfort

Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia, and its population is anticipated to reach 6.5 million by 2050. In October 2013, Plan Melbourne was released by Victorian government, aiming to intensify several districts to protect the suburbs from urban sprawl. The City of Melbourne’s draft municipal strategic statement identified City North as a great urban renewal area which can accommodate a significant part of the growth. Given the previous heat-related incidence in Melbourne in 2009, the potential threat to human health and pedestrian comfort will be exacerbated, if planning professionals exclude climatic conscious urban design in their practices. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of the future structural plans on the microclimate and pedestrian thermal comfort in City North through numerical simulations. A three dimensional numerical modelling system, ENVI-met was used for the simulation. Field measurements were conducted across the study area to validate the simulated outputs. A clear reduction was reported in the average daytime mean radiant temperature, surface temperature and PMV values after implementing “Plan Melbourne” strategies. The outcomes of this study will assist urban planners in developing the policies which can effectively decrease the vulnerability to the heat stress at pedestrian level.

The social life of commercial streets

The social life of cities is a key concept related to social cohesion, which has been the subject of extensive studies in several disciplines including sociology, psychology and the built environment. Social life studies conducted in the built environment discipline have mostly focused on city centres; while the significance of neighbourhoods as integral elements have been sometimes overlooked. As a result, this research will specifically explore commercial streets in residential suburbs. Suburbs are frequently perceived to be lacking in vitality and street life. The method of inquiry in this research investigates how the physical characteristics of commercial streets can either promote, affect or mitigate the social life of neighbourhoods and generate a sociable environment. Therefore, this study captures the social behaviour of three commercial streets in Geelong, Australia. This paper utilizes a qualitative approach to the study of the social life of commercial streets. The primary methodology used in this research is recording, documenting and mapping users’ activities through behavioural observation. The observations have been conducted in four days (on two weekdays and two weekends). The case study has been divided into eight sections that are similar in length. Short movies of 30 seconds have been recorded from each section, every two hours from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm. Afterwards, the movies have been transmitted into street mappings, documenting the type of activities, placement of activities, gender and approximate age by exploiting suitable pictograms. There are several physical characteristics that are believed to be contributing to the social life of commercial streets. This study utilizes a bottom-up approach to evaluate the complexities of the role that built environment plays in terms of vitality through the three selected characteristics, including typomorphology and street layout, diversity of uses, and soft facades. Better understanding of how neighbourhood environments influence the social life of neighbourhoods can provide academics and professionals in architecture and urban design with sound evidence on which to base future research and design.

The impact of a new McDonald's restaurant on eating behaviours and perceptions of local residents: a natural experiment using repeated cross-sectional data

Neighbourhood food environments are posited as an important determinant of eating behaviours; however causality is difficult to establish based on existing studies. Using a natural experiment study design (incorporating repeated cross-sectional data), we tested whether the development of a new McDonald's restaurant increased the frequency of consumption of McDonald's products amongst local residents in the suburbs of Tecoma (site of a new McDonald's restaurant development) and Monbulk (control site) in Victoria, Australia. Across both sites, the reported frequency of McDonald's consumption did not change during the follow-up surveys. In the context explored, the development of a new McDonald's restaurant has not resulted in an increased consumption of McDonald's products.

The social life of historical neighbourhoods: case study of a Middle Eastern city, Shiraz

Historic neighbourhoods have usually shaped on an organic structure in regard to their residents’ requirements. Due to the limitations in mobility, historical neighbourhoods were usually able to perform as a small city comprising all the elements required for satisfying physical, social, and cultural needs. This paper seeks to explore the patterns of social life in the traditional settlements in Shiraz and investigate the elements that have shaped the social life of these neighbourhoods. Exploring the social structure of historic neighbourhoods may introduce new approaches to the design of contemporary suburbs and neighbourhoods in terms of their vitality and social life. A review of the literature and comparing it to the historical core in Shiraz shows that there are five contributing factors to the social life of historic neighbourhoods in Shiraz, including density, human scale development, walkability, mixed land-use and qualities of public spaces. Exploring the features of public places and communal facilities indicates that the fine social performance of these settlements is rooted in their compatibility and adaptability to the environment, the residents’ requirements and culture.

Exploring the suburban ideal: Residents' experiences of photo elicitation interviewing (PEI)

This article reports on how photo elicitation interviewing (PEI) was experienced by eight participants in a qualitative phenom- enological study of suburban lived experiences. Adopting a respondent-controlled approach, participants were required to photograph at least 10 aspects of their suburb that they perceived to be good and problematical and then explain the meaning of their images as part of a follow-up interview. This discussion also involved in-depth reflection on the photography exercise itself, with analysis revealing that taking photographs was perceived to be a purposeful exercise that offered a range of benefits. It gave a new perspective and appreciation for the community, while also helping to ensure their meanings were conveyed to the inter- viewers. The photography task was not without challenges. While some of these challenges influenced the images captured, the findings of this study highlight the importance for qualitative researchers who use PEI to not only consider the benefits and limitations for the research but also give due consideration to the experiences of the participant photographers.

Relationships with special needs students: exploring primary teachers' descriptions

Positive teacher-student relationships play an established role in the developmental outcomes of students. Ongoing research suggests that positive teacher-student relationships may be particularly beneficial for students with special educational needs [Baker, J. A. 2006. "Contributions of Teacher-Child Relationships to Positive School Adjustment During Elementary School."Journal of School Psychology 44 (3): 211-229]. However, particular learning and behavioural characteristics are known to pose certain challenges when developing these relationships. For instance, teachers may have difficulty in forming close relationships with students who behave in a hostile way. Likewise, they might feel stressed with students who take longer to learn material [Baker 2006; Yoon, J. S. 2002. "Teacher Characteristics as Predictors of Teacher-Student Relationships: Stress, Negative Affect and Self Efficacy." Social Behaviour and Personality 30: 485-494]. This study conducted a focus group with six mainstream teachers from a primary school in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne to investigate the following questions: (1) How do primary school teachers describe their relationships with special needs students? (2) Are these descriptions substantively different from the way in which relationships with non-special needs students are described? And (3) what, if any, are teachers' reported concerns with inclusive education practice? Thematic analysis provided three primary themes and nine secondary themes, indicating that in the context of inclusive practices, the quality of teacher-student relationships is affected by a combination of psychosocial factors. In concurrence with previous literature, the use of qualitative methodology was considered optimal for exploring teachers' descriptions.

Que práticas de envolvimento parental na educação dos filhos: Percepção das mães

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção do Grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Educacional

The centrality of the Australian suburb: mobility challenges and responses by outer suburban residents of Melbourne

Living in the suburbs is founded on mobility, as residents move to the periphery of the city, commute to work and travel for shops, schools and leisure. While there have been numerous studies raising critical questions on the vulnerability of outer suburban residents to loneliness, financial and mortgage stress, the actual experiences and challenges posed by the dependence of suburban life on mobility is rarely singled out for attention. Through purposive sampling and then snowballing, eight outer suburban residents participated in photo-elicited interviewing to detail their lifeworlds and mobility experiences. Problems ranged from getting to work to accessing schools, shops and even neighbourhood services as the suburban car culture was embraced but also constrained patterns of movement. However, there was also an array of positive experiences and alternatives to these patterns, including the pleasures to be found in traffic jams and the suburban environment and local actions to establish new pathways and means of movement as well as set up local employment options. Mobility constraint thereby generated a range of unexpected strategies, as residents exercised their agency to shape their experiences, create alternatives and to build suburban centred lives.

At home/out of place: young people’s multicultural belongings

What does it mean to come of age in an era of anti-multiculturalism? How does such an environment shape the ways young people of diverse backgrounds come to feel “at home”-in the nation, in the city, in their neighbourhoods, and in their national identity? Discussing findings from a study of youth in the multicultural suburbs of five Australian cities, this chapter explores how the politics of belonging is lived through the spatial practices of everyday civic life for those who have grown up during the multiculturalism backlash of the 1990s and 2000s. It examines the contradictory picture that emerges of a new generation claiming a right to multicultural citizenship and forging productive diversity within the urban multiculture, and yet simultaneously positioned as “out of place” within civic life.

Towards an urban Melbourne: negotiating suburban renewal by understanding place identity

The thesis reveals significant latent capacity within Melbournes established suburban centres for increased density. Negotiating such urban change requires community interaction and a nuanced understanding of the complexity in contemporary places. The thesis concludes that understanding perceptions of place identity supports suburban renewal, leading towards an urban Melbourne.

Perceptions of poverty and the perpetuation of the capability-judgment cycle in outer southeast Melbourne

People living in poverty are subject to assumptions and stereotypes which, whether inaccurate, harmful, or misguided, can impact empowerment and capability building. This research explores perceptions relating specifically to people in poverty in outer southeast Melbourne suburbs. Perceptions of 218 non-poor respondents are compared with the perceptions of 52 poor respondents. Poor respondents describe themselves before discussing impacts of negative non-poor perceptions. Findings demonstrate that the nonpoor tend to view the poor negatively and that these judgments have adverse impacts on those in poverty. Non-poor perceptions in this study are shown to influence the perpetuation of poverty by contributing to a cause and effect capability-judgment cycle. This cycle illustrates how non-poor views impact emotional and material wellbeing of the poor and influence policy, programs, and poverty discourse in ways which further reduce the capabilities of the poor to achieve valued ends.