Healthy smile dental

This article features the Healthy Smile Dental Clinic located at Shop 43, Underwood Market Place, 3215 Logan Road, Underwood, Queensland, which was designed by OEWG Architects. The environment of the clinic was based on the concept of human relationship and care.

Suitability of procuring large public works by PPP in Hong Kong

Purpose : The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (referred to as Hong Kong from here onwards) is an international leading commercial hub particularly in Asia. In order to keep up its reputation a number of large public works projects have been considered. Public Private Partnership (PPP) has increasingly been suggested for these projects, but the suitability of using this procurement method in Hong Kong is yet to be studied empirically. The findings presented in this paper will specifically consider whether PPPs should be used to procure public works projects in Hong Kong by studying the attractive and negative factors for adopting PPP. Design/methodology/approach : As part of this study a questionnaire survey was conducted with industrial practitioners. The respondents were requested to rank the importance of fifteen attractive factors and thirteen negative factors for adopting PPP. Findings : The results found that in general the top attractive factors ranked by respondents from Hong Kong were efficiency related, these included (1) ‘Provide an integrated solution (for public infrastructure / services)’; (2) ‘Facilitate creative and innovative approaches’; and (3) ‘Solve the problem of public sector budget restraint’. It was found that Australian respondents also shared similar findings to those in Hong Kong, but the United Kingdom respondents showed a higher priority to those economic driven attractive factors. Also, the ranking of the attractive and negative factors for adopting PPP showed that on average the attractive factors were scored higher than the negative factors. Originality/value : The results of this research have enabled a comparison of the attractive and negative factors for adopting PPP between three administrative systems. These findings have confirmed that PPP is a suitable means to procure large public projects which are believed to be useful and interesting to PPP researchers and practitioners.

Rhetoric of landscape architecture and interior design discourses : preparation for cross-disciplinary practice

The rhetoric of the pedagogic discourses of landscape architectural students and interior design students is described as part of a doctoral study undertaken to document practices and orientations prior to cross-disciplinary collaboration. We draw on the theoretical framework of Basil Bernstein, an educational sociologist, and the rhetorical method of Kenneth Burke, a literary dramatist, to study the grammars of ‘landscape’ representation employed within these disciplinary examples. We investigate how prepared final year students are for working in a cross-disciplinary manner. The discursive interactions of their work, as illustrated by four examples of drawn images and written text, are described. Our findings suggest that we need to concern ourselves aspects of our pedagogic discourse that brings uniqueness and value to our disciplines ,as well as that shared discourses between disciplines.

Victoria regia's bequest to modern architecture

This paper will explore the relationship between the giant South American waterlily, the Victoria regia (today named Victoria amazonica), and the 1914 Glashaus exposition building by the German architect, Bruno Taut. Starting with a general botanical introduction of Victoria regia, the paper exposes the first European cultivation of the lily by Joseph Paxton at Chatsworth,England, in 1849. Following this initial cultivation, Paxton subsequently develops a specialist greenhouse for the plant, that later becomes the prototype for all Victoria regia greenhouses. However, from about 1860 as Victoria regia cultivation spreads to continental Europe, a greenhouse that differs from Paxton’s prototype subsequently evolves. An investigation of these later continental European greenhouses, coupled with an exposure of Taut’s own writings concerning Victoria regia, reveals startling similarities to the Glashaus, which ultimately reveals the Glashaus as directly inspired by Victoria regia.

An application of Keller’s Brand Equity Model in a B2B context

Powerful brands create meaningful images in the minds of customers (Keller, 1993). A strong brand image and reputation enhances differentiation and has a positive influence on buying behaviour (Gordon et al., 1993; McEnally and de Chernatony, 1999). While the power of branding is widely acknowledged in consumer markets, the nature and importance of branding in industrial markets remains under-researched. Many business-to-business (B2B) strategists have claimed brand-building belongs in the consumer realm. They argue that industrial products do not need branding as it is confusing and adds little value to functional products (Collins, 1977; Lorge, 1998; Saunders and Watt, 1979). Others argue that branding and the concept of brand equity however are increasingly important in industrial markets, because it has been shown that what a brand means to a buyer can be a determining factor in deciding between industrial purchase alternatives (Aaker, 1991). In this context, it is critical for suppliers to initiate and sustain relationships due to the small number of potential customers (Ambler, 1995; Webster and Keller, 2004). To date however, there is no model available to assist B2B marketers in identifying and measuring brand equity. In this paper, we take a step in that direction by operationalising and empirically testing a prominent brand equity model in a B2B context. This makes not only a theoretical contribution by advancing branding research, but also addresses a managerial need for information that will assist in the assessment of industrial branding efforts.

Sourcing business and software services

With the advancement of Service-Oriented Architecture in the technical and business domain, the management & engineering of services requires a thorough and systematic understanding of the service lifecycle for both business and software services. However, while service-oriented approaches acknowledge the importance of the service ecosystem, service lifecycle models are typically internally focused, paying limited attention to processes related to offering services to or using services from other actors. In this paper, we address this need by discussing the relations between a comprehensive service lifecycle approach for service management & engineering and the sourcing & purchasing of services. In particular we pay attention to the similarities and differences between sourcing business and software services, the alignment between service management & engineering and sourcing & purchasing, the role of sourcing in the transformation of an organization towards a service-oriented paradigm, the role of architectural approaches to sourcing in this transformation, and the sourcing of specific services at different levels of granularity.

Multi-events stadium Buchanan Park redevelopment

Multi-purpose Community Entertainment and Recreation Venue, catering for the Mount Isa Rodeo; including campdraft, equine sports, shows, exhibition, trade events, concerts and other community activities. The design involved redevelopment of a portion of the Buchanan Park Race Course located in Mount Isa. The project included community infrastructure planning, major landscaping and the construction of built facilities.

Charles and Camilla Chair

The seat is an externally fixed seat for the public located at the entrance to the Prince Charles Hospital. The form of the seat is designed specifically for two, to celebrate the marriage of Charles and Camilla. The design of bench structure represents the Southern Cross which is predominant in our night sky, distinguishing us in location from Charles and Camilla, the night of their wedding. The design also incorporates references to undulating forms of the Queensland Landscape.

IT-enhanced communication protocols for building project management

Purpose – Building project management requires real time flow of information between all the project team members or the supply chain members. In the present scenario, when project participants are geographically separated, adoption of Information Communication Technology (ICT) enables such effective communication. But strategic adoption of ICT requires that all the supply chain members follow the accepted methods of communication or the communication protocols. The majority of the construction organizations are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This research, therefore, proposes to focus on developing IT-enhanced communication protocols for building project management by SMEs. Design/methodology/approach – The research adopts a sequential mixed methods approach, where data collection and analysis are conducted in both the quantitative and qualitative phases of research. Findings – The protocols are proposed as a “Strategic Model for Enhancing ICT Diffusion in Building Projects”. The framework for the model is discussed at three levels of study, i.e industry, organization, and people. Practical implications – While the research was conducted in an Indian context, the research outcome is envisaged to be widely applicable in other countries with due considerations. Originality/value – The developed framework has implications for national level bodies and academic institutions, organizations, people or project managers and is applicable at the international level after due considerations.

The Green Falcon - Solar Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

In recent months the extremes of Australia’s weather have affected, killed a good number of people and millions of dollars lost. Contrary to a manned aircraft or a helicopter; which have restricted air time, a UAS or a group of UAS could provide 24 hours coverage of the disaster area and be instrumented with infrared cameras to locate distressed people and relay information to emergency services. The solar powered UAV is capable of carrying a 0.25Kg payload consuming 0.5 watt and fly continuously for at low altitude for 24 hrs ,collect the data and create a special distribution . This system, named Green Falcon, is fully autonomous in navigation and power generation, equipped with solar cells covering its wing, it retrieves energy from the sun in order to supply power to the propulsion system and the control electronics, and charge the battery with the surplus of energy. During the night, the only energy available comes from the battery, which discharges slowly until the next morning when a new cycle starts. The prototype airplane was exhibited at the Melbourne Museum form Nov09 to Feb 2010.

PIPP #1 - Pedestrian Interaction Patch Project

The Pedestrian Interaction Patch Project (PIPP) seeks to exert influence over and encourage abnormal pedestrian behavior. By placing an unadvertised (and non recording) interactive video manipulation system and projection source in a high traffic public area, the PIPP allows pedestrians to privately (and publically) re-engage with a previously inactive physical environment, like a commonly used walkway or corridor. This system, the results of which are projected in real time on the architectural surface, inadvertently provides pedestrians with questions around preconceived notions of self and space. In an attempt to re-activate our relationship with the physical surrounds we occupy each day the PIPP creates a new set of memories to be recalled as we re-enter known environments once PIPP has moved on and as such re-enlivens our relationship with the everyday architecture we stroll past everyday. The PIPP environment is controlled using the software program Isadora, devised by Mark Coniglio at Troika Ranch, and contains a series of video manipulation patches that are designed to not only grab the pedestrians attention but to also encourage a sense of play and interaction between the architecture, the digital environment, the initially unsuspecting participant(s) and the pedestrian audience. The PIPP was included as part of the planned walking tour for the “Playing in Urban Spaces” seminar day, and was an installation that ran for the length of the symposium in a reclaimed pedestrian space that was encountered by both the participants and general public during the course of the day long event. Ideally once discovered PIPP encouraged pedestrians to return through the course of the seminar day to see if the environmental patches had changed or altered, and changed their standard route to include the PIPP installation or to avoid it, either way, encouraging an active response to the pathways normally traveled or newly discovered each day.

Ecology and bioprospecting

Bioprospecting is the exploration of biodiversity for new resources of social and commercial value. It is carried out by a wide range of established industries such as pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and agriculture as well as a wide range of comparatively new ones such as aquaculture, bioremediation, biomining, biomimetic engineering and nanotechnology. The benefits of bioprospecting have emerged from such a wide range of organisms and environments worldwide that it is not possible to predict what species or habitats will be critical to society, or industry, in the future. The benefits include an unexpected variety of products that include chemicals, genes, metabolic pathways, structures, materials and behaviours. These may provide physical blueprints or inspiration for new designs. Criticism aimed at bioprospecting has been addressed, in part, by international treaties and legal agreements aimed at stopping biopiracy and many activities are now funded by agencies that require capacity-building and economic benefits in host countries. Thus, much contemporary bioprospecting has multiple goals, including the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable management of natural resources and economic development. Ecologists are involved in three vital ways: first, applying ecological principles to the discovery of new resources. In this context, natural history becomes a vast economic database. Second, carrying out field studies, most of them demographic, to help regulate the harvest of wild species. Third, emphasizing the profound importance of millions of mostly microscopic species to the global economy.

Impacts of vessel capacity reduction programs on the efficiency in fisheries. The case of Australia's multispecies in northern prawn fishery

Capacity reduction programs in the form of buybacks or decommissioning programs have had relatively widespread application in fisheries in the US, Europe and Australia. A common criticism of such programs is that they remove the least efficient vessels first, resulting in an increase in average efficiency of the remaining fleet. The effective fishing power of the fleet, therefore, does not decrease in proportion to the number of vessels removed. Further, reduced crowding may increase efficiency of the remaining vessels. In this paper, the effects of a buyback program on average technical efficiency in Australia’s Northern Prawn Fishery are examined using a multi-output distance function approach with an explicit inefficiency model. The results indicate that average efficiency of the remaining vessels was greater than that of the removed vessels, and that average efficiency of remaining vessels also increased as a result of reduced crowding.

Workplace design in the knowledge economy : a case of the NetWorkPlace™©

This thesis explores a way to inform the architectural design process for contemporary workplace environments. It reports on both theoretical and practical outcomes through an exclusively Australian case study of a network enterprise comprised of collaborative, yet independent business entities. The internet revolution, substantial economic and cultural shifts, and an increased emphasis on lifestyle considerations have prompted a radical re-ordering of organisational relationships and the associated structures, processes, and places of doing business. The social milieu of the information age and the knowledge economy is characterised by an almost instantaneous flow of information and capital. This has culminated in a phenomenon termed by Manuel Castells as the network society, where physical locations are joined together by continuous communication and virtual connectivity. A new spatial logic encompassing redefined concepts of space and distance, and requiring a comprehensive shift in the approach to designing workplace environments for today’s adaptive, collaborative organisations in a dynamic business world, provides the backdrop for this research. Within the duality of space and an augmentation of the traditional notions of place, organisational and institutional structures pose new challenges for the design professions. The literature revealed that there has always been a mono-organisational focus in relation to workplace design strategies. The phenomenon of inter-organisational collaboration has enabled the identification of a gap in the knowledge relative to workplace design. This new context generated the formulation of a unique research construct, the NetWorkPlace™©, which captures the complexity of contemporary employment structures embracing both physical and virtual work environments and practices, and provided the basis for investigating the factors that are shaping and defining interactions within and across networked organisational settings. The methodological orientation and the methods employed follow a qualitative approach and an abductively driven strategy comprising two distinct components, a cross-sectional study of the whole of the network and a longitudinal study, focusing on a single discrete workplace site. The complexity of the context encountered dictated that a multi-dimensional investigative framework was required to be devised. The adoption of a pluralist ontology and the reconfiguration of approaches from traditional paradigms into a collaborative, trans-disciplinary, multi-method epistemology provided an explicit and replicatable method of investigation. The identification and introduction of the NetWorkPlace™© phenomenon, by necessity, spans a number of traditional disciplinary boundaries. Results confirm that in this context, architectural research, and by extension architectural practice, must engage with what other disciplines have to offer. The research concludes that no single disciplinary approach to either research or practice in this area of design can suffice. Pierre Bourdieau’s philosophy of ‘practice’ provides a framework within which the governance and technology structures, together with the mechanisms enabling the production of social order in this context, can be understood. This is achieved by applying the concepts of position and positioning to the corporate power dynamics, and integrating the conflict found to exist between enterprise standard and ferally conceived technology systems. By extending existing theory and conceptions of ‘place’ and the ‘person-environment relationship’, relevant understandings of the tensions created between Castells’ notions of the space of place and the space of flows are established. The trans-disciplinary approach adopted, and underpinned by a robust academic and practical framework, illustrates the potential for expanding the range and richness of understanding applicable to design in this context. The outcome informs workplace design by extending theoretical horizons, and by the development of a comprehensive investigative process comprising a suite of models and techniques for both architectural and interior design research and practice, collectively entitled the NetWorkPlace™© Application Framework. This work contributes to the body of knowledge within the design disciplines in substantive, theoretical, and methodological terms, whilst potentially also influencing future organisational network theories, management practices, and information and communication technology applications. The NetWorkPlace™© as reported in this thesis, constitutes a multi-dimensional concept having the capacity to deal with the fluidity and ambiguity characteristic of the network context, as both a topic of research and the way of going about it.