CLIP/CETL Professional Report 2006/7 : Thinking Tools for Creative Learning; Connecting the Units

The aim is to enable students to investigate and acquire transferable thinking and reasoning tools to facilitate independent learning, reflective practice and to improve articulation and synchronisation across all course units

Urban Planning by Experiment at Precinct Scale: Embracing Complexity, Ambiguity, and Multiplicity

Urban living labs have emerged as spatially embedded arenas for governing urban transformation, where heterogenous actor configurations experiment with new practices, institutions, and infrastructures. This article observes a nascent shift towards experimentation at the precinct scale and responds to a need to further investigate relevant processes in urban experimentation at this scale, and identifies particular challenges for urban planning. We tentatively conceptualise precincts as spatially bounded urban environments loosely delineated by a particular combination of social or economic activity. Our methodology involves an interpretive systematic literature review of urban experimentation and urban living labs at precinct scale, along with an empirical illustration of the Net Zero Initiative at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, which is operationalising its main campus into a living lab focussed on precinct-scale decarbonisation. We identify four processual categories relevant to precinct-scale experimentation: embedding, framing, governing, and learning. We use the empirical illustration to discuss the relevance of these processes, refine findings from the literature review and conclude with a discussion on the implications of our article for future scholarship on urban planning by experiment at precinct scale

A one-pot synthesis-functionalization strategy for streamlined access to 2,5-disubstituted 1,3, 4-oxadiazoles from carboxylic acids

A one-pot 1,3,4-oxadiazole synthesis-arylation strategy for accessing 2,5-disubstituted 1,3,4-oxadiazoles, from carboxylic acids, N-isocyaniminotriphenylphosphorane (NIITP), and aryl iodides, is reported. The reaction sequence, featuring a second stage copper-catalyzed 1,3,4-oxadiazole arylation, was found to tolerate (hetero)aryl, alkyl, and alkenyl carboxylic acids, and (hetero)aryl iodide coupling partners. The effectiveness of the two-stage strategy was exemplified by the late-stage functionalization of five carboxylic acid-containing APIs, and an extension to the synthesis of aminated 1,3,4-oxadiazoles using N-benzoyloxy amine coupling partners was also demonstrated

Mapping graphic design practice & pedagogy

Workshop Description Mapping graphic design pedagogy will explore the complex, expanding and fragmenting fields of graphic design through the process of visual mapping. This experimental, collaborative workshop will enable participants to conceive and develop useful frameworks for navigating the expanding arena of graphic design that has grown from its roots in professional practice and now come to include areas of ethical, political, socio-economic, cultural and critical design. For academics, charged with educating the next set of designers, this expanding and fragmenting field represents exciting possibilities but can also generate existential uncertainty concerning what, why and how we go about teaching graphic design. The workshop utilises mapping as a productive activity, where “making a map is a way to hold a domain still for long enough to be able to see the relationships between the various approaches, methods, and tools.” (Sanders 2008: 2). Through mapping, and informed by a theoretical framework called the Four Fields of Industrial Design (Tharp and Tharp 2009), participants will map and temporarily freeze the fast moving, fluid and complex domain of graphic design as situated within educational contexts into a relational and temporary whole. Participants will be asked to visually map a range of related concepts, artefacts and objects including graphic design projects, units, modules, briefs and course philosophies to unearth and discover new potential and relationships. The workshop will be highly discursive and its focus is very much on the process of mapping as a way to surface latent meanings, intentions and connections. The workshop draws from on-going research into the use of participatory and co-operative inquiry methods with graphic design students as a means to develop a relational and situated understanding of their practice in an expanding field of graphic design. This workshop will involve group based visual mapping activities and lively discussion

Humanizing sociotechnical transitions through energy justice: an ethical framework for global transformative change

Poverty, climate change and energy security demand awareness about the interlinkages between energy systems and social justice. Amidst these challenges, energy justice has emerged to conceptualize a world where all individuals, across all areas, have safe, affordable and sustainable energy that is, essentially, socially just. Simultaneously, new social and technological solutions to energy problems continually evolve, and interest in the concept of sociotechnical transitions has grown. However, an element often missing from such transitions frameworks is explicit engagement with energy justice frameworks. Despite the development of an embryonic set of literature around these themes, an obvious research gap has emerged: can energy justice and transitions frameworks be combined? This paper argues that they can. It does so through an exploration of the multi-level perspective on sociotechnical systems and an integration of energy justice at the model’s niche, regime and landscape level. It presents the argument that it is within the overarching process of sociotechnical change that issues of energy justice emerge. Here, inattention to social justice issues can cause injustices, whereas attention to them can provide a means to examine and potential resolve them

Translocation of isotopically distinct macroalgae : a route to low-cost biomonitoring?

Nitrogen stable isotope ratios (δ15N) in macroalgae are often used to identify sources of nitrogenous pollution in fluvial and estuarine settings. This approach assumes that the macroalgal δ15N is representative of the sources of the pollution averaged over a timespan in the order of days to weeks, but the preferential uptake of a particular nitrogen compound or potential for fractionation in the water column or during uptake and assimilation by the macroalgae could make this assumption invalid. Laboratory studies were therefore performed to investigate the uptake and assimilation of both nitrate and ammonium at a variety of concentrations using the vegetative (non-fertile) tips of the brown macroalgae, Fucus vesiculosus. Nitrate appeared to fractionate at high concentrations, and was found to be taken up more rapidly than ammonia; within 13 days, the macroalgae tips were in isotopic equilibrium with the nitrate solution at 500 μM. These experiments were complemented by an investigation involving the translocation of macroalgae collected from a site enriched in 15N relative to natural levels (Staithes, UK), to the River Tees, Middlesbrough (UK), a site depleted in 15N relative to natural levels. The nitrogen isotope signature shifted 50% within 7 days, with samples deployed nearer the surface subject to greater change. These findings suggest that the translocation of macroalgae with isotopically distinct signatures can be used as a rapid, cost-efficient method for nitrogen biomonitoring in estuarine environments

Pluralising place frames in urban transition management: Net-zero transitions at precinct scale

This paper is concerned with unpacking net-zero frames and identifying implications for precinct scale urban transition management. Using data from frontrunner interviews and secondary sources in a case study on the Monash Technology Precinct (Melbourne, Australia), the analysis points towards four frames of net-zero at precinct scale: ‘Electrify Everything’ focuses on technology development to achieve carbon emissions reductions; ‘Place Matters’ which attends to liveability, mobility, inclusivity, sociality and amenity; ‘Going Green’ which embraces circular economy principles, nature-based solutions and green infrastructures; and ‘Innovation Hotspot’ which emphasises the potential of the precinct to become a major geographical agglomeration for net-zero entrepreneurship, industry development, job creation, international recognition and connectivity. Each of these frames are unpacked in terms of 1) the problem that needs to be addressed; 2) the causal diagnosis in terms of key drivers that give rise to this problem; 3) a moral interpretation of the problem and underpinning drivers; and 4) the type of actions and solutions that follow from this framing. The paper concludes that these frames are important in generating a deeper understanding of what shapes possibilities as well as tensions in accelerating a net-zero precinct transition, because each frame prioritises and enables certain transition strategies and collaborations, while it obscures and challenges others. Ultimately, the paper calls for plausible urban transition management approaches that connect with people, politics and place to consider real-life urban multiplicity, diversity, differences of views, ambiguities and contestation as a reality and potentially generative to transition dynamics

Pluralising place frames in urban transition management:net-zero transitions at precinct scale

This paper is concerned with unpacking net-zero frames and identifying implications for precinct scale urban transition management. Using data from frontrunner interviews and secondary sources in a case study on the Monash Technology Precinct (Melbourne, Australia), the analysis points towards four frames of net-zero at precinct scale: ‘Electrify Everything’ focuses on technology development to achieve carbon emissions reductions; ‘Place Matters’ which attends to liveability, mobility, inclusivity, sociality and amenity; ‘Going Green’ which embraces circular economy principles, nature-based solutions and green infrastructures; and ‘Innovation Hotspot’ which emphasises the potential of the precinct to become a major geographical agglomeration for net-zero entrepreneurship, industry development, job creation, international recognition and connectivity. Each of these frames are unpacked in terms of 1) the problem that needs to be addressed; 2) the causal diagnosis in terms of key drivers that give rise to this problem; 3) a moral interpretation of the problem and underpinning drivers; and 4) the type of actions and solutions that follow from this framing. The paper concludes that these frames are important in generating a deeper understanding of what shapes possibilities as well as tensions in accelerating a net-zero precinct transition, because each frame prioritises and enables certain transition strategies and collaborations, while it obscures and challenges others. Ultimately, the paper calls for plausible urban transition management approaches that connect with people, politics and place to consider real-life urban multiplicity, diversity, differences of views, ambiguities and contestation as a reality and potentially generative to transition dynamics.</p

General α-Amino 1,3,4-Oxadiazole Synthesis via Late-Stage Reductive Functionalization of Tertiary Amides and Lactams

An iridium-catalyzed reductive three-component coupling reaction for the synthesis of medicinally relevant α-amino 1,3,4-oxadiazoles from abundant tertiary amides or lactams, carboxylic acids, and (N-isocyanimino) triphenylphosphorane, is described. Proceeding under mild conditions using (3)2) and tetramethyldisiloxane to access the key reactive iminium ion intermediates, a broad range of structurally complex α-amino 1,3,4-oxadiazole architectures were efficiently accessed from diverse carboxylic acid feedstock coupling partners. Extension to α-amino heterodiazole synthesis was readily achieved by exchanging the carboxylic acid coupling partner for C-, S-, or N-centered Brønsted acids, and provided rapid and modular access to these desirable, yet difficult-to-access, heterocycles. Furthermore, the high chemoselectivity of the catalytic reductive activation step allowed the late-stage functionalization of 10 drug molecules, including the synthesis of novel heterodiazole-fused drug-drug conjugates.<br /

Decarbonising industry supply chains:incumbent-oriented transition intermediation for industry energy transition

Sustainability transitions literature has insufficiently explored the potentially constructive role of industry incumbents and transition intermediaries that cooperate with incumbents for industry energy transition. This study elaborates on transition intermediary functions by building on evidence from sectors where decarbonisation faces severe structural challenges and incumbency. An examination of the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative suggests that transition intermediaries form coalitions with incumbents based on shared beliefs to formulate strategies such as pathways to industry decarbonisation. The case highlights the functions of transition intermediaries for coordinating learning and action by way of advocacy and use of existing expertise and political alliances. Findings suggest that incumbents in established socio-technical regimes may work with transition intermediaries to decarbonise their sectors through incremental changes to existing infrastructure and by using emerging niche technologies. However, on contested issues, incumbents may require concessions from transition intermediaries that ultimately restrain agendas for further-reaching industry energy transition.</p