Sunny flats will replace…A congested slum block: Sydney’s post war housing improvement schemes

The present text traces the post war slum clearance program in Sydney, Australia, that saw the construction of modern blocks of flats drawn from international examples of rehousing schemes. This State-funded urban renewal program continued from the late 1940s until the 1980s. Many of the blocks of flats are slated for demolition, yet no overall assessment of their design quality or detailed discussion of the range of building forms or apartment layouts has been undertaken. There is a danger that these well-designed blocks will vanish rather than be retrofitted and that this unparalleled demonstration of modern housing progress by the State of New South Wales will be incomplete

Projecting lushness: doing the tropical urban through waterfront redevelopment

[Extract] The Townsville Strand was a $30m redevelopment of the waterfront, which has stood the test of time. Despite some modest opposition at the time, the City Council, transformed the Strand into a manicured public parklands which continues to enjoy wide public acclaim 15 years on. Qualitative and quantitative research was undertaken by one of the authors in 2004 - 6 into community usage and attitudes toward the Strand (Transpac Consulting, 2005; 2006). In this paper, the frame shifts from the original one concerned with measures of social capital development to one that is grounded in a phenomenology of place and a socio-aesthetics of immersion in landscape. Our aim is to analyze how, through its design and landscape 'affordances', this waterfront space has successfully engaged a variety of users and managed to have a measurable impact on an entire city's atmospherics

Designing appropriately - design projects to examine how contemporary civic buildings can be distinguishable in suburban and regional Australia

This research investigates contemporary architecture's difficulty in distinguishing new civic buildings from commercial and other non-public building types. Historically, the desire to create a clear typological distinction for the civic has come and gone through periods of time and key practitioners. Through projects, the masters attempts to formulate strategies to speak of the civic in the contemporary condition. The research aims to consider architectural language and its use in the context of new public buildings to establish a sense of difference from dominant urban typologies, and be grounded within a contemporary reading of the civic. This project-based research features three principal resolved design projects - a Civic Centre in Mildura; Council Offices for the City of Hume, Broadmeadows; and a new 'civic school' in the Melbourne outer suburb of Mill Park. The design process undertaken for each project is subject to investigation of selected precedents, both contemporary and historical, and these are explored through an illustrated written chapter

"... ponderously pedantic pediments prevail ... good, clean fun in a bad, dirty world": New Zealand Architecture in the 1980s

The 1980s in New Zealand started with Robert Muldoon as Prime Minister: "Think Big," the Springbok Tour, the price freeze, and the establishment of Kōhanga Reo. These conflicting messages of expansion, contraction, and of race and politics were contextualised by high inflation (15.7% in 1981, 17.6% in 1982) and increasing unemployment (over 70,000 in 1981; c130,000 in 1983). In 1983 the CER (Closer Economic Relations) agreement with Australia was signed. In 1986 a GST (Goods and Services Tax) was first introduced. In October 1987, the sharemarket crash devastated many and reduced the number of cranes dominating the skylines of New Zealand's major cities. Building sites became car parks, and a new era of economic rationalisation would occur. In 1988 Broadcasting was de-regulated, NZPost (now an SOE) closed 432 post offices, and the selling of state assets to private interests was put in train. In 1989 GST increased to 12.5% and the Serious Fraud Office was established.It was also a decade of drama in New Zealand architecture. Significant controversies arose over buildings being built or being demolished, the economies of land value and building worth were in constant comparision. Of note were the discussions around the unrealised National Art Gallery, Roger Walker's now demolished Wellington Club the Aotea Centre in Auckland,the destruction of William Pitt's His Majesty's Theatre, and finally the National Museum of New Zealand, known these days as Te Papa. Controversies included protests against the recurring lack of open competitions for major public buildings, as well as the dominant disregard for architectural heritage

Nonlinear viscous damping and tuned mass damper design for occupant comfort in flexible tall buildings subjected to wind loading

During wind events, tall buildings may exhibit floor accelerations levels that compromise occupant comfort. The use of energy dissipating devices to reduce peak floor accelerations is a sound strategy to improve building performance. The estimation of mean peak floor accelerations of a steel-frame building subjected to random wind forces and the design procedure of supplemental nonlinear viscous dampers to improve occupant comfort in one-year recurrence wind events are described in this paper. A stochastic wind load model is developed to estimate acceleration performance; drag, lift and torsional moments at each story are defined as random stationary processes by the definition of their cross-spectral density matrix. Wind tunnel results and computational fluid dynamic analyses are used to fine-tune the stochastic load models. Reduced-order structural models of the tower are developed to estimate the frequency response function from floor loadings to floor accelerations at corners points of the buildings. Statistical linearization is used to estimate the performance of the buildings with non-linear viscous dampers installed in different configurations. Floor acceleration reductions achieved with supplemental viscous dampers and a tuned mass damper are evaluated to comply with occupant performance standards.Publicado en: Mecánica Computacional vol. XXXV, no. 12Facultad de Ingenierí

Nonlinear viscous damping and tuned mass damper design for occupant comfort in flexible tall buildings subjected to wind loading

During wind events, tall buildings may exhibit floor accelerations levels that compromise occupant comfort. The use of energy dissipating devices to reduce peak floor accelerations is a sound strategy to improve building performance. The estimation of mean peak floor accelerations of a steel-frame building subjected to random wind forces and the design procedure of supplemental nonlinear viscous dampers to improve occupant comfort in one-year recurrence wind events are described in this paper. A stochastic wind load model is developed to estimate acceleration performance; drag, lift and torsional moments at each story are defined as random stationary processes by the definition of their cross-spectral density matrix. Wind tunnel results and computational fluid dynamic analyses are used to fine-tune the stochastic load models. Reduced-order structural models of the tower are developed to estimate the frequency response function from floor loadings to floor accelerations at corners points of the buildings. Statistical linearization is used to estimate the performance of the buildings with non-linear viscous dampers installed in different configurations. Floor acceleration reductions achieved with supplemental viscous dampers and a tuned mass damper are evaluated to comply with occupant performance standards.Publicado en: Mecánica Computacional vol. XXXV, no. 12Facultad de Ingenierí

Nonlinear viscous damping and tuned mass damper design for occupant comfort in flexible tall buildings subjected to wind loading

During wind events, tall buildings may exhibit floor accelerations levels that compromise occupant comfort. The use of energy dissipating devices to reduce peak floor accelerations is a sound strategy to improve building performance. The estimation of mean peak floor accelerations of a steel-frame building subjected to random wind forces and the design procedure of supplemental nonlinear viscous dampers to improve occupant comfort in one-year recurrence wind events are described in this paper. A stochastic wind load model is developed to estimate acceleration performance; drag, lift and torsional moments at each story are defined as random stationary processes by the definition of their cross-spectral density matrix. Wind tunnel results and computational fluid dynamic analyses are used to fine-tune the stochastic load models. Reduced-order structural models of the tower are developed to estimate the frequency response function from floor loadings to floor accelerations at corners points of the buildings. Statistical linearization is used to estimate the performance of the buildings with non-linear viscous dampers installed in different configurations. Floor acceleration reductions achieved with supplemental viscous dampers and a tuned mass damper are evaluated to comply with occupant performance standards.Publicado en: Mecánica Computacional vol. XXXV, no. 12Facultad de Ingenierí

National Culture and Entertainment Center: Iconographic Architecture

The building I design will be an icon, a landmark to publicize my hometown, (a now thriving Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Saigon), to celebrate friendly Vietnamese people and the country of Vietnam in general. The reality of Vietnam and Vietnamese life is quite different now from the image of Vietnam in the past. This new image of the Vietnamese culture will be publicized through a series of projections in spaces, on surfaces, in the transformation into form, or by more conventional displayed photos of different periods of time

Sheds for Antarctica: the environment for architectural design and practice

This work frames the architectural practice of Antarctica; a young practice environment characterised by loose collaboration and participation in diverse design activities. The architectural projects forming this research have surfaced three central propositions; about a mode of design practice, a type of architectural space, and an ethical position towards architecture. Each of these share the impulse to be immersed environmental influences affecting architecture. This document reflects on these ideas through the lens of a series of themes: noise, junk, longevity, and participation. Each of these themes describes the environment and context in which architectural design takes place. Through these designs, the architectural model of the shed is examined; a form which is characterised by loose and robust space. Together these reflections form a position towards sustainability that is applicable to architecture. That position foregrounds participation in the breadth of the imperfect environment for building; accommodation of change in that environment, and an open robust design process. In doing this it seeks to contribute to debates which span between architectural composition and the social forces on architecture, re-engaging the two with each other. The design projects, and the position elaborated through them, set out a territory for Antarctica’s ongoing design research and collaborative methods