Building surveyors in Australia : an emerging profession

Australian and UK Building Codes undergo revision to improve the health and safety standards in the built environment and reflect wider social and technological changes. In the 1990s both countries changed to the option for designers to provide alternative solutions, where designers provide calculations to demonstrate that the codes are satisfied but not through the traditional deemed to satisfy route. Other social and legislative changes have had an impact on the profession. In the UK the Institute of Building Control, the equivalent of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors responded by joining the Royal Institution of the Chartered Surveyors. Thus it has become part of the largest surveying professional body, what does that mean for the profession? This paper compares the Australian and UK professions and looks at some of the issues affecting their future direction.<br /

Integrating affordable housing and sustainable housing: bridging two merit goods in Australia

Interest among planning and policy makers in environmentally sustainable housing has risen in recent years as a response to the global goal of attaining sustainable development. In Australia, there has long been concern that the market might under-provide affordable housing and, more recently, concerns have been raised over the capacity of the market to provide sustainable housing. Governments in Australia have intervened through subsidies, tax incentives and more direct forms of support for the provision of affordable and sustainable housing. Providing environmentally sustainable housing is thus perceived to be a “merit good” in Australia. That is, a good that has social merit but one that is underprovided by markets. Contemporary housing policy debate in Australia has emphasised the need to respond to a growing housing affordability challenge. Affordable housing might also be seen to be a merit good in Australia. Nevertheless there has been a reluctance to consider housing sustainability in the same context as housing affordability. This chapter addresses the debate over affordable and sustainable housing in Australia by drawing on learnings from the Ecocents Living research project to suggest a conceptual basis to understand the issues at hand. Ecocents Living is a project that seeks to integrate the concepts of affordable and sustainable housing into a model to guide industrial implementation of sustainable and affordable housing. It is argued that the concepts of sustainable housing and affordable housing have synergies that warrant consideration and the further development of an embryonic model for integrating sustainable and affordable housing is offered in this chapter.George Zillante, Stephen Pullen, Lou Wilson, Kathryn Davidson, Nicholas Chileshe, Jian Zuo, Michael Arma

The Australian Housing Conditions Dataset: Technical Report

Emma Baker, Lyrian Daniel, Rebecca Bentley, Hal Pawson, Wendy Stone, Priya Rajagopalan, Kath Hulse, Andrew Beer, Kerry London, George Zillante and Bill Randolp

The Australian housing conditions dataset - technical report

We don&#039;t know enough about the condition of Australias housing. In the nearly two decades since the last Australian Housing Survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics there have been significant changes in the housing system. The Australian Housing Conditions Dataset (AHCD) responds to a pressing need for a reliable and up-to-date housing conditions data infrastructure. This initial wave is focused on New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, however additional work to build upon, adapt and apply the AHCD research protocols to different population groups and locations is encouraged. The AHCD and research protocols will be accessible through the Australian Data Archive in late 2018. The AHCD provides: An infrastructure of tools, data and protocols for Australian researchers and policy makers; A foundation for evidence-informed research on Australia&#039;s housing conditions; and Essential evidence required to address the real and chronic housing needs of vulnerable Australians, and maximise social and economic participation in society. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council (LE160100056) and The University of Adelaide, in partnership with The University of South Australia, The University of Melbourne, RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology and The University of New South Wales. The project is led by Associate Professor Emma Baker at The University of Adelaide

Building surveying: a sustainable profession or a passing fad?

Building Surveying in Australia, through its professional Body the AIBS is in a state of flux. The demands being imposed on the AIBS by the new and developing specialist areas of building surveying, the consistent government interference and the conservative nature of its membership is making the organisation resistant to change and hampering its development. If the organisation is to survive it will need to lose its conservative shackles and be more proactive in embracing change. This paper uses a case study approach to develop the ingredients for success that the AIBS can use to improve its performance and relevance and lead to a sustainable profession.George Zillant

An evaluation of Chinese Wind Turbine Manufacturers using the enterprise niche theory

With support from the Chinese government, the Chinese wind power generation industry is experiencing rapid development. The quick growth of the wind power generation industry has promoted the development of the Chinese wind turbine manufacturing industry. Similarly, the quantity and the productivity of the local Chinese Wind Turbine Manufacturers (WTMs) have also undergone a quick and significant expansion. This is resulting in an increase in competition amongst the WTMs in China. Being relatively new, this creates a fertile environment for local Chinese WTMs that is ripe for study and analysis. Based on the niche theory of industrial ecosystem and enterprise, this paper investigates the Chinese wind turbine manufacturing industry, and proposes a wind turbine manufacturing industry ecosystem model and a WTMs' ecological niche evaluation index system (WENEIS). Use is made of a catastrophe theory model evaluation method to evaluate the ecological niche status of the 6 main local Chinese WTMs selected and a spider diagram is established to compare the status of the different enterprises' ecological niche. The proposed WENEIS aids WTMs in finding the competitive advantage and disadvantage factors for their development, as well as providing a valuable reference for the WTMs to improve their business environment and to formulate their competitive strategy in the future.Zhen-yu Zhao, Wen-jun Ling, George Zillant

Disaster recovery: the role of pre-planning and temporary housing

Disasters, both natural and unnatural are capable of destroying cities in a matter of seconds. The built environment of a city can take years to develop and within moments be taken away. Disasters obviously have enormous human costs, but for those who survive there are huge amounts of work to restore what was taken away. This research focuses on identifying how the construction industry is currently dealing with the disaster recovery projects. A questionnaire survey was conducted in order to understand stakeholders’ perceptions on disaster recovery. Particular focuses were placed on the role of preplanning and temporary housing during the disaster recovery process. The results found that both temporary housing and preplanning play a critical role in a speedy recovery from disaster and more importantly to improve the resilience of the community to disasters.George Zillante, William Howie, Jian Zu