http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19673 2013-05-20T13:38:09Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19680 The Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia Ahlquist, Sean.; Wilkins, Helen.; Leibowitz, Vicki.; Spurr, Sam.; Lahoud, Adrian.; Tucker, Chris.; Chapman, Michael.; Barber, Daniel.; Keefer Bell, Eugenie.; Lowe, Russell.; Hill, Glen.; Gu, Ning.; Gardiner, Blair.; Moulis, Antony.; Ednie-Brown, Pia.; Holzer, Dominik.; Austin, Mike.; Musgrave, Elizabeth.; Maher, Mary Lou.; Raisbeck, Peter.; Smith, Wally.; Pickersgill, Sean.; Hogben, Paul.; Ostwald, Michael.; McCarthy, Christine.; Moloney, Jules.; Bharat, Dave.; Orr, Kirsten.; Loo, Stephen.; Smith, Cathy.; Stead, Naomi.; Goad, Philip.; Lewi, Hannah.; Abel, Chris.; Andresen, Brit.; Frichot, Helene.; Perin, Gavin.; Tombesi, Paolo.; Reinhardt, Dagmar.; Scriver, Peter.; Pelosi, Antony.; More, Greg.; Burns, Karen.; Shotton, Elizabeth.; Frumar, Jerome.; Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra.; Taylor, William M. Orr, Kirsten.; Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra. The Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia. Each paper in the Proceedings has been double refereed by members of an independent panel of academic peers appointed by the Conference Committee. Papers were matched, where possible, to referees in the same field and with similar interests to the authors. 2007-10-15T01:11:23Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19714 THE SILENT HISTORY OF VERNACULAR: EMERGENT PROPERTIES AS BACKGROUND FOR STUDYING TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Wilkins, Helen. All complex systems, which includes buildings and the built environment, possess emergent properties. Complex systems are systems that are composed of numerous interacting parts. Emergent properties are high-level behaviours that arise spontaneously as a result of the structural organisation of, and the interactions between, the individual parts and properties of the system. Thermal performance is an emergent property of buildings and of the built environment. It is the result of the way in which the physical components of a built environment and their thermal properties interact. Understanding the emergent thermal properties of the built environment is important because there has been an empirically verifiable long term trend in the way classes of buildings have altered over time. Vernacular buildings that have persisted for long spans of time possessed technologies that ‘managed’ the emergent thermal properties, and their inherent thermal contradictions, whether their builders or occupants have been aware of this or not: they are silent technologies. Classes of buildings that did not possess these silent technologies have, over time, fallen out of use and have not reappeared. As buildings have become ever more complex, these silent technologies have become ever more sophisticated overall in their ‘management’ of the emergent thermal properties. This has allowed the overall level of thermal choices and control available to building occupants to increase over time, regardless of their contradictory natures. 2007-10-05T02:23:32Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19709 USING ALGORITHMS TO ANALYSE THE VISUAL PROPERTIES OF A BUILDING’S STYLE Tucker, Chris.; Ostwald, Michael. Residential development within heritage conservation areas is regulated by Development Control Plans (DCP) that provide guidelines about the shape and form that new houses, alterations and additions should take (DIPNR 2004). By understanding that the visual amenity of streets within a city plays an important role in creating a sense of place and community for its citizens (Lynch 1960) they attempt to sustain, through regulation, an urban pattern that has become valued by the community. The visual character of a building within a streetscape is often associated with the style of its construction - a set of visual characteristics that a group of buildings might share. These characteristics include the relationship of the parts of the building to each other, and to the building as a whole, the use of ornament and visible textures, and the scale of elements within the composition. Using algorithms developed within robotic research that enable a computer to interpret a visual environment (similar to those used in medicine and facial recognition for instance), this paper outlines how algorithms can be used to study the visual properties of the built environment. One of the methodological qualities of computer visualisation that makes it so useful for a comparative visual analysis of buildings is that the representational and symbolic meanings of a buildings style play no part. The organisation of the elements can be analysed without having to interpret their possible meaning at the beginning of the process. This paper builds on an established interdisciplinary approach, utilising architectural knowledge and computer visualisation to evaluate the visual character of detached housing within a heritage conservation area. The visual environment is analysed using computer software developed to locate the visual boundaries within a view of a streetscape both as an elevation and aerial view. 2007-10-05T02:21:23Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19674 BUILDING ON TRANSIENCE: TOLERANCE AND THE SUBJECTIVE DIMENSIONS OF TECHNOLOGY Taylor, William M. Technology acquires a provocative charge in different ways, one arising from observations of ‘transience’ in the built environment, particularly of the life and performance of buildings over time, their conception and construction, use and performance, inevitable failure or decay. Technological systems can be particularly thought provoking when human expectations and actions are implicated in the performance of buildings - which, of course, is always. This paper discusses how building technology (its conception, operation and valuation) is mediated by an ethical imperative aimed at managing change and the uncertainties it poses and from which an understanding of identity, character and values may be derived. The concept of operational ‘tolerance’ draws our attention to the capacity of building technologies to articulate change and perform according to varied physical and aesthetic expectations. Expectations might be said to include those for a certain kind of structural soundness and integrity or visual clarity. A failure to fulfil these serves to draw our attention yet further to particular environmental and even social circumstances which characterise, inhibit or enhance the operation of architectural medium – like unstable soils, pervious or defective building materials, poor workmanship or even extremes of weather and neglect. The concept of tolerance is related to the governance and normalisation of habitable space in modern times though has precursors in other times and varied modes of construction. Here it is cast as a useful analytical tool for understanding transience and the built environment in terms of technology and for describing the patterns of sensibility and self-awareness arising from an experience of technological systems. 2007-10-05T02:19:37Z