ARC Linkage Grant ( LP0776642 ) funded for 2007-2010 ($465,000 )
Prof WG Randolph, Mr JD Plume, Dr BP Parolin, A/Prof BH Judd

This project will be the first in Australia to integrate diverse types of urban data using an open-standard geospatial information model to research the outcomes of major urban renewal proposals in collaboration with both a state and local government planning instrumentalities. Since the issues being addressed are common to every planning body in Australia , the flow-on benefits will be of national significance for future urban planning and management. The research will place Australia at the forefront of international research to improve spatial information management that will inform planning decisions at the local and state level.

ARC Linkage Grant ( LP0776421 ) funded for 2007-2010 ($197,000 )
Prof M Loosemore, A/Prof KM Dunn, Dr FT Phua

This research will help to improve the dismal occupational health and safety record of the Australian construction industry (240% more injuries than all-industry average). It will also help to reduce the relatively high levels of workplace compensation due to occupational injuries and diseases (70% higher than all-industry average). Since construction employs 8% of the working population and generates 6% of GDP, significant economic and social benefits will arise for wider society from a more culturally harmonious, efficient and productive construction industry. Finally, by making construction safer for NESB migrants who are a significant source of labour, this research will help to reduce severe skill shortages.

ARC Linkage Grant ( LP0776243 ) funded for 2007-2010 ($209,250 )
Chief Investigators: Dr FP Lucien, Ms KJ Mate, Prof RP Burford

Carbonate binding is a frontier technology that promises a new generation of advanced materials for applications in construction. Precast concrete accounts for a large and increasing portion of total concrete usage. Precast materials made by carbonate binding would offer several advantages over conventional precast concrete. The energy savings of a low temperature process with negligible greenhouse gas emissions would contribute immensely to the goal of an environmentally sustainable Australia. The reduced hardening period would offer substantial increases in productivity to manufacturers.

ARC Linkage Grant ( LP0562419 ) funded for 2005-2007 ($179,000 )
Prof B Randolph, Prof S Thompson, Dr G Earl, Mr P Williams, Dr B Judd

This project will address the emerging issue of socially sustainable higher density residential renewal in suburban areas of Australian cities, with a specific focus on the post-war middle and western suburbs of Sydney. Within the context of new state strategic planning proposals, the research will explore the process of urban renewal in these areas, establish their capacity to deliver higher residential densities and assess the likely social options that are likely to optimise socially sustainable outcomes at the local scale, working closely with local council officers and the NSW Department of Housing in a number of stud areas.

Project website: /cityfutures/research/cityfutures/projects.asp?id=urbanrenewal

ARC Linkage Grant funded for 2005-2008 ($427,000)
Nancy Marshall, Linda Corkery
Research Associate: Christine Steinmetz

The research project aims to understand and articulate how people value urban open space in the ‘heartland' of Western Sydney and to explore what makes different parks special for different people. This project will assist innovative parkland planning in the dynamic urban landscape of Western Sydney —home to almost 10 percent of the Australian population. Throughout the various stages of this project, we will be using quantitative and qualitative research techniques to gauge ‘imageability' and feelings of ‘attachment' and ‘connectedness' to the Parklands experienced by residents of Western Sydney. With our industry partner, The Department of Planning, we will be engaged in a continual process of constructing new thematic layers for an existing Geographic Information Systems database that will incorporate subjective values about open space. This expanded understanding of feelings and connectedness will reveal shared community values and enhance future planning and design of urban parklands. [Have a project summary for each of them]

Project web site: /research/strengths/UrbPlanDev/exhibit/people_parks

ARC Linkage Grant (LP0775050) funded for 2007-2009 ($232,366)
A/Prof J Bennett, Ms B Huangfu, Dr D McNeill, Prof X Ruan, Ms FM Fenner

Through the development of an innovative methodology, combining art theory and curatorial practice, this project provides comprehensive analysis of the role played by Asian (and Australian) visual art in understanding how places and communities are transformed by the impact of immigration/ migration, displacement, and forms of social upheaval. Its evaluation of art's relationship to other spheres of culture, and of the distinctive nature of art's contribution to knowledge, constitutes a significant advance in visual culture theory, also allowing us to determine best practice in multicultural visual arts programming. The project pioneers doctoral level curatorial training, focused on Asian/multicultural art.

ARC LIEF Grant (LE0775489) funded for 2007 ($300,000)
Prof VJ Johnson, A/Prof J Mendelssohn, Mr AM Wells, Prof NC Brown, A/Prof J Bennett, Dr DS Losche, Mr H Amos, Dr CM De Lorenzo, Prof R Benjamin, Dr CD Moore, Dr AJ Callaway, Dr A Marsh, Dr D Palmer, Dr CM Speck, Mr R Choate, Mr R Butler, Dr A Gray.

The Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, daao.org.au, is major research infrastructure for the circulation and generation of research on Australian art history via the Internet. At its core is forty-five years of primary research meticulously indexed to reveal distinct facts about those involved in the creation of Australia 's artistic and national identity. Australian art scholars have long lacked available.

infrastructure of this order of technical complexity to enhance the quality of their research. The Dictionary of Australian Artists Online (DAAO) fulfils this need, providing a collaborative peer reviewed database of artists' biographies that will facilitate empirical investigation into the nature of Australian art production across people, place and time. The DAAO data model enables precise interrogation of a vast body of hitherto disconnected data to discover latent as well as novel patterns, anomalies and intensities in that data.

ARC Linkage Grant (LP 0775225) funded for 2007-2010 ($883,912)
Dr DC Baker, Prof NF Ryan, A/Prof R Freestone , Prof KA Brown, Prof L Ferreira, A/Prof ME Drew, A/Prof A Goonetilleke, Prof PM Charles, Dr P Barnes, Prof WE Walker, Prof JD Kasarda, Dr SJ Appold, Mr SM Goodwin, Mr AR Walker, Dr MB Charles, Prof M Weijnen.

Modern airports and growing cities are increasingly in conflict where airport-driven development and urban expansion are not coordinated. The impacts, interactions and conflicts can be conceptualised as interfaces. This project will investigate four major interface issues: economic development, land use planning, infrastructure and governance. The project is significant: it assembles a unique and committed set of public and private industry partners, fills managerial and knowledge gaps in planning across the airport-region, and integrates airport planning with broader urban and regional strategies. Outcomes include: sustainability indicators to inform a decision support system to integrate regional decision-making with airport planning.

Project web site: http://www.airportmetropolis.qut.com/

ARC Discovery Grant (DP0771569) funded for 2007-2008 ($164,768)
A/Prof R Freestone, Dr C Garnaut, Dr AJ Brown-May, Dr S Petrow, A/Prof J Gregory, Dr CJ McConville

Community based town planning associations (TPAs) made significant contributions to the development of urban planning in Australia from the early 20th century but have not featured prominently in traditional historical accounts. This national study corrects this imbalance by investigating how early agendas and achievements were influenced by citizen inputs in every capital city. The origins, activities, demise and survival of TPAs will be reconstructed, compared and contrasted. Unlike the predominant discourse of participation based largely on narrow oppositional politics, the study posits an enduring relevance of more broadly-based community groups for genuine collaborative planning.

ARC Discovery Grant ( DP0773388) funded for 2007-2008 ($327,600)
Prof Bill Randolph, Dr Raymond Bunker, A/Prof Bruce Judd

Urban consolidation or the building of residential dwellings at higher densities than the current housing stock is an urban growth management policy in most capital cities in Australia . In all of these cities, future residential development is based upon an increasing number of these higher density dwellings being built in the existing urban fabric. Proponents or urban consolidation policies contend that there are economic, social and environmental benefits to be gained from building out cities at much higher densities than currently exist. On the other hand, there is also a body of researchers who claim that the perceived benefits of urban consolidation policy are based on assumptions and that little evidence exists to support these proposed benefits. This project aims to increase our knowledge of the impacts of urban consolidation policy by analyzing some of the social, behavioural and transport assumptions that lay behind this policy in Sydney and Melbourne. In particular, this project aims to examine whether some of the perceived benefits of urban consolidation are experienced by individuals who live in such dwellings.

Project website: www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/ research/cityfutures/projects.asp?id=highdensityhousing

ARC Linkage Grant (LP0667822) funded for 2006-2008 ($91,310)
Dr C Garnaut, A/Prof R Freestone, Prof A Alanen

Remote planned settlements serving specialized needs like resource exploitation and defence embody best-practice modernist design ideas. They represent major public and private investments but are inherently at risk because of their isolation, scale and narrow economic base. The cultural significance (heritage value) of Australian examples has not been addressed. The project determines their place in the history of post-WW2 planning, their heritage value and the potential of that heritage to contribute to their future sustainability. The focus on an applied research problem at the nexus of 20thC heritage, urban planning history and the viability of remote planned communities is novel. Woomera Village is a major case study.

ARC Linkage Grant (LP0668205) funded for 2006-2008 ($441,782)
Prof B Randolph, Dr B Judd, R Samuels

The research will develop and implement an innovative framework for evaluating and monitoring renewal programs being developed by the NSW Department of Housing for its larger housing estates. While the framework will be concerned with improving methods for assessing outcomes within estates, it will also develop methods for understanding the previously ignored social and economic impacts on neighbourhoods surrounding the renewal area. This will involve the development of new conceptually based evaluation methodologies including those concerned with assessing community safety and wellbeing, the financial and non-financial costs and benefits of renewal, and an understanding of casual relationship between interventions and outcomes.

Project website: /cityfutures/research/cityfutures/projects.asp?id=mosaic