Sound is a dynamic part of the urban landscape and is increasingly understood to be a central aspect that helps to shape people’s experiences of the public realm. Australian urban planners, however, have little engagement with the theories on urban sounds, and as a result, no methodologies have developed to evaluate, describe and measure the...

Urban development and renewal is changing the shape and composition of Australian cities, putting increasing pressure on biodiversity, water resources, and human health and well-being. As our cities intensify and expand, there will be further losses to the number and diversity of species and habitats; the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the green infrastructure that makes...

In the late 1990s a group of Victorian local government councils addressed a sustainability void in the building codes and planning regulations by developing capacity to implement Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) via the planning system. What began as a collection of largely independent initiatives progressed to an integrated suite of mechanisms to embed ESD in...

Public security and anti-terror urban design is increasing in Australian cities as governments respond to continued extremist attacks worldwide. However, controlling safety measures are driven by security agencies and police, rather than urban design professionals. Oftentimes, such outcomes prove detrimental to urban amenity, sacrificing quality public space for security. There is limited critical research within...

Land is a finite resource with highly variable quality. Its rate of creation is negligible on the human scale. Land is also not a commodity as are other tradeable goods. The supply of high quality land, amenity-rich land with high-quality supplies of natural resources, such as clean water, is severely limited. Land is critical to...