Extract

Abstract: Housing provisions in the Western world, Australia included, are characterised by several challenges. New residential typologies are needed to cope with, for example, environmental and economic considerations of land use, escalating construction cost, and the lack of affordable housing. Urban form determines measures of density. It also spurs our common imaginaries of urban life. Hence, to calibrate urban form with new residential typologies, we need to upgrade the prevailing homeness imaginaries. This paper explores new narratives of housing density generated through contemporary transformations of the urban fabric, and draws on cultural implications when increasing density. Proposing Melbourne as object of inquiry, it takes Ian H. Thompson’s scholarship on imaginaries in landscape architecture as a theoretical framework to extrapolate means of upgrading the Australian Dream of homeness. While these planning operations bring together disparate imaginaries – the convention of cosmopolitan urban lifestyle in the inner city versus the family-oriented lifestyle in the wider outer suburbs – they also tell a story about the coexistence of multiple imaginaries in contemporary global cities, such as Melbourne. This paper will discuss findings from studies on Swedish waterfronts and American suburbs to draft a research proposal concerning emerging residential typologies feasible to be applied to Australian cities.

Keywords: Imaginaries; waterfront liveability; suburban transformation; densification cultures.

PDF

Download