- Title
- Epistemology of city centre urban design guidelines: a study of the Australian scene
- Creator
- Holden, Gordon Alexander
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 1996
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Introduction: This dissertation is concerned with the epistemology of urban design guidelines for Australian city centres. Urban design guidelines are adopted by cities as instruments which have the objective of improving the quality and workability of the built environment in terms of the holistic experience of users. The problem: City centre urban design guidelines in use in Australia are perceived to fall short of their full potential. It is demonstrated that this is because of poor methods in their production and administration which derives from an inadequate theoretical base to practice. Objectives: The central focus of the research was established in order to contribute to greater reliability in the methods of preparing urban design guidelines and to providing a better basis for determining their substance. The research seeks to identify the problems of urban design guidelines and to indicate ways to improve guidelines so as to make them more relevant, more credible more useable and more publicly accountable. Organisation and scope: The dissertation is arranged in three parts following an introduction. The first two parts address the problem, the procedures and the substantive content of guidelines, with the third part providing conclusions, outcomes and recommendations. In the first part a context for considering guidelines and a background to relevant theory is discussed. This includes discussion on theory and method used in design and planning generally. The scope of inquiry into urban design epistemology ranges beyond the immediate topic because by its nature several affinity disciplines are embraced by urban design, mainly those of architecture, planning and landscape architecture. The first part concludes with the establishment of procedural and substantive models for consideration of guidelines, which are based in theory. The second part focuses on procedural and substantive practice in urban design in Australia and internationally, as well as on professional culture in urban design in Australia. The scope includes studying Australia city centre urban design guidelines, and surveying key people involved in preparing, administering and responding to guidelines. The study of international examples provides a comparative overview to the Australian scene. Conclusions and recommendations: Part three focuses on the key outcomes of the study, which is the development of a theory based model to guide the preparation of urban design guidelines to improve their procedural and substantive performance. Urban design guidelines need to perform well procedurally in order to maintain credibility through high reliability, and to be accountable, while a high level of substantive performance is at the 'raison d'etre' of urban design guidelines. An additional conclusion is that there is a need to improve urban design knowledge. This is proposed to be addressed by developing information systems and by improving initial and continuing education for students, designers and authority officers. A conceptual model for structuring urban design knowledge is provided in he study. Contribution: The dissertation contributes to improving the reliability of city centre urban design guidelines in Australia and potentially elsewhere. It achieves this by identifying problems and by demonstrating ways to address them, including the development of a guide for the preparation of reliable guidelines and suggestions for development of education information systems.
- Subject
- urban design guidelines; urban design; Australian cities
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1312542
- Identifier
- uon:22421
- Rights
- Copyright 1996 Gordon Alexander Holden
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 278 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 7 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |