Building Design & Construction

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Book review: connecting places, connecting people: a paradigm for urban living in the 21st century by Reena Tiwari (Routledge)
(Taylor and Francis, 2020-06-27) Chitrakar, Rajjan
Placemaking is being increasingly recognised as a strategy to improve the quality of urban public realm. Placemaking helps to build better communities with an important role to play in achieving sustainable urban development. According to the Project for Public Spaces (2007), strengthening the connection between people and the places they share is central to placemaking. Although there is heaps of literature available on placemaking, this core idea of placemaking has not been covered so much in research. Reena Tiwari’s Connecting Places, Connecting People is a timely response to this need.
House and land: an architectural review of bulk housing in Australia
(Alanya HEP University, 2022-05-13) Hogg, Peter; Chitrakar, Rajjan; Bamford, Nick; Herriotts, Rosalind
Australia is a suburban nation, and Australians value home ownership highly. The standalone house on a “quarter acre” block is seen as almost a natural birth right. Yet architects only design about 3% of housing in Australia, the vast bulk of Australia’s housing is designed and built by “volume builders” who buy up huge tracts of land on the urban fringe of the major cities and roll out vast areas of new housing every year. This paper examines the role of the volume builder from an architectural perspective, looking at the design and planning of suburban homes and suburbs, as well as at their environmental and urban design performance. Data were collected and analysed from two suburbs in outer Melbourne using observations and interviews with the residents. Our findings indicate that social and environmental outcomes are often poor and suggest ways that these might be improved.
How accessible are neighbourhood open spaces? Control of public space and its management in contemporary cities
(Elsevier, 2022-08-22) Chitrakar, Rajjan; Baker, Douglas C.; Guaralda, Mirko
Public spaces are being increasingly controlled and managed by non-government agencies, and their publicness is shifting constantly, prompting concerns about the nature of the public realm in contemporary cities. Using a qualitative single case study analysis with the data collected from observations and interviews, this paper examines how control has been employed as a regulatory mechanism to manage neighbourhood open spaces in Kathmandu by a local community group, which has emerged as a formally responsible body for public space management. Our findings suggest that excessive control of public space is problematic as it diminishes a user’s ability to access open spaces. We analysed this evidence from two lenses. We first considered the transfer of management responsibilities to the community to argue that it has added new challenges to public space management by compromising the public realm. Secondly, from the point of view of the tendency of controlling public space, we maintain that public space managers have to ensure a balance between the need to control the space and making it accessible to the users. Contemporary approaches to public space management should aim for maintaining the public character of an urban place regardless of who owns or controls it.
Integrating green urbanism into the transit-oriented development in Australia
(Ecocity World Summit 2022, 2022-02) Chitrakar, Rajjan; Hogg, Peter; Eshow, Dillan
Can the combination of green urbanism and transit-orient development (TOD) shrink the environmental footprint associated with vehicular oriented transport? This is just one of the several questions that may be asked when thinking of measures to provide a carbon neutral future. Not only is transport Australia’s one of the primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions, but cars alone are accountable for almost half of those emissions. In recent years, the Australian government has made significant investments in the transit systems and the policy agenda has embraced TOD initiatives driven by green concerns. Yet there are some unique challenges in the Australian context. TODs have occurred occasionally in Australian urban development and have not been strategically or statutorily planned. Factors such as rapid transit, density, and mixed use necessary to guarantee the provision of TOD has not yet been put in place in any Australian city. Moreover, while buildings are increasingly consuming more energy in both construction and operation, the execution of green open spaces within and around the TOD is inadequate with the development areas missing on potential environmental benefits and sustainable outcomes. There should be an increased focus on ecological and environmental dimensions of urban development so that the combined effect of pursuing TODs and green urbanism could become a reality in the future.
Morphology of traditional towns and the organisation of neighbourhood public spaces in the Kathmandu Valley
(Nova Science Publisher, 2020-11-13) Chitrakar, Rajjan
Traditional towns of the Kathmandu Valley boast a fine provision of public space and offer a unique setting for urban life. This chapter presents a comprehensive review of the morphology of these towns and the organization of public spaces within in the residential neighborhoods, with an aim to identify the key attributes of such spaces and the factors that are responsible for their formation and utilization. The chapter highlights that the physical form of the traditional towns exhibits a compact and dense character in the arrangement of buildings and urban spaces. A distinct pattern of settlement design is also evident in the organization of neighborhoods, where the town has been divided into several residential quarters to house communities based on caste and social status of the inhabitants. Most notably, public spaces have been developed as an essential feature of every traditional neighborhood, with a set of urban squares distributed over the entire town and arranged in an innovative and interesting way. The provision of public space, consisting of many elements of urban interest, has contributed to the development of an urban environment that is conducive to both daily social activities and occasional feasts and festivals.
Permanence, Transience and Transformation in Traditional Aboriginal Dwellings in Southeastern Australia
(Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 2023-12-01) Hogg, Peter T. M.
This paper discusses the historical and archaeological evidence of permanent First Nations dwellings and shelters and settlements in South East Australia, as well as the evidence for the use of temporary and transient shelters. It makes the case that western notions of permanence need to be reconsidered in the context of the Indigenous building tradition. It argues that permanent settlements and habitations were mostly found in specific areas and may not have been used by all First Nations people in the study area. Where permanent dwellings did exist in pre-colonial times, they were largely abandoned in favour of more temporary shelters as colonists and pastoralists appropriated the most favorable locations and drove First Nation people from Country.
Revisiting Kathmandu Valley's public realm
(Nova Science Publishers, 2020-11-13) Chitrakar, Rajjan; Shrestha, Brinda
Contemporary urban development of Kathmandu Valley, the major urban centre of Nepal, has largely failed to deliver positive outcomes, with direct consequences on its public realm. While the problem demands effective management of urban growth and change, there is also a need to expand scholarly dialogues on the impact of urbanization on public space quality. This book responses to this need and aims to instigate a new debate on contemporary issues of public realm by engaging readers with the challenges of the ongoing transformation and management of public spaces. The book consists of six chapters written on a range of topics, covering both the traditional and contemporary public spaces. Chapter One reviews public realm in the traditional towns of the Kathmandu Valley and reinforces our current understanding of the provision and use of historic urban squares. Chapter Two takes the study on the historic urban squares into a new level by examining these public spaces in relation to contemporary city identity in the context of urban change. The third chapter examines the current transformation of historic riverfronts in the Kathmandu Valley, outlining the physical features and the cultural and religious activities taking place in the riverfronts from the perspective of the cultural landscape theory. Chapter Four is an analytical wrap up on the changing nature of the public spaces in the urban fringe of a historic town. Chapter Five presents the case study of a major civic space in Kathmandu, which is currently in dispute due to encroachment and has become a matter of serious concern among local architects and planners. The final chapter examines how Guthi as a traditional institutional setup for civic governance may be reconsidered to devise a new model for public space governance at present.
Role of social practices in the design of Kathmandu Valley towns
(Melbourne Polytechnic, 2020-11-19) Chitrakar, Rajjan
This talk presents a case study of the traditional towns of Kathmandu Valley, the major urban centre of Nepal, to illustrate how these towns have evolved as a constructive conglomeration of the tangible and intangible urban heritage elements. Evidence shows that in these historical towns, the urban heritage elements not only coexist to define a public realm and characterise a social milieu of the built environment, but the heritage elements have also influenced each other as the cities have grown and matured over a period of time. In particular, the presentation will highlight the role of social practices, focusing on such features as organisation of communities and social networks, traditional belief systems and the communal life, in shaping the public spaces that are existing in urban neighbourhoods. The presentation will also discuss how the physical elements present in neighbourhood public spaces relate to the socio-cultural traditions of the local inhabitants that are being practiced till date on a daily basis as well as during major festivals and social occasions.
The significance of historic urban squares in generating contemporary city identity: case study of Patan Durbar Square
(Nova Science Publisher, 2020-11-13) Shrestha, Brinda; Chitrakar, Rajjan
Traditional urban spaces contribute to delivering city’s unique ethos that helps to build urban identity and gives character to a place. However, these historic hubs are constantly being challenged by the growing conflict between the modern needs and the traditional values. This chapter presents a case study of Patan Durbar Square, one of the historic palace squares in the Kathmandu Valley built during the Malla period. The chapter examines how the palace square strives to exhibit a collective identity and what symbolic messages it conveys against the backdrop of the currently changing urban setting. This research is based on observations of the study area followed by interviews with the key informants and interactions with the general public. The study employs qualitative evaluation of the urban space in question and offers a detailed description of the phenomenon of spatial transformation. Through the discussion of the issues and challenges faced by the current transformation of the Durbar Square area, this research highlights that in developing and managing historic urban squares in old and cultural cities like Kathmandu, undermining its ancient forms to participate in modernization will question its legitimacy, especially when contemporary changes are set within the already existing built environment.
Space and the city
(The Kathmandu Post, 2020-01-20) Chitrakar, Rajjan
Public open spaces are no longer the central element of contemporary residential neighbourhoods in the Kathmandu Valley.
Traces of Incipient Aboriginal Urbanism in South-Eastern Australia: Paper presented at 15th Australasian Urban History / Planning History Conference, Launceston, 5-7 February 2020
(Not published, 2020-02-06) Hogg, Peter T. M.
Conference paper: Traces of Incipient Aboriginal Urbanism in South-Eastern Australia (2020). Paper presented at Edge Conditions: Invented Peripheries, Hidden Centres, 15th Australasian Urban History / Planning History Conference, University of Tasmania, Launceston, 6 February 2020

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