UNSW Built Environment Awarded Three ARC Discovery Projects

In January 2022, UNSW Built Environment was awarded three Discovery Projects from the Australian Research Council (ARC), with total funding of $1.5 million. The ARC’s Discovery scheme aims to expand the knowledge base and research capacity in Australia and support research that will provide economic, commercial, environmental, social and/or cultural benefits.

Assessing Architectural Aesthetic Character: An ‘Intelligent’ Approach
Prof. Michael Ostwald and Dr Juhyun Lee
This project aims to develop ground-breaking insights and software to improve the assessment of architectural aesthetic character by Australia’s designers, councils and courts. Combining empirical, neurophysiological and machine-learning approaches, this project expects to provide a new level of robustness and repeatability in administrative and legal assessments of building aesthetics. Planned outcomes include: (i) a unique quantitative understanding of aesthetic assessment and (ii) a world-first method for measuring and comparing the character of buildings. This research has the potential to reduce the substantial cost of disputes and provide more certainty and efficiency in the architectural design, approval and appeal processes.

Fluorescent daytime radiative cooling for urban heat mitigation
Prof. Matt Santamouris, Prof. Gianluca Ranzi, Dr Riccardo Paolini, Dr Jan Valenta and Prof. Ioannis Papakonstantinou
This project aims to develop a fluorescent daytime radiative cooling technology suitable for the mitigation of urban overheating in the built environment and for the reduction of future cooling energy demands in buildings. The project expects to generate new knowledge in this area to enable the exploitation of fluorescent materials for urban heat mitigation and cooling of buildings. Expected outcomes consist of the establishment of the new cooling technology for application on coloured surfaces, typically used in the urban built environment, and on white surfaces for boosting the cooling power of current daytime radiative coolers. This should lead to significant benefits for the Australian building and construction industry.

An Intellectual History of Modern Australian Planning 1900-2000
Prof. Robert Freestone
Urban planning is forward-looking but is constantly leveraging knowledge from the past. This original project will investigate the key ideas which have shaped modern planning thought in Australia, concentrating on the 20th century. It will focus on leading practitioners, advocates, public intellectuals, and community critics in an ideas-centred intellectual history that fills a major knowledge gap. The critical transition away from post-consensus planning in the last three decades of the 20th century will be an important focus and linked to a national oral history exercise before the opportunity is lost forever. Development of an open access biographical website sharing data will bedrock the project.

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