HDR student profiles Architecture and Design

With increasing availability of growing plantation hardwood in Australia, the timber manufacturing sector has become interested in discovering the opportunities and investigating the possible application of the plantation eucalypt species to produce engineered timber products from this resource. Manufacturing structural products from fibre-managed plantation eucalypt can lead to the replacement of imported wood products with Australian grown and processed plantation hardwood timber and create a new marketplace for this resource in the Australian and international building market. Cross-laminated timber (CLT) could be a potential sustainable product recovered from this resource and supply material for commercial buildings. The use of CLT panels brought various benefits for timber industries to make a practical product from low-value products of eucalypt plantation. This research provides an important insight into developing the high-value Australian-made CLT panel from plantation E. nitens timber resource and supporting the potential engineering applications of these CLT panel products.

In response to post-critical, feminist, and situated reassessments of the critical project of twentieth-century architecture and its attendant disciplinary cultures, there has been a push from within the discipline to find new modes of criticism. An example of this rethinking has occurred through ‘writing architecture’: a field that forms new conjunctions with criticism and practice to produce alternate grounds for architectural authorship. In this project, I investigate written texts and practices of writing associated with the field of writing architecture, focusing specifically on texts from this field labelled ‘ficto-critical’. I study key texts from this emergent sub-field to generate disciplinary-specific knowledge and reveal aspects of the texts and the field that is at present hidden and hence partially latent. I also provide context and recommendations for how these forms of writing might be animated in practice, to better understand their claims, limits, and potentialities, and thereby contribute to a theory and methodology of architectural ficto-criticism.

Bamboo is a material that has been used for thousands of years in a wide variety of cultures distributed throughout the world in different geographic and climatic settings (Clark 2015). The availability of standardised, more durable industrial products has led to the displacement of bamboo within communities with a history of bamboo use (Sharma 2010). Research has sought to recontextualise the architectural use of bamboo from vernacular material to modern construction product, citing the sustainable, structural, and social benefits of working with bamboo (Van der Lugt 2017). However, it is faced by a seemingly insolvable conundrum; how do you standardise an irregular material to meet the regulatory and structural requirements of a modern building industry? The focus of my PhD is to posit an alternative question; does bamboo need to be standardised? By examining the different ways bamboo has been used in vernacular cultures and in contemporary design, I will look to analyse systems and methodologies that respond to the irregularity of bamboo, focusing on both architectural systems and broader socio-technical responses to working with bamboo. It is an area of research currently unexplored and presents a novel approach to architecture where systemisation allows for a flexibility that can account for non-standardised materials.

Developing appearance products from relatively low-density plantation hardwoods in Australia requires some major challenges to be addressed. Some of them are due to lack of understanding of material properties, unavailability of standards addressing the plantation resources and the presence of natural features and strength reducing features. This research centres around the development of an engineered timber flooring product using Tasmanian plantation timber. The study examines the different aspects of flooring performance, the market conception and the challenges faced when introducing a non-conventional timber species for a flooring application. Key to this research is the development of engineered flooring prototypes using E. nitens plantation timber, which has the capability to be manufactured within the state.

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This research has highlighted the World Health Organisation's findings that residential dampness is associated with a 50% increase in asthma rates. This is a topic of significance given statistical evidence that 40% of Australian houses constructed in the last ten years have identified condensation problems. This research will generate an evidence base and inform the Tasmanian government for construction techniques that minimise condensation and subsequent growth of mould in the contemporary code compliant, energy efficient homes in Tasmania. There is a significant gap between the architectural perspective and the medical science perspective in this area of study and this research aims to bridge the gap between these two perspectives. This study will provide technical guidance for the National Construction Code improvements in 2022.

Recent research by UTAS identified that up to 40% of all Australian homes constructed in the last 15 years have a visible internal formation of condensation. However, unmanaged condensation in the buildings can affect the building service life, leading to significant building and human health. While it is internationally recognised that the built fabric should passively manage water vapour, this is dependent on understanding and empirically quantification of the vapour permeability properties of Australia building materials. Once vapour permeability values are known through laboratory experiment, informed vapour pressure driven, water vapour transport calculations and simulations can be completed for typical Australian construction systems. Therefore, my seek investigates the most appropriate laboratory methodology to quantify water vapour resistivity of construction materials in a bid to manage and mitigate moisture accumulation and mould growth issues, which seem to be prevalent in new Australian homes.

Timber can be prone to defects induced by the drying process, such as warping, dimensional distortion, splitting/checking and discoloration. These defects are primarily introduced when drying occurs under non-ideal conditions. The purpose of this research is to utilize both rack survey data and hygrothermal software methods to understand and therefore predict the cause of several types of discoloration defects and establish ideal drying conditions for the mitigation or elimination of those defects.

Jack is currently undertaking his PhD at College of Science and Engineering (CoSE), University of Tasmania (UTAS) with Dr Mark Dewsbury and Dr Philippa Watson. The research thesis explores design strategies for improving existing Australian houses towards near net-zero design of year 2030 to 2050, focusing on local and international Indoor Environmental Qualities (IEQ) standards and green rating tools, as well as Australia's Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) and whole-of-house bio-hygrothermal computer simulation software. The goal of the research is to inform Energy Efficiency and Health and Wellbeing design impacts on pre-2002 housing stock using timber construction systems in temperate climatic conditions.

Climate change has prompted much need improvements in Australian residential building regulations, which now demand more insulation and airtightness. The main downside of these measures has resulted in the introduction of mould into our homes, even those that are brand new. Hygrothermal simulations that model the behaviour of water vapour in our buildings can guide decisions within the national building code to mitigate condensation and mould. This project has already shown that Australia's existing climate databases are unsuitable, resulting in erroneous simulation outputs. The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a greater impact in the Southern Hemisphere and climate change has increased storm frequency and severity. Both of these augment the volume of rain and extent of humidity, differentiating the South from climates in the Northern Hemisphere, where the existing climate data methodology was developed and validated over the last decades. Alternate climate data methodologies, as well as their effect on simulations in the Southern hemisphere will be evaluated as the project continues.

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‘Tonewood’ is a term encompassing the wood species used to make musical instruments. For example, the European Spruce (Piece Abies) and Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) have been used in crafting violins for centuries. As master-grade traditional tonewoods are becoming a limited resource, the question arises whether violins crafted out of other tonewoods can offer comparable performance at a professional level. In particular, some Tasmanian species are renowned for their aesthetic appearance in high-end furniture making and may be well-suited tonewood candidates for violins. This study compares resonance and ultrasonic velocity tests on materials from six Tasmanian tonewoods and the traditional European tonewoods, Spruce and Maple. Test results from the Tasmanian tonewood samples showed that the combination of King William Pine (Athrotaxis selaginoides) or Huon Pine (Dacrydium franklinii) with Beech Myrtle (Nothofagus cunninghamii) has the greatest potential. These results complement luthiers’ assessments on violin blanks re-sawn from the original motherboards. This research is a precursor to psychoacoustic testing of two Tasmanian tonewood violins by professional classical violinists. It can improve the acceptance of alternative tonewoods in a conservative industry and provide an additional market for high-quality Tasmanian timbers.

This project investigates the built heritage of Tasmanian cities, exploring the social, cultural and economic context in which they developed, through the lens of exploring the nineteenth century architects and builders of Launceston. As the third oldest city in Australia, and one of its most intact colonial settlements, Launceston offers fertile ground for exploration. Significant research has been carried out on individual buildings and architects, as part of heritage and conservation studies that examine historical significance, but what has been lacking is a more in-depth study of the relationship between architects and their architecture and the broader physical, temporal, cultural, economic context in which they are located. The project will analyse the interconnections between key figures in the development of Launceston’s urban environment and the local and global contexts in which they operated. This project is part of a wider field of research that examines the lineage and legacy of Tasmanian architects and architecture, investigating the connections between people and places and how knowledge sharing and resources have influenced the development of the built form of the state’s cities. It extends current research into the history of Tasmanian architecture, beyond studies of individual buildings and architects to develop an understanding of the local, regional and global connections, and how these have been developed by networks of architects, builders, artisans, planners and communities, fostering greater understanding of Launceston’s growth and the creativity of its prolific makers. More broadly, the project will inform future architects, heritage consultants, city planners and communities on how the existing built heritage of streetscapes and buildings can be the basis of socially, culturally and environmentally sustainable future developments. The project’s scope includes potential for creative and/or participatory design research methodologies, to explore and expose the diversity of spatial and compositional relationships between social, cultural and physical aspects of built heritage.

This research is exploring the hydrothermal risks in the Southern Australian Housing of NCC 6 Star and 7 Star. Since 2008 researchers and Governments have been aware of a looming condensation and mould crisis for Australian buildings, this involving situation is directly linked to energy efficiency regulations and the limited co-development of condensation risk and mould growth regulations. This research will do detailed hygrothermal simulation analyses of pre-energy efficiency regulation, NCC 6 Star & 7 Star regulatory-compliant envelope systems and likely support of condensation and mould in the built fabric. Then use the analysis of results to offer methods to manage hydrothermal risks better, to help inform future national regulations and building policies.

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