The University of Adelaide Library

Built Environments I (DESST 1006)

e-Research topic 10

Adelaide Ugly

The Advertiser, March 17th, 2000, reported that Peter Sellars, the newly appointed Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002, said 'When I came to Adelaide I was shocked, you know, in downtown Adelaide there are just more ugly buildings than you can imagine'. Peter Sellars comments in 2000 regarding the "ugliness" of Adelaide are fore-fronted again in recent reportage that the "The Festival Plaza-Riverbank project threatens to be the next messy chapter in Adelaide's modern history of an inglorious lack of overall grand planning. The story behind work being completed between the Festival Centre and the Festival Plaza reflects this on-going messiness." Is this a fair criticism of the Festival Plaza-Riverbank project, that it is 'messy', and possibly even contributing to the 'ugly buildings' complaints of Sellars?

REFERENCES

These references are starting points, a few references to show that there is material available on your topic from a variety of sources.
YOU need to -

apply basic literature searching techniques to find books, articles, reports, case studies, statistics, etc,

evaluate the content of the references in the context of your topic

fully ascribe references to their source, using the Author-Date (Harvard) style

Check with your lecturer or tutor if you have queries about the content of references.
Check with your librarian if you need assistance finding more material.

"Adelaide, Architecture and the Adelaide Festival of Arts" Quote from Peter Sellers on a promotion flyer for a meeting presented by the RAIA, Friends of the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Festival of Arts, 24 August 2000.

Lloyd, Tim, Uren, Kate. "Your City is so ugly: new Adelaide Festival chief delivers verdict", Advertiser, 17th March 2000, page 1.

Light, Ray. "Is this our next mess? The Festival Plaza-Riverbank project threatens to be the next messy chapter in Adelaide's modern history of an inglorious lack of overall grand planning", City Messenger, 28th August 2002, page 1.

Ward, Peter. "The Empress's new clothes", Australian, 15th May 2000, page 19.

Lloyd, Tim, Bowe, Chris. "Our mean streets", Advertiser, 8th July 2000, Weekend pages 4-5.

"Project feature: Riverbank Precinct, Adelaide", Architect South Australia, vol. 13, no. 2, Winter 1999, pages 22-25.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Gilloch,Graeme. Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the city. Cambridge, Polity Press & Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
Main Collection 838 B459ZG

Cullen, Gordon. Townscape. London, Architectural Press, 1961.
Main Collection 711 C96t
Main Collection 711 C967B

Todd, A. Adelaide, city of charm. Kent Town, S. Aust., Axiom Publishing, 1997.
Main Collection 720.994231 T633a

Grosz, Elizabeth A. "BODIES-CITIES" in Space, Time and Perversion: The Politics of Bodies. St Leonards, NSW, Allen & Unwin, 1995, pages103-110.

Other Articles
Remember that you can use a number of databases to find articles on the topic. The articles listed below are merely a selection, find others through Australia/New Zealand reference centre, ElectricLibrary and LexisNexis. Click here for suggestions for quick ways of effective searching.

Bowman, Rob; Walker, Bill; Dutkiewicz, Adam, "Most attractive houses but ugliest city", Letter, Advertiser, 18th October 1996, page 14.

Feldman, Roberta M. "Settlement-Identity: Psychological Bonds with Home Places in a Mobile Society", Environment and behaviour, vol.22, no. 2, March 1990, pages183-229.

Genochio, Benjamin, "Heterotopia and it's Limits", Transitions, 1993, no.41, pages 32-41.

Web sites
Adelaide City Council

ENCYCLOPAEDIAS and HANDBOOKS are useful sources for background information.

Encyclopedia of architecture, design, engineering & construction. Wiley, New York, 1990.
Reference collection 720.3 W682e
"Urban design: scale and architecture", vol.5, pages 153-173. "Urban design: the creation of livable cities", vol.5, pages 174-191. "Urban site analysis". vol.5, pages 598-599.

Ching, F. D. K. Visual dictionary of architecture. Wiley, New York, 1997.
Reference collection 720.3 C539v
Instead of an alphabetical listing, the information is clustered around basic aspects of architecture with words placed in their visual context. Included are fundamental terms relating to architectural design, history and technology.

Fleming, J. Penguin dictionary of architecture and landscape architecture. 5th ed. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1998.
Reference collection 720.1 F597p
"Urban design", pages 590-596.

The following handbooks present guidelines for architectural design over a range of activities, building types, and environments. These follow European or North American precedents, remember to check with Australian codes.

Architect's data. (Neufert) 3rd ed. Oxford, Blackwell Science Publishers, 2000.
Reference collection 721.0212 N482a.3

Metric handbook: planning and design data. 2nd ed. Oxford, Architectural Press, 1999.
Reference collection 721.0212 N532.2

Time-saver standards for landscape architecture: design and construction data. 2nd ed. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1998.
Reference collection 712.0212 H313t.2

Finding MORE INFORMATION on the topic

Use the Library Catalogue to find books and reports.

For an initial search select Basic Search, then from Search by: select Keywords (using and, or, not). Using the Boolean operators will allow you to make your search effective. In the Search for: bar type words to describe your topic, then click on Search. With the AND operator between your search terms, the Catalogue will find records which include each search word. For example:

adelaide AND city AND design finds 45 records which include each of these words somewhere in the record.

When there are alternative words for a concept, enclose the words within round brackets ( ) and type OR between each word. Where you want both singular and plural forms of a word, truncate the word and add a question mark ? to the stem. For example:

adelaide AND (city OR urban) AND (design? OR building? OR architecture?)

The resulting search report shows your search strategy and the number of titles which match that search strategy, followed by a numbered list of the titles arranged according to a relevance formula. If you want to see the most recent books first, go to Sort by above the list of titles, and pull down to Date (latest first).
Where a title looks useful, click on the title to get the full description, including Subject Heading(s):, Call Number: and number of copies. Note any other words you could use in your search.
Use the previous and next icons to move backwards or forwards through the list of titles.

Note the range of social and technical topics covered in the titles retrieved. For each title that looks relevant, click on the small check box to the left of the title to create a temporary file of these records, which you can email, print or transfer to disk. Remember to click on Retain Selected before moving to the next page of results. Go to the bottom of the list of titles or individual record for the Save Options box and select Print/Save or E-mail or Save To Bookbag as required.

Where there is a relevant Subject Heading, click on this to get a list of 50 subject headings. Choose a Subject Heading of interest to find records for other books with that Subject Heading. For example:

Architecture--Aesthetics
Cities and towns
City planning
Urban beautification
Urban policy

Another way to use Subject Headings is through the Guided keyword search.
From Search by: select Subject, and in the search bar(s) type words that you know from useful subject headings. For example:

city planning [leave the default at] all of these
AND
architecture space [leave the default at] all of these
This search finds 20 records which include these two pairs of words in a Subject Heading or its subheadings.

Alternatively, if you are interested in either architecture or space in city planning, change the default, for example:

city planning [leave the default at] all of these
AND
architecture space [change the default to] any of these where either of the words must appear in a Subject Heading. This is a broader search and finds 362 records.

Go to What does the Library have on my topic? for ways of improving your search results

Use INDEXES and DATABASES to find what articles or papers have been written on your topic

These databases use Boolean operators, in most cases it is safe to use the words AND or OR (with brackets) but there may be other codes used for truncation, such as an asterisk *. Search notes are provided for each database but if you don't get the results you expect, please check with the Architecture Librarian, Kay Leverett.

The databases listed below cover information on aspects of urban design.

ARCH - indexes Australian architectural and design journals.   click here for search notes
APA-FT - indexes a range of Australian journals in the social sciences, full text of articles provided from 1995 for some 200 journals.   For search notes see ARCH
Australia/New Zealand reference centre - indexes articles in journals and major newspapers from Australia and New Zealand.      click here for search notes
BUILD - from the CSIRO, indexes journals, books and research reports on building and construction in Australia.   For search notes see ARCH
AHB; Australian heritage bibliography - from the Australian Heritage Commission, indexing articles on heritage issues in the natural and built environments.   For search notes see ARCH
ElectricLibrary - includes full text of major Australian newspapers, some general encyclopedias and journals.     click here for search notes
EAI: Expanded Academic Index - covers a wide range of journals. Provides full text for many of the articles.     click here for search notes
GEOBASE - an international index of articles, books and research reports on urban geography. For search techniques see ARCH
LexisNexis - a huge international database; includes full text Australian newspapers.      click here for search notes

This is only a small selection of possible databases, if you don't find what you need here, please come and see me, Kay Leverett, Architecture Librarian, or contact me by phone (8303 4659) or email: kay.leverett@adelaide.edu.au