Research in the School of Architecture and Built Environment

Sustainable Urbanism

Grounded in building science, as well as qualitative post-occupancy analysis, this established research area focuses on sustainability in architecture and urban design, with particular regard to energy and comfort in buildings, the simulation and analysis of urban microclimate, and technical and behavioural aspects of ‘green’ building and infrastructure design.

Architectural History, Theory and Culture

Grounded in contemporary critical approaches to architectural and intellectual history, this established research concentration reflects particular expertise in the cross-cultural interpretation of architecture, urbanism and cultural landscape undertaken within the School’s Centre for Asian and Middle-Eastern Architecture (CAMEA).

Recent output includes studies of cosmology in Islamic architecture, early modern intellectual exchange between Islam and Europe, and the construction of social space and material culture in colonial-modern India and multi-cultural Australia.

Design Research and Learning

This area encompasses creative research conducted through the critically reflective process of designing actual architectural, landscape and urban design projects, as well as conventional publication-based research that examines the design process, the particular forms of knowledge it produces, and design education as a distinctive context and paradigm of learning.