The Ordinary Nature of City Fabric by Yuting Zhang

THE ORDINARY NATURE OF CITY FABRIC

YUTING ZHANG(Rainie) s3642380

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Title: The Ordinary Nature of City Fabric Author: Yuting Zhang Publisher: RMIT University

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CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

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1.BACKGROUND

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2.OBSERVATION

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3.CONCEPTUAL

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4.TECHNICAL

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5.STRATEGY

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6.CONCLUSION

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7. REFERENCES

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ABSTRACT This visual article is set out to document the process of conceptual inquiry and speculate a research question about how city fabric which specifically refers to residential building texture would be affected by Melbourne future growth and increased population through a methodology of conceptual and technical interrogation and then formulate my hypotheses and strategies for City of Melbourne to deal with these potential urban issues as Melbourne is about to face 2050 when the population is predicted to almost double.

The topic started from a new agency of observation method that I learned from a book called aircraft by Le Corbusier and unpacked my initial idea with a specific urban condition which is the residential building texture, consequently generated my own research question that how Melbourne future growth and increased population would affect the existing residential building texture? By learning technical tools to manipulate city-scale information from City of Melbourne's Open Data Platform or other relevant source and using Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which allow me to be able to step into generate site-specific point cloud models to speculate the trend about residential building texture growth pattern.

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1.BACKGROUND Melbourne experienced a long history that founded in 1835 and derived from the settlement. It was planned and built alignment with the Yarra River in the following years in 1837, coming with a surge of development in Melbourne as the central axis was along Elizabeth Street which was a lowland area, Melbourne early city fabric structure and character were developed by the Hoddle grid and city’s population triple between 1851 and 1854 after the gold rush. Then Melbourne’s central business district (CBD) boomed by the development of mass-transit train and tram systems in 19th.

In the 1950s and 1960s with plenty of development of central Melbourne as tall buildings built up along the principle streets, what is now in Melbourne’ central business district is occupied by the places of shopping malls, business buildings, residential flat or apartments, retail stores and restaurants which is quite different from last 19 century when it is a very small town with natural landscapes.

The Melbourne city expansion was so rapidly that as the capital city of Victoria, the population has reached over 4.8 million and it is projected to reach 5.191 million by the end of June of 2019.

So the urbanization problems inevitably spring out such as social and environmental problem, housing affordability, overcrowded traffic pressure especially during the rush hour, etc. Apart from that Melbourne will become less affordable and liveable which would probably lead to the problem of social equity and cohesion, as a result of slowing economic growth.

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2.OBSERVATION The book of Aircraft wrote by Le Corbusier recorded about his detailed feeling when he was in the aircraft and how he thought the flight of a plane is not merely and no longer a delighted sense instead of a measure relative to human activity proportion.

Another book called “Close up at a distance: mapping, technology, and politics� demonstrates the transformations of a particular way of seeing and experiencing space through collection of maps that produced by digital spatial hardware and software such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which provides specific view to work spatially and representation of reality.

Initially, these two above mentioned books are actually help me in developing a new way of seeing by displaying of information and a more readable representation and using technical approaches to spread out my own research question.

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3.CONCEPTUAL I identified an urban condition unique to my hometown and then I decided to investigate in city fabric as the starting point for my following research and exploring. The city fabric specifically means to residential building texture in this article in terms of figure and ground, the proportion, the spatial growth pattern, etc.

Here are some images that took by myself in different cities, which about to tell us something new.

Figure1: building cluster in hometown(Baoding)

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Figure 2: building cluster in Melbourne CBD

The very first visual perception for that two images above for me is that the height and density of the buildings are quite different. The majority buildings in figure 1 are flat with slightly difference, even the residential area contains courtyard in the middle for residents’ activity, compared to buildings in figure 2 that land are almost full occupied by tall buildings which most of them are apartment in the CBD.

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Where : Wanbo Square, Baoding,Hebei,China Whom : Photo by myself When : 12/1/2014,Winter

Figure 3: location and detail of figure 1

Where : Victoria One, Melbourne,Australia Whom : Photo by myself When : 20/11/2018,Spring

Figure 4: location and detail of figure 2

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Figure 3 and 4 illustrates the exact location and surrounding urban condition of figure 1 and 2 to analysis in a particular way. Figure 3 shows figure 1 was taken place on when I stood in a very tall building which is a business centre and look over through the façade window, all I saw is a small village that surrounded by many high-rise buildings and survives in such a vibrant and modern Central Business District, I was shock by the scene that huge contrast between the urban environment in front of me. Figure 4 shows figure 2 was took in my friend’s apartment Victoria one at 65 floor from a view in a direction as the white arrows point to, what I found is that my sight is actually obstructed by the skyscrapers in front of me, the blocks are connected tightly each other with narrow streets intersected, and it looks like the highrise buildings are obviously straight into the sky, the vast majority of which are residential apartment. I’ve seen how Melbourne city grow rapidly and vertically in such a short time period.

In short, observing from an aerial view helps me to some extent to figure out more possibilities that I could be able to investigate and understand accurately of the geomorphology and physical territory of the Melbourne city.

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4.TECHNICAL “We desire to change something in the present world. For the bird's-eye view has enabled us to see our cities and the countries which surrounds them, and the sight is not good. � (Le Corbusier,1935) It is necessary to prove with precise data or valuable information for landscape of architecture in the process of researching so the next enquiry session is technical interrogation with the help of software that application of spatial information in order to push the research result to be more convincible and reliable and to gain a bird's eye view of the city.

Figure 5: the building footprint & residential dwellings

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Figure 6: residential classification

Figure 5 and 6 describes the basic information about city of Melbourne. First of all, I draw out all the building footprint in city of Melbourne as the base by using the dataset from Melbourne open data platform and ArcGIS pro, and identified the usage of the buildings to find out which are residential/dwelling building (highlighted by green colour). To know more exactly I further classify the type of residential buildings by house/town house and apartments to work spatially about city fabric, as we can see, most of apartment are located in the CBD or near the fringe of CBD with limited a few in the suburb, on the contrast, the overwhelming majority of house/town house are scattered to suburb. Apart from that, I noticed that there are many residential buildings in northern of Melbourne city especially in northwest of Melbourne city, which drove me to step into exploring about the density of residential buildings in city of Melbourne.

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Figure 7: residential dwellings density

Figure 8: Melbourne population density (Source:https://chartingtransport.com/2017/07/09/how-is-melbournes-population-density-changing-2006-2016/)

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The kernel density is a tool which could be able to calculate the density of particular data, after applying that in ArcGIS pro the result in screen proves that the high number of residential dwelling are is around three main areas in the suburb: Kensington, North Melbourne and Carlton, showing in the Figure 7 in dark green colour with dash line circled.

With the comparison of the population density in city of Melbourne according to figure 8, it is easy to tell that the population density is extremely high within the city and it is increasing in an explosive growth mode. The reason of why the density pattern are so different I speculate is because most apartments in Melbourne CBD are able to accommodate more people in a vertical direction instead of house or town house are merely distributed in a horizontal direction.

Based on what I found above research result, I started to transfer the emphasis on the height of residential building to test out my initial speculation about residential building texture.

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Figure 8: Building height map

I did a heat map about building height by using building data from open data Melbourne to help me know further in terms of building context. Figure 8 demonstrates the building height mainly in Melbourne city. According to the legend we could directly tell that the building height radiates southward from the CBD of the city to Southbank, and most buildings in the north are generally low.

This explains exactly why the density of residential buildings in the suburbs is high, but the density in the CBD is relatively low, and the population density in the CBD is super high, but the density in the suburb is relatively low.

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Figure 9: city transportation system Trying to find out what factors might affect the distribution of residential building and the pattern of that, I collected a series of transport information data that I though it might be useful including tram tracks system, metro train stations and bus stops. The transportation system is an important factor that cannot be ignored and it will definitely affect the urban texture to a large extent because it determines residential accessibility of the residents.

Every single change in urban planning would make a big difference, In 1906, the first electric tram service was introduced and operated from the cabletram terminus at Flemington, and a large number of public buildings were constructed. So in my opinion, the traffic accessibility is a crucial point that we should carefully consider about it.

Next following steps are to generate site-specific digital surface model to spatially investigate and unpack urban condition and work zoom into the Melbourne CBD to explore about city fabric that I identified.

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Figure 10: modelling CBD low building

Figure 11: modelling CBD high building

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Figure 10 and 11 are generated by point cloud models to describe in a vertical way. I classify buildings in CBD by height as I did heat map in the last couple of pictures. A significant number of high-rise building are on either side of Elizabeth street, which also coincides with the development of Melbourne from Elizabeth street as the central axis. The Elizabeth Street West Precinct is of historical significance, Nowadays, it witnessed how Melbourne city has grow up and exploded in vertical space within city’s limited land resource.

Figure 12: modelling of Elizabeth St building section I draw a white section line across Elizabeth street which is concentrated to place myself in to stand in a particular view, looking at how the skyscrapers are inserted and arranged, as well as the relationship such as the space between each high building. All of the high-rise building are straight from very small footprint when viewed from the side, some of those are become narrow even some has overlaps as figure 12 shows in the left and right side. With increasing subdivision, density and changing land use patterns, Melbourne CBD is undergoing the change of urban texture spatially in an unconscious way, it is therefore to take action in need of growing in the right places and in the right ways.

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Figure 13: comparison between suburb with CBD By gaining a series of spatial information about residential building texture both in Melbourne CBD and suburb, the distinct differences come out gradually. I illustrated every grid unit from google earth and chose three sites which is the most three dense area based on residential building density I did before, as well as a CBD grid centred on Elizabeth street to explore what is the actual difference.

What I found is that a grid unit of residential area in suburb usually shaped as a completed rectangle or square, with tidy and regular arrangement. Besides, the width of street in North Melbourne and Carlton is slightly broader than that in Kensington, which might due to the timeline of planning. Then move eyes on Melbourne CBD, most of residential buildings are all kinds of heights which are scattered along the main street without organized arrangement, and a lot of residential buildings’ footprint are becoming smaller and smaller, In short, the most distinguishing character that we can directly recognize is the spatial pattern.

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Figure 14: the projection for future city fabric

To understand how Melbourne city buildings would growth in the future I researched at Development Activity Model Footprints which contains spatial information about development activity located within the City of Melbourne municipal area. Developments may have one of four statuses. Applied, Approved and Under Construction, and Complete and compare that to existing building condition. The blue square or rectangle is high buildings which most are residential buildings, those buildings look like only taking up a fraction of the area from the plane view but actually are able to accommodate a large number of people.

Through observing from Development Activity Model Footprints, majority of buildings’ footprint are vert small regarding as those has approved. So I speculate that the residential building texture especially in the CBD tend to be broken up into smaller and smaller block in order to increase the capacity of its population.

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5.STRATEGY Facing the pressure of overcrowded in Melbourne CBD and the tendency of being mega city, the limited land resources in Melbourne city could probably not be able to support enough population and infrastructure and the traffic situation in Melbourne is not good now, So I would recommend that if possible, Melbourne CBD can not be only one, it could be transferred to other district gradually to some extent to release the population pressure in CBD. This area should be a place with high accessibility of convenient transportation system, which is vital especially for development of the central business district(CBD). Australians like suburb because its single dwelling and more greenery, so another way to improve city liveability is to enhance the quality of these areas such as retrofitting areas which are not well serviced by public transport and reinforce the character of those areas, Etc. The part of idea inspired me by the urban condition comparison between Melbourne and my hometown as figure 15 showing below.

Figure 15: the projection for future city fabric

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The image on the top shows the map of the transformation from old CBD to new CBD in my hometown(Baoding) as Baoding is developing with population growth. Moving to the bottom image, we can tell that Melbourne CBD are almost still the same area compared back to the history. So how can we accommodate future population growth and is it possible for policymaker to focus their attention on a new urban area, that might be a big challenge for next stage.

Land booms

Theory

Hoddle grid

Hoddle’s grid

Automobile city

Electrical city

one-to-three storeys skyline

6-level street façade

“plot ratios.”

40.2metres height limit.

5-storey building

High-density

Urban renewal precincts

“inner urban”

setback controls

‘Sense of Place’

Mahlstedtr

Robert Hoddle

David Mayes

Hon. Richard Wynne MP

Christopher alexander

Institutions

Key thinker

smaller vertical sections.

Victorian Government

Bracks Government

Dove Plan of Melbourne Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works

Projects

Parliament House

Bracks Government

DPCD

City of Melbourne

City of Melbourne

central business district (CBD) boomed

Council Baths

Queen Victoria Market

Sydney floor space ratio (FSR)

Queen Victoria Village)

Southbank, Crown Complex and the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

City Fabric

1850’

growth- led transformations

1900’

1950’

escape city centre

2000’

a city of suburbs

Mechanised transport city

2050’

MAJOR URBAN RENEWAL PRECINCTS

Figure 16: lineage map of position

The lineage diagram helps me to identify the position of work in relation to the other projects and similar theory in terms of city fabric. The strategy would follow the existing Melbourne planning from 2017to 2015.

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e MP

N CTS

Figure 17: claiming ground As I worked out the hotpot area of residential building in the GIS map through kernel density and found the most distinct area is around Kensington and North Melbourne, plus the strategy about Melbourne planning strategy which illustrates some potential precints considered in the future to accommodae housing and population growth and make effective use of existing infrastructure.

Arden is less than 2km from the CBD, and there is a metro station across the precinct center which is underconstruction and would be directly linked to the Melbourne CBD, this provides a very important and convenient way for it development.

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Figure 18: managing assets As the rapid trasportation system connection would be complemented, Arden is more likely to contribute to Melbourne city sprawl.

It is situated near a lot of parks, reserves which offer the green space for development possibilities to accommodate more residents and commuters in a very ecological growth mode. Convenient facilities, infrastructures and education buildings as the key feature to make Arden a brilliant and distinctive place.

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Figure 19: short-term goal The short term could be started with green space usage and re-protect heritage to strenthern Arden impression and identity, therefore attract more people when they come here as the station is being built.

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Figure 20: long-term goal The long-term goal is to accommodate upcoming population growth peak by offering more living space, surroundings in Arden are consisted of healty, educational, cultural and ecological facilities with easy accessibility en ensure its livability in terms of more job offers, affordable living spaces etc.

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Figure 21: urban renewal case study The precedent study inspired my about the proposal for Melbourne CBD future developmental direction.

It is possible for the Melbourne to be interconnected of precincts across the city. How would be the city fabric transformed is significantly depends on traffic development to a large extent. So the metro tunnel construction for potiential area Arden could be regard as a trigger to inject new vitality.

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6.CONCLUSION The results presented in this paper show that question about how how Melbourne future growth and increased population may affect residential building texture and document the process of researching by using digital technology which is a powerful tool to assist me to figure out the potential answer as effectively and precisely as I can and provided me a comprehensive understanding of it that I had never seen before of Melbourne.

There is mixed spatial evidence about the city fabric growth pattern as Melbourne develop over time through observing and producing a series of image that the residential building texture in Melbourne CBD is almost shaped by square or rectangle without very tidy arrangement, and majority apartment are located along Elizabeth street, it is predicted based on the research that in Melbourne central business district, the footprint of high-rise building mainly refers to residential buildings are likely to be subdivided into smaller unit and higher floors will be built to adapt increasing population in city. But once that happened, it is estimated that the capacity of city would be overfull that more severe urban issue would spring out to threaten people’s normal life, as a result of more social, environmental, economical problem.

In response to that, I come up with some strategies which might be helpful to alleviate and share responsibility for coming urban issues with increased population and lack of resources. In short which means to shift CBD or it can be multiple CBD where the availability could be able to provide Melbourne greater flexibility with different areas getting the potential to cater for different uses.

As Melbourne is one of the fastest-growing cities in the developed world, how to make a city vibrant and liveable for both policymaker and everyone itself is a long term goal especially for people to achieve.

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