This paper was published by our brilliant (now) PhD student Ryan McNeilly Smith. This project, now published in this article, was his Honours project. The full article is available here. Abstract Extreme heat is currently Australia’s deadliest natural hazard. The intensity of heat events is increasing due to climate change, and further exacerbated by urban heat islands. Urban design and planning solutions can assist in reducing heat-health risks, but they are rarely implemented. Through semi-structured interviews and an online survey, we investigated the role of such solutions in planning and ..read more

When you think Queensland, you think heat. It’s right there in the nickname ‘The Sunshine State’. Yet one of the curiosities of the state is that minimal governance exists to ensure Queensland homes, towns and cities protect occupants from threats posed by heat. This short story was prepared and published by UniSC media team a little while ago. It showcases some of the work we have been undertaking at the BASC Lab, and you can read the full story here ..read more

This is a not-so-recent publication which came out last year. In this publication Carol Fassina, Diane Jarvis and Anthea Coggan discuss the differences between environmental offset processes in Australia and Brazil. The full article is available here. ABSTRACT Economies depend on ecosystem services, but only recently have ecosystem service values been incorporated into economic and political decision-making. Increasingly, offsets have become a common valuation tool for incor- porating the value of nature into economics. To offset means to compensate ecosystem losses in one place by creati ..read more

On 7th November I will have the honour of being part of a trialog of experts discussing climate-responsive urban design and planning. Information from from the flyer, also attached below: Climate Responsive Urban Design is an important topic as we are experiencing the impacts of global warming across Australia. Together as urban designers and planners we have the chance to mitigate the extreme impacts of urban heating, adapt to the situations that can no longer be changed, and become agents for change to ensure a healthy future. With this special NExT FORUM, we celebrate emerging talents throu ..read more

June was a very (very!) busy month but lots of great things happened, including my son’s 4th birthday. I also commited to presenting in an upcoming seminar in September, met one of my PhD students who recently managed to move to Australia after COVID delays, and travelled and met old friends and colleagues in beautiful Tropical North Queensland. I also received an invitation to present in an exciting Urban Heat Seminar in Cairns. Besides that, there was a lot of research-related bureaucratic but necessary work, and marking. Here is what happened in more detail… Research In the research front ..read more

I am very honoured to be a speaker in this week’s Urban Heat Seminar in Cairns. The seminar will take place this Friday 8th July 2022 from 12pm to 4:30pm at the Civic Reception Rooms in the Cairns Regional Council Chambers. This is a half-day seminar which provides a human-centred approach to enhancing the practice of planning and design. It is particularly focused on Urban Heat with an emphasis on practical actions to improve urban environments. My presentation is titled ‘Dealing with urban heat in times of climate change: Evidence-based urban planning and design for improved urban microclima ..read more

Along with Professor Karine Dupre from Griffith University, and in collaboration with Townsville City Council, we are undertaking a research project investigating urban microclimates in Townsville (Queensland, Australia). Townsville has been identified as a city vulnerable to Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The objective of this study is to identify possible solutions to mitigate UHI and other undesirable climate change-related impacts. This will assist in the development of possible alternative urban design futures. Participants in this survey are residents of Townsville for at leas ..read more

The city is built on weak links; it is these moments of human contact that act like electricity for the city. As a result, the city as a whole becomes more powerful than the sum of its parts and this strange phenomenon – which complexity theorists call emergence – means that the complex city offers a unique dynamism. It is also the energy behind the Ballet of Hudson Street and is the raw material from which are developed trust and community despite the strains of urban life. Hollis, Leo. Cities Are Good for You: The Genius of the Metropolis (pp. 26-27). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition ..read more

In 2018 David Sellars and I, along with Planz Town Planning, Milford Planning, Cairns Regional Council, Townsville City Council, Richard Briggs, and Chuck Wolfe, as our Fulbright expert, organised and hosted an Urban Thinkers Campus, a UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign initiative (I wrote about it here and here). We recently reported our engagement method in a publication in the Journal of Urbanism, as per abstract below. The full article is available here. ABSTRACT This paper explores multi-method community engagement activities used to quickly and effectively produce an action plan based on c ..read more

A recent USC media release featured one of my PhD students’ work. Ryan McNeilly Smith has been working in the BASC Lab for just over one semester. He is investigating what urban planning and design policy for heat and urban climates may look like in Queensland. In Ryan’s (LinkedIn) words: A key element in the pursuit to make our cities and towns more resilient to urban and extreme heat is fit-for-purpose planning and urban design policy, to drive the right the types of built outcomes that mitigate heat. Without it, we can increasingly see (and feel) the impacts – hotter homes, unpleasant publ ..read more