UNSW Built Environment: Has the public lost faith in the Sydney planning system?

UNSW Built Environment Professor Bill Randolph has recently written an article for the Sydney Morning Herald about loss of public faith in the Sydney planning system. Professor Randolph, Director of the UNSW City Futures Research Centre, and Associate Dean for UNSW Built Environment Research argues that the free market will continue to fail people looking for affordable housing in Sydney unless the state government takes action.

Read more about Professor Randolph’s opinion piece on the UNSW News page, or the full article at SMH online.

UNSW Built Environment: 2010 Excellence in Research Initiative

The University of New South Wales has been ranked the 4^th highest university in Australia for Research excellence by the 2010 Excellence in Research (ERA) Initiative. Overall, the UNSW Built Environment was ranked highly against its competitors, receiving a high average score of 3 out of 5 for its combined Built Environment disciplines.   Among the separate discipline areas, Property and Construction Management research and Urban and Regional Planning research were both ranked in the highest scoring group of Universities in these two discipline areas, each scoring a 4.

The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative assesses research quality within Australia’s higher education institutions. It provides a comprehensive overview of the quality of research undertaken in higher education institutions across the country in an international context.

The outcomes of the ERA 2010 process are available on the Australian Research Council (ARC) website .

Please see the below article, published in The Australian Newspaper for the thoughts of Les Field, UNSW Deputy Vice-Chancellor and others involved in the higher education industry regarding the 2010 ERA outcomes.

The Australian – Excellence in Research for Australia lays bare research myths

UNSW Built Environment: Get Smart – tackling the big issues

BE student Boris To was recently profiled in the UNSW magazine “Get Smart”, produced as part of the UNSW 2010 Postgraduate Expo. This edition tackled the big issues that the world is facing in the 21st century. Boris, who is currently studying a Master of Architecture while working part-time at Cox Richardson Architects, commented on housing affordability in Sydney.

If you missed out on reading this article, then you can download a copy of the magazine below.

Get Smart – tackling the big issues

UNSW Built Environment Event: ACHSM/CHAA National Congress 2010

More than 400 people attended the ACHSM/CHAA National Congress 2010 in Fremantle, Western Australia last week. As in 2009, CHAA partnered with the Australian College of Health Service Managers to organize this conference which attracted a mixed audience of health service managers, health service/facility planners, architects, project managers/directors, building contractors and others. The conference was presented across four streams – Effective Leadership, Workforce, Quality Safety and Risk, and Health Facility Planning and Design. Abstracts for all papers were peer reviewed thus ensuring presentations were engaging and of a high standard. CHAA’s work in two areas was presented by Centre researchers. Vivien Chow presented a paper on the ARC Linkage project looking at the impact of climate change-generated extreme weather events on health infrastructure. Jane Carthey presented work on the Health Infrastructure NSW research project that looked at how to ensure future flexibility and adaptability of health buildings to prolong their effective life and fitness for purpose.

The conference was opened by the Hon Nicola Roxon, the Federal Minister for Health who talked about the Gillard Government Health Reform program. She was followed by the newly appointed WA Director General of Health, Kim Snowball and the National President of ACHSM, Robert Grima in making opening remarks. Daryl Sadgrove, CEO of ACHSM and Jane Carthey, Director of CHAA then welcomed delegates on behalf their respective organizations.

Hon Nicola Roxon, Dr Weerawat Phancrut, Deputy Secretary General, National Health Security Office, Thailand, Kae Martin (ACHSM SA Branch President), Robert Grima (ACHSM National President), Jane Carthey (Director CHAA), Thelma Burnett (ACHSM WA Branch President), Daryl Sadgrove (ACHSM National CEO)

UNSW Built Environment Research: Laura Goh

Hi Everyone,

Well it’s already the end of Semester 1 and so much as happened since my last post in November 2009! The biggest news – I AM BACK AT UNSW! No, no don’t panic – I didn’t fail my undergraduate thesis…actually I have just started my PhD!

The first questions most people ask me when they hear that I am in my sixth straight year of uni is ‘Are you mad?’ Well, actually – yes I am (obviously). So why did I decide to do the PhD? Well, whilst writing my undergraduate thesis I felt that I didn’t have enough time to explore all the aspects that I wanted to on my topic area. My supervisors encouraged me to think about turning my undergraduate work into something bigger, as well as apply for a post-graduate research scholarship. For anyone thinking about postgraduate research degrees check out the UNSW Graduate Research School Website or UNSW BE Future Students page .

I have been offered an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship for three years, which will help to cover my living expenses whilst I am doing my PhD. I don’t think it would have been possible for me to do the PhD without the scholarship – so I am very thankful for the support. I have a desk in the lovely new PhD Lab in the Red Centre. We have a fabulous view of the University Walk and the Village Green, as well as our own little kitchen for heating up our lunches and making millions of cups of tea (note: this blogger is a tea-addict).

At the moment I am at uni four days a week and still working as a planner one day a week. I have started doing some lecturing and tutoring work for a couple of the undergraduate planning subjects, which is a lot of fun! I was even luck enough to go up to Kurri Kurri with the Third Year students on their strategic planning field trip!

Lots more soon – I think it’s time for a cup of tea!