2026 Research Symposium
Sevgim Pekdemir
Queensland University of Technology
The Principle–Approach–Tactic Method as Methodological Intelligence in Urban Morphology
Urban form is increasingly shaped through complex, interdisciplinary, and multi-scalar design processes that challenge conventional analytical approaches in urban morphology. Urban morphology has developed robust tools for describing spatial form, yet methodological gaps remain in supporting design-oriented reasoning and translation during the design process itself. Research methods capable of operating within live, collaborative design settings are therefore essential for engaging with contemporary urban dynamics. The Principle–Approach–Tactic (PAT) method is introduced as a design-process-oriented methodological intelligence that structures how abstract urban principles are translated into situated spatial decisions. Action research underpins the study, combining a structured literature review with iterative testing of the method through collaborative design charrette sessions. Design charrettes operate as sites of experimentation in which the method is applied, evaluated, and refined through practice-based inquiry. Principles, approaches, and tactics are organised to support shared reasoning, coordination across scales, and alignment between strategic intent and tactical spatial action. The findings demonstrate that the methodological intelligence strengthens collective decision-making, enables consistent translation from theory to design, and supports interdisciplinar coordination among multiple actors during the design process. Design artefacts emerge through the method’s capacity to shape how decisions are made rather than prescribing fixed urban forms. Urban dynamics become more legible when methodological intelligence foreground collaboration, iteration, and translation over retrospective description. The study concludes that the PAT method intelligence offers a transferable foundation for advancing design-led research and methodological innovation in the study of urban form.
Dr Yisong Liu
Queensland University of Technology
Microclimate and the Limits of Knowledge Transfer in Neighborhood Urban Design
Urban form is a primary determinant of local thermal conditions, yet a long-standing gap persists between urban climate science and urban design practice. This paper examines how microclimate knowledge enters, or fails to enter, neighbourhood master planning where no statutory requirement for microclimate assessment exists, a condition common across Australian states. The case is the Kurilpa precinct in South Brisbane, a contested inner-city renewal site. A participatory workshop was conducted with experienced planners, urban designers and architects. In a first round, participants produced masterplan concepts from a standard brief using professional experience alone; in a second, microclimate information was introduced and schemes were revised. Each sketch was modelled in three dimensions and analysed with the Urban Weather Generator through a parametric Rhino–Grasshopper workflow, using canopy-layer air temperature as a comparative indicator of morphological influence on the urban heat island. A post-workshop survey captured judgements of the information’s clarity, relevance and usability.
Despite differing spatial strategies, most designs converged within a narrow band of annual mean heat island intensity, around half a degree above baseline, suggesting a shared, implicit repertoire of dense, mid-rise, vegetated forms; one high-rise scheme departed markedly from this cluster. Across both rounds, microclimate information acted as a validation device rather than a driver of form. Its quantitative, probabilistic format was poorly matched to the visual and abductive reasoning of early design, it required inputs available only once concepts had solidified, and its role was further marginalised by time and fee constraints, yield priorities and disciplinary divergence.
The decisions most consequential for microclimate are therefore made when climate knowledge is least usable. The limits of knowledge transfer are not primarily a problem of tool quality: closing the gap requires coordinated change across concept-stage tools, professional education, performance-based regulation and the politics of densification.
Nikhil Cherian
Curtin University
Public Life in Perth Suburbia: Evaluating the Explanatory Adequacy of Urban-Design Frameworks
Urban-design evaluation frameworks such as Walkability, Public-Space Quality, and Publicness are widely used to assess conditions associated with public life. However, while these frameworks evaluate conditions expected to support public life, the extent to which they adequately account for observed public-life outcomes remains insufficiently examined, particularly in suburban contexts. This PhD project investigates the explanatory adequacy of established urban-design evaluation frameworks in main-street suburban neighbourhood centres in Perth. Suburban main streets are selected as a theoretically useful setting because public life is often contingent rather than guaranteed, providing an opportunity to examine whether framework expectations remain applicable beyond the denser urban environments for which many such evaluative traditions were developed. The study adopts a comparative case-study design that separates framework-defined condition domains from independently assessed public-life outcomes. By comparing literature-derived framework expectations with observed Public-Life Actualisation, the project seeks to identify patterns of concordance, mismatch, boundary conditions, and explanatory gaps. The anticipated contribution is an improved understanding of what existing urbandesign evaluation frameworks can explain, under what conditions their explanations appear to hold, and where their explanatory reach may end. Findings are expected to contribute to debates concerning urban-design evaluation, suburban public life, and the transferability of urban-derived assumptions to suburban contexts.