Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/137691
Type: Thesis
Title: Provoking Consciousness: Towards a Bioregional Understanding of Local Character: Urbanisation of the Fringe at Willunga Basin, South Australia
Author: Pragathi
Issue Date: 2023
School/Discipline: School of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Abstract: In 2010, a team of local government stakeholders set out to prepare a bid for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site recognition and conservation of the distinctive settler-colonial agrarian landscape of the Mount Lofty Ranges, which bound the urban hinterland of Adelaide, South Australia. In the context of that ongoing bid process and global concern over loss of precious foodgrowing regions to urban development, this thesis focuses on the rural–urban development contest in the Willunga Basin, a key subregion of the proposed World Heritage Site. With particular reference to the question of ‘local character’ at the urban fringe, the study investigates the mechanisms at play in the Basin in maintaining a resilient dialogue between urban and rural development priorities. Exploring the proposition that distinctive cultural landscapes such as the Willunga Basin could be described, alternatively, as exemplary ‘bioregions’, the study applies crucial principles of bioregional planning as a theoretical framework through which local knowledge of the land together with the intangible goals of ‘living-in-place’, ‘land ethics’ and ‘place attachment’ may be engaged as analytical approaches to understand the nature and significance of ‘local character’ in the built environment. The Willunga Basin community is eager to protect and enhance this putative ‘bioregion’ and to protect the qualities that are central to the UNESCO bid—a working agrarian landscape, a distinctive cultural landscape, and a site of natural beauty with high value placed on local character and compatible urban development and architectural projects. However, this has not been an easy process. Development policies established in the 1960s highlighted the ‘local character’ of the region while seeking to protect townships within the Willunga Basin from urban sprawl. However, these policies also precipitated the urban expansion of the coastal township of nearby Aldinga, dividing the Basin into two regions and ultimately bringing the rural– urban conflict to a head at the boundaries of that division. By closely studying the elements of this conflict, this research identifies a gap between the aims and principles of such planning policies and development approval processes in practice. Taking a multidisciplinary approach—grounded in architectural and urban planning research, but drawing on the tools of ethnological and social inquiry, as well as historical and correlational research—the primary research consists of in-depth case studies of recent development proposals and the controversies raised. The six cases examined encompass a range of different development situations, types and outcomes—from housing layouts and streetscapes to retail outlets and a multi-storeyed building proposal—to explore the various policy issues and community voices raised in the public consultation process. The findings reveal multiple points of failure in practice, including lack of effective reference points of what contributes to local character; the production of sub-standard everyday architecture, resulting from a mismatch between development policy and the practice of development approvals; ineffectual and often tokenistic community consultation; and poor engagement between the local community and mostly passive developers with little contextual knowledge. The study indicates how a bioregional understanding of a cultural landscape, and the potential for sustainable development within it, underscores the particular significance of ‘local character’ in such contexts, and of a ‘conscious community’ prepared to engage in the challenge of interpreting it. By improving the process of identifying and retaining local character through meaningful dialogues between all stakeholders—local communities, developers and approving authorities—the study concludes that a sustainable balance between urban and rural/regional development is possible.
Advisor: Scriver, Peter
Bartsch, Katharine
Dissertation Note: Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, 2023
Keywords: urbanisation at the fringe
local character
sustainable urban development
bioregionalism
level of stakeholder engagement
Provenance: This electronic version is made publicly available by the University of Adelaide in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. This thesis may incorporate third party material which has been used by the author pursuant to Fair Dealing exceptions. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material you wish to be removed from this electronic version, please complete the take down form located at: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/legals
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