Abstract
High density residential development in metropolitan Melbourne, where contradictory imperatives of neighbourhood character and urban intensification play important roles, remains an uncertain practice. One key issue for plan implementation is the lack of consistency between authorities, developers and the community in interpreting the standards, design guidelines, and state/local strategies, especially those relating to neighbourhood character. There is currently no mechanism to incorporate community perceptions and place experiences as subjective aspects of neighbourhood character in development assessments. There is also little use of micro-scale and multi-dimensional spatial analysis to integrate these subjective aspects with objective measures (e.g. building volume and height; streetscape) to communicate effectively—and in a limited timeframe—with all stakeholders. This paper explores the potential of two emerging geospatial technologies that can be leveraged to respond to these problems. Evidence in the literature suggests that volunteered geographic information (VGI) can provide community input around subjective aspects of the urban environment. In addition, a deluge of three-dimensional (3D) spatial information (e.g. 3D city models) is increasingly available for micro-level (building- or property-level) assessment of the physical aspects of the urban environment. This paper formulates and discusses a conceptual framework to link these two spatial technological advancements in a virtual geographic environment (VGE) that accounts for micro-scale 3D spatial analysis incorporating both subjective and objective aspects of neighbourhood character relevant in implementing compact city strategies.
Highlights
Planning is often emotionally and politically charged
There are few examples of using 3D city models in a virtual environment to foster urban planning; in particular, measuring the social construction and place experience aspects of the urban environment. This is despite the fact that studies in virtual reality (VR) using 3D graphics have demonstrated the potential of these technologies for measuring subjective aspects such as safety (Toet & van Schaik, 2012) and people’s behaviour and perceptions (Bishop, 2001; Chen & Bishop, 2011)
To develop a response to the gaps highlighted in existing urban intensification practices in Melbourne, in the plan implementation phase, this section maps the links between volunteered geographic information (VGI), 3D spatial information, and subjective-objective measurement of neighbourhood character
Summary
Planning is often emotionally and politically charged This is nowhere more evident than in the push towards compact cities, where policy imperatives supporting urban intensification often conflicts with community desire to retain neighbourhood character and preserve a sense of identity (Davison, 2011). This paper argues that a new framework that better represents and measure the subjective and objective aspects of neighbourhood character is required, in the case of compact cities that are becoming vertically extended and in which complex physical, functional, and contextual relationships exist. To develop this framework, the paper first provides a background on key issues in plan implementation, in Victoria. The paper concludes with a discussion about the potential opportunities and challenges of using this framework in future work
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