Abby Mellick Lopes

Emergence of decentralised water and sanitation systems in Melbourne, Australia

In Melbourne, Australia, a shift is occurring in the approach to wastewater management. With increased pressure from landscape drivers such as population growth, urbanisation, and over a decade of extended drought conditions, a new model of wastewater management is being explored by Melbourne’s metropolitan water utilities in the development of their latest Metropolitan Sewerage Strategy (MSS). With input from key industry leaders and a broad range of stakeholders a collaborative ‘vision’ of sustainable sewerage services to Melbourne over a 50 year timeframe was developed with decentralised systems emerging as a key, long-term component of service delivery. Drawing on the multi-level perspective (MLP), we investigate the interrelated and reinforcing factors that have driven this shift in perception toward decentralised systems and serious consideration of alternative socio-technical configurations of wastewater management in Melbourne’s future planning strategy. We then explore the process in which cross disciplinary participants from industry, government and civil society articulated their vision of a long term sustainable sanitation future for Melbourne.

On Wearing: A Critical Framework for Valuing Design's Already Made

ABSTRACT A sustainable material culture is perhaps more about making new relationships than making new things. This paper explores the topography of what we are calling “Designs already made,” including its artifacts, practices, and perceptions, via the lens of practice theory and in response to the problem of the largely unsustainable material cultures of design. Our investigation is framed by the term “wearing.” Wearing—as a recurrent form of engagement between bodies and designed artifacts or as an index of use and duration—is a multi-modal concept that brings abstract time into specific, situated material and aesthetic relations. We contrast “wearing” to the “object time” (Baudrillard 1998) of material and symbolic systems that make new, purportedly improved, but “inexperienced” things available to us in consumer culture. Wearing induces a critical practice of attending to those things that are declining from object time, which in this era of destructive wasting, need to be recalled, repaired, and repurposed. Wearing reveals that design, in spite of the widespread practice of trading completed designs, is better characterized as unfinished, potentially open to the value-creating processes of its users. We elaborate on this idea by drawing on a range of examples across the design disciplines.

Lessons Learnt from Educating University Students through a Trans-Disciplinary Project for Sustainable Sanitation Using a Systems Approach and Problem-Based Learning

This article discusses how a Systems Thinking (ST) approach to student learning, employing Problem-Based Learning (PBL) interventions, at several different universities in Sydney, Australia was incorporated into a broader trans-disciplinary research project, the aim of which was to examine how urine diversion in an urban, institutional setting might form the basis of phosphorus collection—phosphorus being a non-renewable resource used in agricultural fertilizers. The article explores how the ST approach employed by the researchers themselves was adapted to embrace student engagement opportunities and how it permitted opportunities for Problem-Based Learning interventions. Five academics forming part of the research team consider the effectiveness of ST-styled student engagement via Problem-Based Learning in three action research cycles used in the research project. In sharing their experiences they provide an honest, “no-holds barred” review of what worked and what could be done more effectively with the benefits of hindsight.

Transdisciplinarity and the ‘Living Lab Model’: Food Waste Management As a Site for Collaborative Learning

This chapter introduces the concept of a ‘Transdisciplinary Living Lab (TDLL)’ based on an initiative at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to involve design students in the transdisciplinary research context of food waste management on campus. In the higher education context, on-campus Living Labs are one way an environment can be created to support transdisciplinary (TD) education. The UTS TDLL involved the collaborative participation of design academics, campus facilities management, industry and government experts with students from disciplines of Fashion and Textile Design, Product Design, and Visual Communication who, through team-based learning, contributed to generating propositions for managing food waste on-campus.

Re-Ruralising the Urban Edge: Lessons from Europe, USA & the Global South

Major cities of the world are characterised as either growing cities, such as in Asia and Australia, or shrinking cities as in Europe and North America. Growing cities are destroying their rural edge while shrinking cities are creating a new rural urbanism, often in their urban centre. This chapter describes the instrumentality of design and its enabling function in achieving new typologies for peri-/inter-urban rural land with key drivers being state-of-the-art technology and mapping techniques. Peri-urban economics require new land-tenure models and innovative forms of agriculture that synthesise agriculture, nature conservation, infrastructure and communities. The chapter also looks at small-scale community innovations including a number of initiatives in Penrith, Western Sydney, such as Out & About in Penrith which explored community activities in local open space, Penrith as a Regional City Garden with diverse models of urban agriculture and the Cooling the Commons project which explores the role that forms of urban agriculture might play in adapting urban environments for liveability in a climate-changed future. Findings from these projects reveal the potential of mobile infrastructure and temporary urbanism for Western Sydney.

Toilet practices and system change: lessons from a transdisciplinary research project

This paper draws on a pilot project of novel sanitation systems, trialled to learn about the potential for system change. Urine diversion (UD) systems, which capture, store and reuse urine in agriculture as a substitute for chemical fertiliser were trialled within an institutional setting over the last two years in collaboration with government, industry and academic partners. Qualitative social research tools were implemented to capture changing perceptions of users, the domestication process arising in the practical use of UD toilets. Feedback from end-users highlighted the need to modify their own practices, adopt new practices and the need for technology modifications to accommodate established practices, if UD was to be more widely accepted beyond experimental trials. The value of qualitative inquiry was that it provided a way of capturing subjective and speculative knowledge from participants about the social context of the trial and unexpected consequences of trialling innovation in practice.

“Please Ask Us” Conversation Mapping as Design Research: Social Learning in a Verge Garden Site

“Please Ask Us” Conversation Mapping as Design Research: Social Learning in a Verge Garden Site Abby Mellick Lopes & Kaye Shumack To cite this article: Abby Mellick Lopes & Kaye Shumack (2012) “Please Ask Us” Conversation Mapping as Design Research: Social Learning in a Verge Garden Site, Design Philosophy Papers, 10:2, 119-132 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/089279312X13968781797832