SILVIA TAVARES

Urban design and planning for extreme heat: an empirical study of built environment professionals’ perceptions in South East Queensland, Australia

This paper was published by our brilliant (now) PhD student Ryan McNeilly Smith. This project, now published in this article, was his Honours project.

The full article is available here.

Preparing for a heating future in ‘the Sunshine State’: It is getting hot in here

When you think Queensland, you think heat. It’s right there in the nickname ‘The Sunshine State’. Yet one of the curiosities of the state is that minimal governance exists to ensure Queensland homes, towns and cities protect occupants from threats posed by heat.

Valuation of ecosystem services through offsets: Why are coastal ecosystems more valuable in Australia than in Brazil?

This is a not-so-recent publication which came out last year. In this publication Carol Fassina, Diane Jarvis and Anthea Coggan discuss the differences between environmental offset processes in Australia and Brazil.

The full article is available here.

NExT Forum: Climate Responsive Urban Design

On 7th November I will have the honour of being part of a trialog of experts discussing climate-responsive urban design and planning. Information from from the flyer, also attached below:

Month in review: June 2022

June was a very (very!) busy month but lots of great things happened, including my son’s 4th birthday.

I also commited to presenting in an upcoming seminar in September, met one of my PhD students who recently managed to move to Australia after COVID delays, and travelled and met old friends and colleagues in beautiful Tropical North Queensland. I also received an invitation to present in an exciting Urban Heat Seminar in Cairns.

Upcoming presentation in Cairns (Australia)

I am very honoured to be a speaker in this week’s Urban Heat Seminar in Cairns. The seminar will take place this Friday 8th July 2022 from 12pm to 4:30pm at the Civic Reception Rooms in the Cairns Regional Council Chambers.

Urban Design Solutions for Ameliorating Urban Heat Island Effect in Townsville, Queensland

Along with Professor Karine Dupre from Griffith University, and in collaboration with Townsville City Council, we are undertaking a research project investigating urban microclimates in Townsville (Queensland, Australia).

On the complexity of city links

The city is built on weak links; it is these moments of human contact that act like electricity for the city. As a result, the city as a whole becomes more powerful than the sum of its parts and this strange phenomenon – which complexity theorists call emergence – means that the complex city offers a unique dynamism. It is also the energy behind the Ballet of Hudson Street and is the raw material from which are developed trust and community despite the strains of urban life.

Implementation of the New Urban Agenda on a local level: An effective methodology for human-centred urban design

In 2018 David Sellars and I, along with Planz Town Planning, Milford Planning, Cairns Regional Council, Townsville City Council, Richard Briggs, and Chuck Wolfe, as our Fulbright expert, organised and hosted an Urban Thinkers Campus, a UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign initiative (I wrote about it here and here).

We recently reported our engagement method in a publication in the Journal of Urbanism, as per abstract below.

Urban design and planning policy to mitigate heat-related health risks

A recent USC media release featured one of my PhD students’ work. Ryan McNeilly Smith has been working in the BASC Lab for just over one semester. He is investigating what urban planning and design policy for heat and urban climates may look like in Queensland.

Urban designer with a background in architecture, urbanism, and building and city science. Brazilian national. Senior Lecturer in Urban Design and Town Planning at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Affiliate member of PIA and registered architect and urbanist in Brazil.

Passionate about interfaces between urbanism, landscape and architecture. Interested in providing evidence through research to produce public open spaces that are thermally comfortable and economically effective, while promoting the good health of users and the natural environments that surround them.

For more information see the 'about' page on the menu above.

All opinions and points of view expressed in this website are my own and do not reflect employer or colleagues' opinions.