SILVIA TAVARES

Research projects

CURRENT PROJECTS
How cool are our green urban forests?
Urban Climate in Planning Education
Urban Microclimate in Planning and Design
Urban Microclimates of Noosa
Urban Design Solutions for Ameliorating Urban Heat Island Effect in Townsville

COMPLETED PROJECTS
Urban Design and Town Planning in response to COVID-19
Urban Liveability in Tropical Australia Through Urban Diaries and Community Engagement
Urban Climate Adaptation Strategies: A New Zealand Contribution
Promoting Urban Comfort in a Compact Future: Developing Urban Comfort as an Analytical Tool
Urban Comfort: Adaptive Capacity in Post Earthquake Christchurch

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CURRENT PROJECTS

How cool are our green urban forests?

GI can cool urban areas primarily through a combination of shading and evapotranspiration. This is vital to mitigate UHI effects which we are currently observing and will exacerbate the heat-related impacts of climate change. Our current development practices inadequately protect trees and vegetated space, and do not sufficiently result in new forms of GI being introduced. The reality of urban development is that this is a highly complex process, with many different entities involved – and a wide range of reasons for which the amount of GI almost always reduces as areas are developed. Council needs insight and evidence of how to retain, increase and optimise GI to maximise urban cooling within these development systems. This research has three main steps: (1) model the complex sociotechnical systems (STS) influencing a) the constraints and significance for the provision of on-ground GI, and b) the range of actors, policies and approaches to better understand the barriers, enablers and opportunities to implement GI; (2) multi-source remote sensing, geospatial modelling and mapping at the regional scale (Sunshine Coast Region) to examine urban heat archipelago at a broad scale; (3) modelling the urban microclimate at a neighbourhood scale resulting from typical Sunshine Coast urban typologies. These methods of analysis support each other and will provide evidence to support Council’s efforts to regulate and advocate for change and inform future design opportunities to communicate how GI can mitigate the heatwave impacts of climate change.

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Dr Nicholas Stevens, Dr Javier Leon, Dr Majed Abu Seif; in partnership with Sunshine Coast Council

Grant
Regional Partnership Agreement (UniSC/SCC)
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Urban Climate in Planning Education

In 2020, the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) declared a climate emergency, and in 2021 PIA called for every Australian state and territory planning system to undertake ten key reforms to become climate-conscious (more here). PIA Queensland has responded with its ‘Planning to tackle climate change: 10 actions for a climate-conscious planning system in Queensland’ (read more here). Over the last decade, however, international studies have shown that climate knowledge has had a low impact on the urban planning process despite the abundance of scientific studies in urban climatology and climatic design. In this context, Urban Design and Town Planning are well positioned to make a meaningful contribution in ameliorating undesirable effects through climate-appropriate responses, as it is known that the orientation of buildings, composition and colour of surface materials, and types and locations of vegetation have major effects on the urban heat islands and on microclimates. These interventions can improve outdoor climate and facilitate the use of public spaces. They can also contribute to a better indoor climate and thus lower use of heating or air conditioners and hence CO2 emissions. Such climate adaptation can be influenced at various scales, and it is consequently important to address climate responsive design at different scales as well. To help prepare the new generations of Australian planners for the climate challenges they will face in their future urban planning and design careers, this study aims at identifying existing climate-responsive design and planning courses offered in the Planning degrees in Australia, as well as how recent graduates see their role in responding to the future climate challenges, how much they know about the topic and how prepared they feel to face the urban climate challenges.

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Dr Nicholas Stevens, Ms Olivia Herrmann, Mr Ricardo Basile

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Urban Microclimate in Planning and Design

Urban microclimate modelling is a growing area of interest amongst City Councils in Australia, and developing this knowledge and related skills can open up professional opportunities to work within highly specialised teams. Simulation techniques for studying the relationship between built form, urban vegetation, and the resulting urban climate have been increasingly applied in urban planning and design, however there is still limited knowledge in the planning profession to evaluate strategies and inform decision-making to mitigate urban overheating. This project is designed to enhance your knowledge of urban microclimate planning and design as a theoretical and scientific concept, as well as developing your skills in collecting data relevant to urban climate (urban materials, vegetation, built form, etc.), creating and running a model and analysing the generated results. The project will use ENVI-met to model urban climate, and you will have an opportunity to learn the software.

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Dr Majed Abu Seif, Mr Cameron Milne, Ms Kelsey Larsen

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Urban Microclimates of Noosa

Local government, policymakers and practitioners need evidence-based guidance to assist with navigating complex urban environments, and urban microclimates are part of this complexity. Urban Heat Islands (UHI) are formed when urbanised areas experience higher temperatures than outlying areas, largely due to the loss of natural vegetation, capacity to infiltrate rainwater and an increase in thermal mass. Therefore, the capacity of urban environments to adapt to heat depends on efficient climate-responsive design, which utilises solutions that improve their climate performance, for example, appropriate types, combinations and location of vegetation, cool materials, and built form that enhances shade and breezes.

Local government, policymakers and practitioners in urban planning and design need evidence to ensure that future development integrates climate-responsive strategies to adequately mitigate heat-related risks and provide human thermal comfort.

This study looks at Noosa Junction with the objective of identifying possible solutions to mitigate UHI and other undesirable climate change-related impacts.

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Dr Nicholas Stevens, Dr Majed Abu Seif; in partnership with Noosa Shire Council

Grant
Noosa Shire Council

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Urban Design Solutions for Ameliorating Urban Heat Island Effect in Townsville

Heatwaves are Australia’s deadliest natural hazard (Coates et al., 2014). While scholarship has demonstrated the negative impacts of urban heat islands (UHI) on human health and comfort, there is a need to expand knowledge in order to understand its relationship with urban design (UD) and planning and its effects on people’s experiences of a place. UD and planning that considers the specificities of microclimates offers the potential to trigger benign microclimates and support citizen’s health and resilience, as well as contributing to save energy in buildings.

This study looks at Townsville which has been identified as an area vulnerable to UHI effect (Chesnais et al., 2019). The objective is to identify possible solutions to mitigate UHI and other undesirable climate change-related impacts.

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Professor Karine Dupre, Dr Majed Abu Seif; in partnership with Townsville City Council

Grant
Townsville City Council

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COMPLETED PROJECTS

Urban Design and Town Planning in response to COVID-19

This project offers a Human Factors and Ergonomic & Sociotechnical Systems (HFE & STS) methodology to assist in the exploration and description of COVID-19 lockdown impacts on public spaces in Australia. We look at past ‘fast disasters’, and the pandemic as a ‘slow disaster’. Traumatic and rapid events that affect the built environment tend to generate visible changes and, as a consequence, change is the only way forward. While the current situation of COVID-19 presents itself as a ‘slow disaster’, we investigate the lessons from fast disasters in making urban spaces safer and more resilient in face of potential future disease outbreaks.

Team

Dr Silvia Tavares, Dr Nicholas Stevens

Publications

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Urban Liveability in Tropical Australia Through Urban Diaries and Community Engagement

This project is based on a World Urban Campaign Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) based upon the premise that urbanisation is an opportunity and can lead to a positive transformation toward sustainable development, improving public health. The main objective was to use the UTC as catalysts of new ideas while emulating consensus among participants and partners in order to inspire and drive contributions to the implementation of the New Urban Agenda locally – in Cairns and Townsville (Australia).

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Mr David Sellars

Grant
Fulbright Specialist Grant

Publications

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Urban Climate Adaptation: A New Zealand Contribution

Urbanization is one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends, and increasing urban population along with the impacts of climate change provide new challenges and new opportunities. However, there are significant differences in the way countries are perceiving the phenomenon of climate change and implementing adaptation strategies to improve urban climate. This paper reports on a study carried out in New Zealand and aimed at identifying how the country is implementing adaptation strategies through urban design and planning to improve urban climate in the face of climate change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with New Zealand scholars studying urban climate related issues, urban design and planning practitioners, and governance. The study was designed to provide a wide range of perceptions rather than a set number of interviews in specific cities. The semi-structured interviews focused upon awareness of the need for climate change adaptation, existing urban climate phenomena as a consequence of design decisions, existing design strategies to improve climate adaptation, communication of climate change issues, existing policy instruments and implementation of initiatives. The paper discusses the perceptions of interviewees regarding awareness and urgency of action; the role of citizens, governance, and urban designers and planners in the urban climate adaptation agenda; and the role of dramatic events such as the Christchurch earthquakes on acknowledging the need for appropriate design and planning. Results indicate that the geographical condition of New Zealand and its consequent maritime climate means that climate change – particularly effects related to city design – are not seen as a major issue. However, the recent Christchurch earthquakes have sped up the processes of change, making citizens and governance more aware of consequences of inappropriate design and planning.

Publications

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Promoting Urban Comfort in a Compact Future: Developing Urban Comfort as an Analytical Tool

This work uses urban comfort as an analytical lens to investigate the way compact and green imperatives are being resolved in the rebuild of central Christchurch following the 2010-11 earthquakes. The investigation is focused on the emerging precincts, streets, courtyards, and lanes of the Christchurch CBD (Central Business District). Before the earthquakes, Christchurch was characterised as a ‘Garden City’, and while there were few green streets or spaces in the old city centre, the title expressed a distinctive regional culture that valued outdoor recreation and activities, open green space, and a provincial style of urban living. The earthquakes radically changed the city’s character, resulting in clearance of around 800 buildings from the damaged CBD (Carlton, 2013) and over the past 6 years the central city rebuild has been the focus of a series of design initiatives that face many of the issues involved in resolving green and compact ideals.

Team
Dr Silvia Tavares, Prof Simon Swaffield

Publications

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Urban Comfort: Adaptive Capacity in Post Earthquake Christchurch

This project regards my PhD research. The final thesis is available here

Established methods of investigation based upon conventions drawn from building services research and framed by physiological concepts of thermal comfort may fail to capture the social dynamics of urban activity and their interrelationship with microclimate. This research investigated the relationship between microclimate and urban culture in Christchurch, New Zealand, based upon the concept of urban comfort. Urban comfort is defined as the socio-cultural (therefore collective) adaptation to microclimate due to satisfaction with the urban environment. It involves consideration of a combination of human thermal comfort requirements and adaptive comfort circumstances, preferences and strategies. A main methodological challenge was to investigate urban comfort in a city undergoing rapid physical change following a series of major earthquakes (2010-2011), and that also has a strongly seasonal climate which accentuates microclimatic variability. The field investigation had to be suitable for rapidly changing settings as buildings were demolished and rebuilt, and be able to capture data relevant to a cycle of seasons. These local circumstances meant that Christchurch was valuable as an example of a city facing rapid and unpredictable change. An interpretive, integrative, and adaptive research strategy that combined qualitative social science methods with biophysical measures was adopted. The results are based upon participant observation, 86 in-depth interviews with Christchurch residents, and microclimate data measurements. The interviews were carried out in a variety of urban settings including established urban settings (places sustaining relatively little damage) and emerging urban settings (those requiring rebuilding) during 2011-2013. Results of this research show that urban comfort depends on adaptive strategies which in turn depend on culture. Adaptive strategies identified through the data analysis show a strong connection between natural and built landscapes, combined with the regional outdoor culture, the Garden City identity and the connections between rural and urban landscapes. The results also highlight that thermal comfort is an important but insufficient indicator of good microclimate design, as social and cultural values are important influences on climate experience and adaptation. Interpretive research is needed to fully understand urban comfort and to provide urban microclimate design solutions to enhance the use of public open spaces in cities undergoing change.

Grant
Lincoln University PhD Teacher Fellow Scholarship

Publications