Architectural Practice in City-Shaping Infrastructure Projects: An Embedded Study of the Sydney Metro

Architects are increasingly involved in the realisation of large-scale city-shaping infrastructure projects, exemplified by mega-transport projects in urban areas around the globe. This growing engagement by the profession has led to a widening fissure between the existing conceptualisation of architectural practice and the actions and roles of architects in these decidedly functional project types. This research explores the role of architects in the development of design for large-scale infrastructure, establishing the key contributions of the profession to the realisation of the modern expectations of urban public projects. These roles—advocates for human-centric ambitions, coordinators of multi-disciplinary inputs, and managers of data—are not foreign to the profession, but reveal unique elements of architectural knowledge developed through the design and delivery process in the context of contemporary, corporate practice. I conducted the research in an embedded mode as an architect involved in the design of a station for the Sydney Metro, a new underground railway project being designed and constructed while the research was undertaken. This hybridised participant-observation approach provided an opportunity to explore architectural design using auto-ethnographic and sociological methods, as well as theoretically informed thematic analysis. By leveraging methods from both within architectural practice and from other disciplines, the research establishes a new means of understanding architectural activities and contributions within the framework of existing linear interpretations of the architectural process—from conceptual design, through development and, finally, documentation. The research makes an original contribution to knowledge of the role of architect and architecture in shaping large-scale public infrastructure investment, focusing on management of data-centric elements of design and the production of deliverables. The research outcomes underscore the heterogenous roles of contemporary large-scale practice and the place of architecture in shaping key urban nodes as prominent people spaces in the polycentric city. The project also offers a new method of conducting research embedded within architectural practice and, more broadly, other professional practice.

Author dc:creator

• Kahn, Michael Macy

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• The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
• au.edu.uts.lib/ppc
• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/153363

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.lib.uts.edu.au:10453/153363