Tianchen Xu
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Architecture, Architectural History and Theory
Biography
Tianchen Xu is a PhD Candidate and educator in Architectural History and Theory at the Melbourne School of Design, the University of Melbourne, Australia, with a passion for modern Australian architecture and urbanism. He holds a Bachelor of Design (Honours) from the University of Melbourne, where he received the Dean's Honours Award and Hugh O'Neill Scholarship in 2022.
Tianchen's doctoral research explores the complexity of group housing projects in post-WWII Canberra, which were a major preoccupation of local and federal authorities at the time and challenged orthodox notions of Australian suburbia. The research focuses on both the formative ideologies and architectural schemes of collective housing. Tianchen also has a broader interest in the study of regional modernism in Australia and the historical integration of architecture into urbanism.
Alongside his historical research into relevant precedents in housing typologies and usage, Tianchen is a past co-editor of the Melbourne School of Design's Inflection Journal vol. 10 ‘Housing’ (2023).
Thesis
More Than Living: Medium Density Group Housing Projects in Post-War Canberra 1954 - 1989
This thesis investigates the development of group housing in Canberra, ca. 1954-1989, especially the idea of medium density housing as promoted and delivered by the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) from 1958. As a single authority to administer and develop the National Capital, the NCDC had all the powers it needed to avoid the muddle of collaboration and coordination between bureaucracies, turning Canberra into an island of practice that reflects its architectural and urban planning ideologies. The NCDC, consulting with the National Captial Planning Committee, assigned public works to the Commonwealth Department of Public Works and private architects for a better human habitat for existing residents and the incoming population. The nature of place – landscapes, terrains, and existing urban fabric – intertwined with social, political, and economic factors ultimately shaped the formative ideas behind these group housing projects. By examining these threads of the group housing schemes, the key aim of this study, therefore, is to illuminate the previously undiscussed complexity of the development of group housing in post-war Canberra and hence enable a comprehensive portrayal of these Canberra examples in their sociopolitical and cultural context.
The originality of the research lies in the inclusion of archives, records, and other materials in a new systematic documentation, description, and analysis of Canberra group housing in the post-war era. To date, no study of Canberra’s group housing has been undertaken. This research will be the first comprehensive study of group housing in post-war Canberra from 1954 to 1989, bridging the existing literature gap within accounts of Canberra’s architectural history.
The project is of contemporary relevance to the growth of post-war Australian cities and suburbia and also today’s preoccupations with urban density and consolidation. The study also considers the urban aspirations and expressions of habitat within group housing and extends to the understudied topic of the ‘architecture-urbanism’, as well as visions of the future of Australian cities and suburbia and their links to affordable housing and group housing schemes.
Contact
- Email tianchen.xu@unimelb.edu.au
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