Researcher

Philip Oldfield

Email: p.oldfield@unsw.edu.au

Institution/Organisation: UNSW
Position: Head of School
Biographical Information: Associate Professor Philip Oldfield is Head of School at UNSW Built Environment, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture. Philip’s research interests are focused primarily on sustainable design, embodied carbon and tall building architecture. He is an active member of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), and is author of the book “The Sustainable Tall Building: A Design Primer” published by Taylor and Francis in 2019. He has led over 0k of funded research projects with diverse inter-disciplinary teams from industry and academia, tackling issues varying from how we use evidence to create high performance buildings, to strategies to simultaneously reduce embodied carbon and cost in buildings. He was a guest editor for Energy and Buildings on a special issue dedicated to embodied carbon, and has also published in The Journal of Architecture, Architectural Science Review, Solar Energy, A+U, Emotion Space and Society and more.

He has a passion for teaching in higher education, across both architectural studio and seminar courses, and has been recognised as a Scientia Education Fellow at UNSW. In addition, he is a British Science Association Media Fellow and regularly writes articles for Architecture Australia, Architects’ Journal, the Guardian and many other publications.

 

Authored/ Co-authored Research

Title: Gardens in the sky: Emotional experiences in the communal spaces at height in the Pinnacle@Duxton, Singapore

This paper has been peer reviewed

Funders: Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia.

Author/Co-authors: Philip Oldfield, Yuri Hadi, Tim Heath

Keywords: Architecture, Design, Environment, Governance, Psychology,

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Summary:

Highlights
The experiences and emotions of skygarden users and stakeholders is explored.
Management fear of anti-social behaviour increases at height.
Stringent rules in the skygardens fuel a sense of frustration in the residents.
A sense of contested ownership exists between residents and skygarden management.
Skygardens provide an opportunity for escapism from dense vertical living.

Title: Influences on Apartment Design: A History of the Spatial Layout of Apartment Buildings in Sydney and Implications for the Future

Author/Co-authors: Philip Oldfield, Hazel Easthope, Hyungmo Yang

Keywords: Architecture, Design, Environment, Planning, Sustainability,

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Summary:

This paper traces the history of apartment design with an emphasis on spatial layout. It charts the events that have influenced apartment design in Sydney, Australia and provides a framework for understanding how changes in society, the economy, regulations, and architectural paradigms have influenced apartment layouts over time. Through a review of historical and contemporary apartment plan drawings in Sydney, we identify four chronologically distinct eras.