PhD Symposium

3 - 5 December 2023

The programme is available here.

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa, nau mai, haere mai.

We invite you to the two and half day PhD Symposium (Dec 3 - Dec 5), which precedes and is an integral component of the State of Australasian Cities ACRN-SOAC Conference. In 2023, the symposium will take place in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Since its inception in 2013, the symposium has always aimed to bring together PhD candidates from across Australasia and create a collegial, culturally safe and inclusive space for candidates to share and refine their research project and receive feedback from peers, early career academics, and senior colleagues. The intention is to foster connections and build relationships across the diverse PhD community within Australasia.

The 2023 symposium will be guided by Indigenous Māori values of manaakitanga, whakawhanaungatanga and kohakitanga: manaakitanga will ensure that visitors and hosts are treated with kindness, generosity, support, and respect; whakawhanaungatanga to foster and enhance the building of respectful relationships during and beyond the symposium; and kohakitanga which translates to unity, togetherness, solidarity, and collective action. These three core values will be the pillars upon which we will build an inclusive and caring space for PhD students to come together, network and continue the conviviality within and beyond the conference.

Workshop Aim

We invite all PhD candidates conducting urban research to join us at the workshop. This includes a diverse range of disciplines concerned with the present and future state of our cities: such as urban governance, decolonial thinking, environmental sustainability, social justice and inequality, land use and transport planning, housing, health and livability, economics, spatial and urban design, smart cities, creative practices, creative cities and knowledge-based development, crisis management, and anything which might impact our cities. We also encourage proposals from candidates with diverse backgrounds that bring forth marginalised perspectives and narratives.

This workshop is ideal for PhD candidates in their first and second year with a confirmed research proposal or nearing their confirmation milestone. As in previous years, a key element of the PhD symposium has been the mentoring workshop for PhD candidates. Keeping with this tradition, in 2023, we will do our best to group participating candidates with similar research topics or approaches with two mentors, potentially an established academic and an ECR from the region, who will be able to provide guidance, support, and general feedback. There will also be opportunities for organised sessions on topics such as career advancement, research pathways and balancing academic activities.

Workshop structure

PhD candidates will be placed into small groups with two mentors allocated to each group. Each PhD candidate is invited to present for 20 minutes on their research receiving constructive feedback in a collegial setting. The workshop will also include seminars given by invited speakers, group activities, guided tours in the city and social events.

Workshop Costs

Keeping with the ACRN-SOAC tradition, we want to offer the symposium at no registration fee. Participants will only pay for their accommodation and travel. We are exploring group booking options for accommodation in the local university hostels, which may be cheaper than staying in hotels. But the option comes on a first-come-first-served basis and is subject to availability. Please indicate your interest through the abstract submission form. We will notify you about the availability and the cost after the abstract submission deadline.

Apply for an ACRN Travel Bursary

The Australasian Cities Research Network (ACRN) is committed to advancing research that actively shapes the critical discourses, policies and practices that support more equitable and sustainable cities and regions. To further this aim ACRN provides bursaries to support eligible PhD students to attend the 2023 SOAC PhD Symposium and main conference.

The bursary will include: Accommodation during the PhD symposium; registration for the main SOAC conference; and a contribution towards costs associated with the return travel expenses to Wellington, NZ. *The amount per bursary will vary and be determined by the number of successful applications and relative to need and circumstance.

Eligibility criteria: To be eligible for an ACRN Travel Bursary you must: have an abstract accepted for either the 2023 SOAC PhD Symposium or main conference; and be enrolled in a Masters or Doctoral degree on the date you apply for funding

Application process: Applications for the ACRN Travel Bursaries are open via this link, until June 30. Please fill out the application form and upload the following documents.

1. evidence of your acceptance to the 2023 SOAC PhD Symposium or main conference
2. a copy of your abstract and title
3. proof of your enrolment in either a Masters degree or a Doctoral degree
4. a copy of your return travel quote/costs to Wellington
5. banking details (Name of Bank, BSB, account number, name of account).

Successful applicants will be notified shortly after the deadline.

We look forward to meeting you all in Wellington in December 2023.

For more information, please contact Sandi Ringham or Sepideh Afsari or the SOAC Organising Committee (e.g., Ash Alam).

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa

Sandi Ringham, Sepideh Afsari Bajestani, and Ashraful (Ash) Alam

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Programme

6 - 8 December 2023

We are excited to welcome more than 300 participants to Pōneke Wellington in December. The programme is now available to view here - View the programme

The programme features more than 250 presentations across 9 conference tracks, 6 keynote speakers, 4 plenary panels, the conference dinner, a public evening panel discussion and more.

A guide for presenters and session chairs is available in the digital conference handbook. 8 tracks run with a 12min presentation + 3min Q&A time model, followed by a general discussion. The City Movement and Infrastructure track runs with a 15 min presentation + 5 min Q&A time model.

The conference handbook contains essential information for presenters, session chairs, details about venues, social events, and everything you need to know before and during the conference. Please note that we have decided not to print physical copies of the conference handbook and programme to reduce our environmental footprint. Rest assured, our digital documents are user-friendly and designed for easy navigation. You can access the handbook here.

Conference tracks

City Economies

Xinyu Fu (UoW), Kelly Dombroski (Massey)

Economies emerge from the multitude of decisions that people make, and nowhere is this more evident than at the city level. COVID-19 has profoundly transformed the face of city economies, as many services and jobs have shifted online and not returned to in person, and the missing tourists and their dollars are palpable. And where people have returned, workforce shortages in hospitality, care and food production among other industries remain. Smaller cities in the region have capitalised on their relative affordability in the cost of living crisis, and are working to attract and retain both businesses and remote workers and their families. Economic development units across Australasia are starting to experiment with innovative ways to attract and retain talent, paying more attention to things like place-making, internet capability, liveability and affordability. Injustices and stressors remain, especially so for Indigenous, migrant and minority groups. Meanwhile, climate emissions trading has changed the direction of city economies, as enterprises begin to change their practices to meet targets set at the city and regional scale. Funding for climate transition projects, infrastructure, managed retreat and changes to procurement are all implicated in city economies, as are the economic activities of large private enterprises, manufacturing firms, large-scale employers of health and education and small and medium enterprises. In this track, we invite contributions to provide reflections on the question: where do we want our city economies to be in this post-pandemic phase or in the next decade, and how can we support that transition as researchers and policy-writers? Potential papers might include: The range of city economies including: diverse enterprises, labour, markets and exchange, finance and investment, and property; What city economies might mean for those who are usually overlooked: the informal economy, Indigenous enterprises, unpaid labour of caregivers, migrant workers in essential services and more; The role of circular economy, degrowth, Indigenous economies, doughnut economics and community economies approaches to city economies; How innovations in city economics can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

City Governance

Tom Baker (UoA), Clare Mouat (MU)

City governance involves multi-sectoral and multi-scaled practices of decision-making affecting cities and settlements. Examining city governance is crucial for understanding and navigating multiple transitions underway and much-needed within and across Australasia, the wider Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Much rides on how we choose to envisage and respond to issues of collective concern in cities, including the drivers and consequences of ongoing urbanisation, the vexed omni-crises that stem from and implicate cities—including climate adaptation and mitigation, socio-economic inequality, housing affordability and adequacy, and infectious disease transmission and healthy city planning, critical infrastructures, and more—and rectifying long-standing injustices of settler-colonial urbanisation and tackling the challenges of reconciliation and co-governance. Within the broader conference theme of ‘Australasian cities in transition’, the City Governance track presents an opportunity to consider city governance transitions from multiple perspectives, including: How are social, cultural, environmental and economic transitions impacting city governance?; How might we rethink city governance to better understand and respond to how Australasian cities are in transition both now and looking ahead?; How might city governance, itself, be undergoing transitions of various kinds? For example, how might we reconcile political ecologic and political economic approaches for (more-than) human flourishing? How are cities leading or lagging in responding to crises and slow emergencies?; What kinds of outcomes are being experienced or pre-figured by the governance of urban transitions?;What are the current intellectual and methodological transitions underway in the world of urban research?;How are cities renegotiating their governance, especially as cities and their (sub)urban networks are grappling with changes to democratic shifts and extensive COVID-19-led reforms?;What are contemporary and future trends of policy mobility and innovation?; Considerations of the time and space in city governance and considerations of trends, fads, and divergences. With a broad definition of the processes, actors and whereabouts of city governance, the City Governance conference track chairs welcome papers addressing these and related questions.

City Health and Liveability

Mirjam Schindler (VUW), Robin Quigg - Raukawa (UoO), Caroline Shaw (UoO)

We are interested in exploring how we could, do or should make Australasian urban spaces and centres healthier and more liveable places. We are seeking to explore how Indigenous values have, are and will be empowered, enabling healthy places to live, grow-up and work. In the face of climate change, population growth, a growing disconnect from nature, an ageing population and other urban challenges, we are demanding more than ever from our urban spaces; we are seeking places and spaces that acknowledge our pasts, value and listen to our Indigenous voices, increase our resilience, create a sense of belonging, are inclusive and support hauora. Navigating those challenges requires placing hauora (holistic health and well-being) at the centre of our urban decision-making. Yet how we envision and define healthy and liveable places varies by place, group, within and across cities and urban areas. We want to explore what hauora and well-being mean and for whom, and what conceptual models are available to and are guiding the transformation of Australasian cities. With Australasian urban areas responding to recent or ongoing natural disasters,and pressures from a housing crisis, how do we make sure that health and Indigenous values are at the heart of the decision-making and (re)build urban spaces that support hauora, well-being and liveability? We invite contributions that explore these and related health-focused questions from diverse spatial scales (individual to the community and population), disciplines and from research, practice and governance. We invite people to share their experiences of working on projects that focus on Indigenous values, urban health, well-being or liveability; of best-practice examples that support hauora in urban areas; or of working in a governance setting to incorporate Indigenous values, and holistic perspectives of health and well-being into urban planning and governance.

City Housing

Laurence Murphy (UoA), Jo Ross (MU), James Berghan - (VUW)

Residents and governments throughout Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand cities are grappling with a range of housing issues from homelessness, housing affordability, planning issues, financialisation, and poor housing quality. These issues have profound implications for city dwellers’ lived experiences, sense of inclusion/exclusion and understandings of social justice and the ‘right to the city’. In the context of a seemingly endless set of housing crises various political and economic solutions have been proffered as quick-fix solutions. Often these solutions are set within neoliberal frameworks that rely on market outcomes and it is clear that cities are at the centre of a range of emergent market processes involving new financial actors and policy practices. However, in addition to these institutional forces effecting housing change, community action and indigenous housing aspirations and practices are producing new forms of housing outcomes. These alternative ways of making ‘home and housing’ in the city are potentially transformative. Urban housing is being refashioned by a range of top-down and bottom-up social, economic, political and community processes. Drawing on a broad understanding of contemporary urban housing issues, processes and solutions we welcome papers that engage with existing and emergent housing processes (including indigenous housing, planning, finanicalisation, homelessness etc) at play in Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand cities.

City Movement and Infrastructure

Imran Muhammad (Massey), Katarzyna Sila-Nowicka (UoA), Eli Elinoff (VUW)

We are living through an infrastructural moment. Across Australasia, this moment manifests itself in contradictory forces. On the one hand, we have seen the expansion, reinvestment, and reinvention of primary and critical infrastructural systems. On the other hand, many existing infrastructures—transport systems, water and sewage pipes—are failing in both catastrophic and subtle ways. These breakdowns have been caused by deferred maintenance, changing investment priorities, and, especially, the profound environmental shifts the Australasian cities and their residents are experiencing as a result of the climate crisis. Within this context, infrastructures have become a new focus of investment, innovation, and socio-political debate. Thus, leading to new interactions between these investments and peoples’ mobility behaviour in cities. Scholars from both technical and critical analytic backgrounds have turned to infrastructure as a site of investigation and intervention in the region’s present and future urban condition. This track showcases complex conversations and research on 21st-century transport and infrastructure planning. How do we transform existing infrastructure policies and planning according to new social, environmental, economic and technological realities? How can we build sustainable infrastructure that is simultaneously inclusive and climate resilient? There are many critical questions at the heart of this track of SOAC 2023. This track bridges technical and social science research into the region’s infrastructures inviting papers from scholars engaging with Australasian infrastructures through a variety of philosophical, theoretical and disciplinary lenses. We are interested in debating the future of infrastructure and gathering evidence about the critical challenges transport and infrastructure planning face in big and small cities in this region. Potential papers might include, but are not limited to, the following areas: History, present and future of infrastructure;The social and environmental life of infrastructure; Infrastructural politics, violence, maintenance/breakdown/failure; Political economy of infrastructures; Transportation modes (Roads, AVs, Public Transport, Active transport, MicroMobility); Transport technologies, data science and analytics; Transportation sustainability and resilience; Transport governance, policy and funding .

City Nature and Environment

Claire Freeman (VUW), Victoria Chanse (VUW), Silvia Serrao-Neumann (UoW), Maibritt Pedersen-Zari (AUT)

Humanity faces an unprecedented convergence of ecological and climatic changes that are and will profoundly affect civilization. Because cities are now the primary habitat of humans, it is in the urban environment where the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss will be most keenly felt by humans, and where adaptation and regeneration measures must be focused. It is clear then that the way we conceive of, construct, and live in urban environments must change rapidly. There are increasing calls for built environment professionals to more effectively understand and then work with and include nature in cities by taking holistic socio-ecological approaches to design and planning. This requires an urgent shift in cultural norms; how humanity (re)learns how to work with ‘nature’ rather than seek to extract from and control complex ecologies is perhaps the greatest opportunity of these times. This track focuses on the interrelated benefits of understanding and working with socio-ecological systems or ‘nature’ in cities and the ecological and climatic contexts they sit within. We invite the submission of research that addresses and investigates the various benefits that increased nature in cities might bring such as: increased biodiversity health and habitat restoration; nature-integrated climate change adaptation, resilience, and mitigation; and increased human individual and cultural wellbeing. These topics may be examined through science and technical engineering approaches, design-led socio-cultural processes, planning and policy strategies, sociology and psychology approaches investigating the benefits and impacts of human-nature relationships, and/or approaches employing a social-cultural-climate justice lens. Key questions underpinning these works might include: How can we create and remediate cities so they become complex self-regulating systems that produce and regenerate ecological and societal health? How can our cities and buildings be designed to evolve and become more, rather than less fit for place and purpose over time? What are the issues and challenges for urban nature? How do we plan for and recover from climate and other disaster events by working with nature? How can our cities imprint our own Pacific Australasian indigenous green/ biodiversity identity? How do we live with rather than control nature? What are the potential solutions, goals and ambitions for the future? Topics in this track may include: Biodiversity health and habitat restoration; Nature-integrated climate change adaptation, resilience, and mitigation; Nature related human wellbeing, identity, and justice

City Cultures

Gradon Diprose (MWLR), Nat Perkins - Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui (VUW), Ashraful Alam (UoO)

Cities and urban spaces are important places where people actively construct, create, reflect, and contest cultural meanings and practices. While for some, culture is understood as art galleries and museums, or reflecting certain communities traditions and heritage, here we are interested in exploring the broad ways culture is connected to, reflects, and fuels urban transformations. We invite papers that consider how cultural meanings and practices are constructed and expressed in the transitions and transformations already underway in Australasian cities, and those that are needed. This includes (but is not limited to): Contests over belonging and exclusion in Australasian cities; Material cultural shifts that point towards new and more regenerative urban practices (for example, in fashion, food, waste, and re-use initiatives); Representations of urban transformation and transition in art and design (including film, social art, public sculpture, street art, music, photography, and memorials/monuments); Shifting cultural expectations and practices in response to crisis and uncertainty (for example, Covid-19, extreme weather, flooding, heat waves, political polarisation); Indigenous cultural narratives as a driver for change linking past, present and future; Planning the creative city with urban subcultures, cultural commodification, studentification, punk subcultures, nightlife, festivals, sports, and tourism; Cultural planning and development with traditional culture, cultural heritage and assets, mega-event led urban development and regeneration; Immigrants and cultural diversity, cosmopolitanism, cultural ghettos, gateway cities and ethnoburbs, cultural integration, and planning for multiculturalism; Home culture, work from home, belonging, sense of place, gender and culture of sharing.

City Design

Matthew Bradbury (Unitec), Crystal Olin (VUW)

The compact city model – ideologically derived and widely adapted from early Western settlement patterns – has enjoyed success in contemporary urban practice and academia, particularly over the past 20 years. The characteristics of this model are a medium-to-high residential density supported by a mix of uses and transport options accessible within a 5-to-10-minute walking catchment. Recently there have been a number of challenges to such ideological dominance, three in particular. Firstly, the cultural appropriateness of an Anglo-centric model for contemporary Australasian society is being challenged. Secondly, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated two significant social trends: the desertion of the office for working at home and the death of conventional retail. Thirdly, the impact of climate change is challenging assumptions and norms about how we design and build resilience into our cities. This last point has been brought home recently with urban flooding in Australia, and Cyclone Gabrielle wreaking havoc across the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand on the heels of already devastating floods in Tāmaki Makaurau. Given these challenges, we are interested in explorations and critiques of contemporary urban design approaches in relation to issues of social or cultural inequity and injustice. We are especially interested in papers from Indigenous scholars that explore culturally appropriate city design in Australasia. We are also interested in explorations of how urban form can respond to changing lifestyle patterns and preferences that are emerging from the pandemic and related social trends. In light of recent events, we are particularly interested in papers that explore the environmental impact of climate change on the city and speculate on what urban forms might emerge from responses to this impact, as well as papers that present evidence to inform current or future development projects that deal with urban flooding. Of further interest is scholars exploring historical research on alternative city design models that have sought to be greener or more open – such as the Garden City, the modernist tower in the park, or post-war new towns in Scandinavia and England – in relation to the compact city model and contemporary urban design approaches. In short, how can city design address the challenges of social and cultural equity and justice, post-pandemic patterns and preferences, climate change and resilience, and what can we learn from historical attempts to create alternative urban environments?

Reckoning with Settler Colonial Cities

Hannah Hopewell (VUW), April Bennett - Tūwharetoa, Waikato, Tūhoe, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga (MU), Diane Menzies - Rongowhakaata and Aitanga-a-Mahaki (Landcult)

Kia kaha tātou i te piritahitanga. We are stronger when we are united.

This whakatauāki, suggests, while we are the remnants of colonisation, that doing the right thing requires us all to understand the issue then to unite as a pathway is to resolve the issue, Indigenous and Pākehā (others). Dee Isaacs.

Cities in settler-colonial contexts have dark histories. Colonisers enforced the idea of property and aligned socio-economic values upon Indigenous land. Customary uses and peoples were displaced to make way for urban land use and spatial organisation standards legible to settlers. If cities were to serve the settlers, city-making operationalised settler ways of being, thinking, doing and imagining as the normative substrate of living together. Although vitally important, Indigenous links to their lands, and values of well-being and identity, and the integration of land and people, were hard to maintain. Indigenous traditional owners, settlers and recent arrivals must now address pressing urban issues: spatial inequality, energy access, loneliness, waterway pollution, wealth inequality, biodiversity loss and climate change implications. Local government in Aotearoa New Zealand is aiming to develop a more ‘community-focussed, citizen-centred governance system’, yet how might this play out when prevailing social narratives advance the view that difficult colonial histories are transcended, and settler-Indigenous relations now operate as an equitable partnership? How might understanding the city through settler-colonialism, ‘as not an historical event tucked safely away in the past but rather a constantly evolving structure that seeks allies in modern economies’ (Glenn, 2015) offer means to reveal land-people relationships? This session seeks the sharing of critique and ideas for a just future which serves diverse peoples while better caring for Mother Earth. How can we change trajectories from the dark colonial foundations still felt by Indigenous, to create a home in which all can thrive, where our Indigenous voices are heard, where urban wellbeing is given priority, and all belong. Topics might include: Activist histories or acts of resistance in place making; Projects that demonstrate mana-enhancing partnership or co-governance; How might Treaty people/ tangata Tiriti identity/Country impact city-making practices?; Stories of reconciled urban land, eg papakāinga; Lived experiences and performative accounts of city conditions and/or Country; Critique of place-making practices through the complicating power dynamic of settler colonialism and/or whiteness. To this end we welcome scholarship and creative practices from a broad range of situated approaches to knowing and knowledge creation.

Combine SOAC 2023 with a second conference on cities at Waipapa Taumata Rau / the University of Auckland

Researchers presenting at SOAC 2023 may like to consider also participating in a slightly earlier interdisciplinary conference, 30 November-2 December 2023, hosted by the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Waipapa Taumata Rau / the University of Auckland. Ten broad focus areas address the theme 'Re-imagining the City: Legacies, Challenges, Possibilities' under the umbrella of Cultures, Communication, Communities.

Details are here: www.ccc.ac.nz

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Events

Besides 3 days of keynote and delegate presentations on cutting-edge urban research, the programme will include wānanga (co-design workshop) sessions curated to enable discussion and debate between researchers, policy makers and practitioners; a conference dinner; urban field trips and evening events open to the public.

Pre-conference field trips (Dec 5 afternoon)

We are organising local field trips around Wellington City, which will provide exciting opportunities to learn about and discuss current debates in line with the 9 conference track themes. Please see the ‘Field trips’ section of the conference website for more information.

Pre-conference networking event (Dec 5 evening)

All conference participants are nvited to a networking event preceding the conference on Dec 5 at the Architecture Campus of Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka on Vivian Street. This event will be free of charge and an excellent opportunity for everyone to socialise and meet people in an informal space before the official start of the conference the next day. Collect your conference registration badge at the registration desk from 5pm, the event will start at 5.30pm, finishing at 6.30pm.

Public panel discussion (Dec 6 evening)

On the first evening of the official conference, conference delegates are invited to attend a public panel discussion hosted in the city: From Pōneke to the Pacific: The future of cities in our region

After the first SOAC 2023 day, come down to the City Gallery Te Whare Toi to listen in on a panel discussion with local community experts and politicians. Chaired by Hannah Hopewell, VUW Wellington School of Architecture, the panel will debate some of the pressing issues of Wellington City and connect with conference discussions from day 1. The panel discussion starts at 6.30pm, some refreshments will be provided. Spaces are limited so please book your free online ticket in advance via this link. A live-stream option will also be available. This event is organised and sponsored by NZIA, in collaboration with SOAC 2023.

Panel speakers: Prof Libby Porter, RMIT, Australia; Eljyana Roach, Project Lead, Central Pacific Collective; Antonia van Sitter, (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whakaue, Pākehā) Final year architecture student at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University; Nicole Thompson, Principal Landscape Architect, Wraight + Associates Ltd Click here for more information

Canape-syle conference dinner Dec 7, 6.30 - 9pm (doors open 6pm)

On day 2, we will continue our conversations over some delicious kai (food) and drinks at Wharewaka, which is considered the local marae and is located at Pōneke’s waterfront - only a short walk downhill from the conference venue. Everyone who registered for the conference is welcome to join us for this canape-style event (included in in-person conference ticket). More information on Wharewaka and the building of Te Raukura, Te Wharewaka o Pōneke. The Peter Harrison awards will be announced during the conference dinner.

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Peter Harrison Prizes and UPR special issue

Peter Harrison Memorial Prizes

The Peter Harrison Prizes are awarded at each SOAC conference. The purpose of the Prizes is to encourage and recognise outstanding research and scholarship in Australasian urban studies, and specifically for work that advances knowledge and capacity for the ecologically sustainable development of Australasian cities and regions.

There are two prizes awarded which are selected from written papers accepted for presentation at the biennial State of Australasian Cities Conference (SOAC).

Prize One (Open Category). A paper by an established researcher, or team of researchers, which is judged to make a distinctive contribution to knowledge and capacity for the sustainable development of Australasian cities and regions.

Prize Two (PhD Scholar Category). A sole-authored paper by a researcher who was, at the time of paper submission, a PhD student enrolled or awaiting award of a PhD at an Australasian university, which is judged to make a distinctive contribution to knowledge and capacity for the sustainable development of Australasian cities and regions.

In 2023, each Prize will consist of a Certificate and the sum of AUD$1500. In the case of joint authorship, the Open Category Prize will be shared. The Prizes are enabled by the endowed Peter Harrison Memorial Fund of The Australian National University’s Endowment for Excellence.

To be considered for this award you must send a written research paper discussing your SOAC presentation in more depth. This should be around 5,000 words in length, use the template below and uploaded on the link on this page by the 31st October 2023 . Winners will be announced at the conference.

Submission template

· Title (in sentence case preferably) · Author name(s) (Firstname Surname separated) · Authors’ employing institutions · Abstract (150 words) · Keywords (up to five) · SOAC Track · Word Count · Introduction · Materials and methods · Results · Discussion · Acknowledgements · References

More information on the award is on the PDF guidelines

You can submit your 5,000 word article by 31st October following this link: link to submission form

Special Issue in Urban Policy and Research

We are delighted to announce that the journal Urban Policy and Research have teamed up with the conference to offer a Special Issue based on the papers submitted to SOAC 2023. The Special Issue will be guest edited by the co-chairs and feature full papers that reflect the diversity of participants and conform with the usual journal submission style.

To have your paper considered for the Special Issue, you will need to enter your paper to one of the two Peter Harrison Award categories and so is open to PhD scholars and more established researchers. We will select our range of papers from these submissions and contact potential authors to see if this is something they would like to pursue.

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Field trips

Dec 5 2023 (afternoon)

Pre-conference field trips

On Tuesday December 5, conference participants will have the opportunity to explore Wellington and engage in conversations about key contemporary urban debates.

The call for field trip proposals is currently open. We are pleased to already be able to announce the following field trips. What this space, there are more to come. Registration for field trips will open closer to the conference.

Wellington on the wild side

Wellington is a rare city in that its biodiversity in many respects is increasing rather than the reverse which is more common. Its Living City Plan has as goal one to remain ‘a liveable and biophilic city and to grow and enjoy Wellington’s natural capital’ helped by the natural advantages of steep topography, a town belt and a wide diversity of habitats. In addition, it has a council and residents committed to preserving and enhancing its biodiversity. Already 700,00 trees and plants have been planted and reintroductions of a number of species missing from the city for a century or more including kiwi and kaka (a wonderful native parrot - you should see on the trip). The field trip takes you from the sea through the steep Ngaio Gorge to [Otari Wilton’s Bush](https://wellingtongardens.nz/our-gardens/otari-wiltons-bush/) with 100 hectares of primarily native forest and 5 hectares of plant collections. Then to Aro Valley, adjoining the CBD, where a short walk allows you to experience the steep steps and paths dotted with old and sometimes precarious homes that provide city access and the green backdrop for Wellington’s human and wilder residents. The trip ends at Zealandia ecosanctuary whose 225 hectares are being returned to a pre-human state within the first fully fenced ecosanctuary in the world. If you want to see and experience the city of Wellington and its wildlife please sign up.

Logistics: leave the city at 1.00 return from Zealandia at 4.30; available at Otari-Wiltons Bush (30 mins), Aro Valley (15 mins) and Zealandia 1-hour self-guided. Options for Otari-Wilton and Zealandia available for those not walking; there will be a small cost to pay for the bus and entry into Zealandia (around $20 entry fee); To Bring: cash for the bus, wet and windy weather gear, walking shoes, snacks - but a there is a café at Zealandia.

Organised by Claire Freeman (VUW) and Paul Blaschke (Blaschke and Rutherford)

Wellington tree walks - participatory field trip

While urban trees provide important ecological and cultural functions in urban spaces, they are often under-valued and stressed. In this participatory research field trip you will go on a curated walk in either Wellington’s central city, or the Botanic Gardens. You will learn about the history of specific trees and their management practices, and be invited to respond to questions about the trees. This participatory social research is part of a larger research project on remote sensing and tree modelling with data science.

Two routes you can choose from: Harbour and CBD street trees, or the Botanic Gardens.

Logistics: Field trip duration: 2 hours, start at about 3pm at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research Office 17 Whitmore Street (CBD), end at Architecture Campus on Vivian street in time for the pre-conference networking event; Accessibility: A good level of fitness and mobility is required (particularly for the Botanic Gardens tree walk); What you need to bring: Raincoat, smart phone, comfortable footwear

Organised by Peter Edwards and Gradon Diprose (Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research)

Paneke Pōneke – bike tour of the new transitional bike lanes

The tour will focus on some of the new bike, bus and pedestrian improvements delivered in the city over the last few years and include some scenic coastal sections and a stop at the city’s Botanic Garden. Depending on the weather, it’ll either be a beautiful cruise or a wild adventure.

Logistics: 2:00—5:00pm: Meet at ‘Switched On Bikes’ – Queens Wharf, Wellington Waterfront; Tour ends at ‘Switched On Bikes’ (with time for participants to walk to VUW School of Architecture on Vivian Street for 5:30pm function); cost: $40 per person (bike and helmet rental included)

Organised by Claire Pascoe, Wellington City Council

Urban Wellington walking tour

This walk considers Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and how the city has transformed, while still embracing the identity of place. It will consider Wellington in its role as capital of Aotearoa, and contrasts that with how local communities champion transformation that enshrines the identity of the Waterfront as an important public place in the city.

Logistics: Field trip duration: 3 hours, meet at Parliament House (immediately in front of building, near Richard Seddon Statue), end at VUW School of Architecture (139 Vivian street) in time for the pre-conference networking event

Organised by Gerald Blunt (Principal Advisor Urban Design, Wellington City Council)

Wellington walking tour

Beneath the paved streets of Wellington lies a network of once flourishing streams incarcerated in concrete. Once a vital ecological connection between forested hills that define the cities backdrop and Te Whanganui a Tara – The Great Harbour of Tara these streams were, and still are, the veins of our city. Freshwater was the catalyst for early Māori communities and later drew European colonisers who saw the value of these freshwater streams for drinking water, drainage of waste and convenient valleys to build roads. As the city grew a systematic processes of piping these waterways buried them deep beneath the city to the point that sadly now approximately 85% of our urban streams no longer see the light of day. But ecosystems can be resilient and these piped streams still provide pathways for a range of our unique and endemic indigenous fish species as they seek out the forested headwaters and move to the coastal waters as part of their lifecycle.

Meet at the waterfront (jumping platform near Te Papa) and go on a 2.5 hours walking tour, ending at the VUW Architecture Campus in time for the pre-conference icebreaker event.

Organised by Stu Farrant. Stu is an ecological engineer with a passion for urban water and the need to respect and reflect them in our future cities. If we are serious about the need to respect cultural values and aspirations, support the health and wellbeing of communities and protect our unique urban ecology we need to change the way we interact with our urban streams with the first step being awareness. Join Stu on a meander through the streets of the inner city suburb of Te Aro as we follow the alignment of the Waimapihi Stream from its hidden outfall into the harbour upstream to the bush clad hills above Aro Valley. Reflecting on the opportunities and challenges with re-imagining a city which exists alongside a thriving urban waterway, rather than hiding it as a dirty secret below a concrete jungle, the walk will be informative, interactive and hopefully interesting.

Self-directed field trip to explore the highlights of Wellington CBD

For those interested in exploring Wellington on their own, we’ve put together a map of some of the sites of interest

download the brief guide here

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