Network Expertise

The HOME Research Hub is made up of 30 Deakin researchers from across seven disciplinary schools. We apply a broad range of expertise to help understand and tackle “wicked” housing and social problems.

HOME’s in-house expertise spans the following areas:

built environment, architecture, universal design, sustainability, urban planning
health, mental health, disability, Indigenous communities, ageing, occupational therapy
law, business, economics, statistics, property, strata title
social sciences, humanities, human geography, anthropology
housing, homelessness, social inclusion, place-making
creative arts, communications, community engagement
action research, systems thinking, co-design, data collection and analysis
project management, philanthropy, fundraising, program evaluation

Leadership and governance

An eleven-member Steering Committee, including four core leaders representing each Faculty, leads the strategic development, governance and monitoring of HOME’s research program. The Steering Committee is supported by an Advisory Board, made up of external stakeholders with specific expertise, who offer input and advice.

Core leaders

Associate Professor Richard Tucker (Science, Engineering, and the Built Environment)

Professor Richard Tucker has published close to 100 outputs on: sustainable design, urban design, the pedagogy of architectural design, the impact of sustainable design on children’s environmental behaviours, and the relationship between health and the built environment. His work has involved substantial competitive grant-funded projects (15 investigations, funded for over $2 million) including nine as project leader. He was Associate Head of Research in Architecture and Built Environment for six years. His teaching innovation, which is closely aligned with his research, was recognised in 2011 when he became only the second academic in the discipline of Architecture to be awarded the prestigious Australian Learning and Teaching Council Award for Teaching Excellence.

Relevant Publications:

Residential satisfaction in low-density Australian suburbs: the impact of social and physical context on neighbourhood contentment

Abass, Zainab Ibrahim and Tucker, Richard 2018, Residential satisfaction in low-density Australian suburbs: the impact of social and physical context on neighbourhood contentment, Journal of environmental psychology, vol. 56, pp. 36-45, doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.02.005.http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30106960

White picket fences & other features of the suburban physical environment: correlates of neighbourhood attachment in 3 Australian low-density suburbs

Abass, Zainab and Tucker, Richard 2018, White picket fences & other features of the suburban physical environment: correlates of neighbourhood attachment in 3 Australian low-density suburbs, Landscape and Urban Planning, vol. 170, pp. 231-240, doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.10.004.http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30104757

Evaluating universal design in built environments – a scoping project

Watchorn, Valerie, Grant, Cathryn, Tucker, Richard, Hitch, Danielle, Frawley, Patricia, Ang, Susan, Aedy, Kathryn and Gohil, Apeksha 2018, Evaluating universal design in built environments – a scoping project, in UDHEIT2018 : Transforming our World Through Design, Diversity and Education : Proceedings of the Universal Design and Higher Education in Transformation Congress, IOS Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pp. 689-695, doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-923-2-689.http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30115036

Dr Fiona Andrews (Health)

Fiona Andrews, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University, School of Health and Social Development, Co-Leader of the Deakin Research Hub HOME, and a member of the Centre for Health through Action on Social Exclusion (CHASE). She has research interests and publications on the relationship between neighbourhoods, housing, health and families, with a particular focus on parents of preschool-aged children. She lectures on healthy cities; family health and well-being; health, place and planning.

Relevant Publications:

High-rise parenting: experiences of parents raising young children in private, high density housing in inner city Melbourne

Andrews, Fiona, Warner, Elyse and Robson, Belinda 2018, High-rise parenting: experiences of parents raising young children in private, high density housing in inner city Melbourne, Cities & health, doi: 10.1080/23748834.2018.1483711. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30112509

“A tapestry without instructions.” Lived experiences of community in an outer suburb of Melbourne, Australia

Andrews, Fiona J., Johnson, Louise and Warner, Elyse 2018, “A tapestry without instructions.” Lived experiences of community in an outer suburb of Melbourne, Australia, Journal of urbanism, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 257-276, doi: 10.1080/17549175.2017.1363077. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30102508

Mothers’ ideals and experiences of raising children in inner and outer suburban Melbourne, Australia

Andrews, Fiona, Shelley, Julia, Rich, Stephanie and James, Alexandra 2018, Mothers’ ideals and experiences of raising children in inner and outer suburban Melbourne, Australia, Community, work and family, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 17-32, doi: 10.1080/13668803.2016.1192526. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30086598

Media Coverage:

https://theconversation.com/more-children-are-living-in-high-rise-apartments-so-designers-should-keep-them-in-mind-100756

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/high-rise-parenting-puts-kids-at-risk-20180913-p503gt.html

Honorary Professor Louise Johnson (Arts & Education)

Dr Louise Johnson is Professor in Australian Studies and Geography. She is one of four leaders of HOME, and is based in the Arts and Education Faculty. She has researched the gendered nature of suburban houses, changing manufacturing workplaces, and the dynamics of Australian regional economies. Her PhD was on the textile industry in Geelong and she has continued to research and publish on this regional centre. Major publications include Suburban Dreaming (DUP 1994), Placebound: Australian Feminist Geographies (OUP 2000), Cultural Capitals: Revaluing the Arts. Remaking Urban Spaces (Ashgate 2009) and Planning in Indigenous Australia: From Imperial Foundations to Postcolonial Futures (Taylor and Francis 2018, with Sue Jackson and Libby Porter). She is currently researching social and spatial polarisation in Geelong, affordable housing and post-colonial planning.

Relevant Publications:

Dismantling the domestic fortress

Johnson, L 2018, ‘Dismantling the domestic fortress’, Housing, theory and society, vol. 35, pp. 379– 381, doi:10.1080/14036096.2017.1362535 http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30102621

“A tapestry without instructions.” Lived experiences of community in an outer suburb of Melbourne, Australia

Andrews, F, Johnson, L & Warner,E 2018, ‘“A tapestry without instructions.” Lived experiences of community in an outer suburb of Melbourne, Australia’, Journal of Urbanism, vol. 11, pp.257–276, doi:10.1080/17549175.2017.1363077 http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30102528

The centrality of the Australian suburb: mobility challenges and responses by outer suburban residents of Melbourne

Johnson, L, Andrews, F& Warner,E 2017, ‘The centrality of the Australian suburb: mobility challenges and responses by outer suburban residents of Melbourne’, Urban Policy and Research, vol. 35, pp.409–423, doi:10.1080/08111146.2016.1221813 http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30086392

Dr Nicole Johnston (Business and Law)

Dr Nicole Johnston is an admitted Legal Practitioner currently working as a Senior Lecturer in the Deakin Business School. Nicole is a socio-legal researcher focusing on aspects of multi-owned properties (strata and community titling) including governance, conflicts of interest, legal relationships, building compliance and information disclosures. Nicole works closely with industry to develop research projects that have real-world impacts for communities living within property schemes. She is the organiser of the International Research Forum on Multi-owned Properties and Chair of the Multi-owned Properties Research Hub, a platform for researchers and industry to share research.

Researchers

Ms Susan Ang

Susan is an architect academic with over 25 years of professional experience in project initiation, coordination, negotiation of agreements, implementation, management and evaluation including leadership of multi-disciplinary and multi-national teams and substantive ground experience in community projects utilising community engagement processes. Her work is inspired by intrinsic personal transcultural heritage and identity. Susan champions socially responsive community empowered architecture and has led teaching and learning in inclusive and inter-professional design that lies at the intersection of architecture and social inclusion.

Relevant Publications:

Facilitating rural community participation in the design of an Anganwadi centre in Ajjarkad, Udupi, India

Ang, S, NR Devi & G Karunasena (2019), Facilitating rural community participation in the design of an Anganwadi centre in Ajjarkad, Udupi, India”, in W Leah Filho (ed.) Encyclopaedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, pp. 493-509.

Evaluating Universal Design in Built Environments – A Scoping Project

Watchorn, V., Grant, C., Tucker, R., Hitch, D., Frawley, P., Ang, S., Aedy, K. & Gohil, A., (2018), Evaluating Universal Design in Built Environments – A Scoping Project., Vol. 256, pp. 689-695, Studies in health technology and informatics. doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-923-2-689. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30115036

Intercultural dialogue through design (iDiDe): a model of intercultural collaboration and student engagement

Ang, S (2017), Intercultural dialogue through design (iDiDe): a model of intercultural collaboration and student engagement. In Student Engagement and Participation: concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications (Vol.1, pp 177-202). Hershey, P.A.: IGI Global. 10.4018/978-1-5225-0726-0.ch011. http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30090177

Associate Professor Patsie Frawley

Dr Patsie Frawley is the Course Director and Senior Lecturer in Deakin University’s postgraduate program in Disability and Inclusion. Patsie undertakes research on inclusion for people with disabilities in public life, access to services, in particular for women with disabilities and research and advocacy on sexuality rights for people with disabilities.

Dr David Giles

David Boarder Giles is a Lecturer in Anthropology. His ethnographic research explores cultural economies of food insecurity, waste, homelessness, and publicness in the global city.

Dr Claire Henderson-Wilson

Claire’s research investigates how homes can be connected to nature. In particular, Claire conducts mixed methods research on the health benefits of contact with nature.

Relevant Publications:

Sustainable high-rise developments : factors impacting on residents’ health and well-being

Henderson-Wilson, Claire 2010, Sustainable high-rise developments: factors impacting on residents’ health and well-being. In Abdel-Hadi, Aleya, Tolba, Mostafa K. and Soliman, Salah (ed), Environment, health, and sustainable development, Hogrefe & Huber, Toronto, Ont., pp.59-72.

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30031218?_ga=2.163157820.1613249604.1552861390-779565326.1501033493

Urbanisation, climate change and health equity: how can health promotion contribute?

Patrick, Rebecca, Noy, Sue and Henderson-Wilson, Claire 2016, Urbanisation, climate change and health equity: how can health promotion contribute?, International journal of health promotion and education, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 34-49, doi: 10.1080/14635240.2015.1057653.

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30074768?_ga=2.62484908.1613249604.1552861390-779565326.1501033493

Greening the city: the health evidence of urban nature

Townsend, Mardie and Henderson-Wilson, Claire 2017, Greening the city: the health evidence of urban nature. In de Leeuw, Evelyne and Simos, Jean (ed), Healthy cities: the theory, policy, and practice of value-based urban planning, Springer, New York, N.Y., pp.375-394, doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-6694-3_15.

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30092164?_ga=2.100253214.1613249604.1552861390-779565326.1501033493

Dr Danielle Hitch

Dr. Danielle Hitch is an occupational therapist with expertise in knowledge translation. Her research focus includes universal design, the built environment needs of people with mental health problems and social disadvantage and environments that support the capacity of all citizens to engage in personally meaningful occupation.

Honorary Professor Ursula de Jong

Associate Professor Ursula de Jong

Ms Valerie Watchorn

Valerie Watchorn is an occupational therapist with a research interest in the areas of environmental accessibility, universal design and people’s use of assistive technology.

Dr Angela Kreutz

Dr. Angela Kreutz conducts research on people-centred design and the creation of humanistic cities that provide physical and social accessibility for all ages.

Dr Justin Lawson

Dr Justin Lawson is a Lecturer in the School of Health and Social Development. With a background in rural industry, natural resource management and environmental science, he undertakes research on contact with nature in the Health Nature and Sustainability Research Group.

Dr Mirjana Lozanovska

Dr Meg Mundell

Dr Meg Mundell is a cultural geographer and novelist with a background in journalism, policy and advocacy. Her academic work focuses on place, spatial justice and narratives of homelessness. Meg runs “We Are Here”, a research project exploring understandings of place amongst people who have experienced homelessness, and is the editor of We Are Here: Stories of Home, Place and Belonging, a collection of writings by people from this diverse community (out October 2019, with Affirm Press). A former deputy editor of The Big Issue Australia, Meg has written about homelessness for The Age, The Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald; her second novel, The Trespassers (UQP), is out in August 2019. She is currently a Research Fellow in Writing and Literature, and a member of HOME’s steering committee.

Associate Professor Genevieve Pepin

Associate Professor Genevieve Pepin is an occupational therapist and the Course Director of the Bachelor of Occupational Therapy. Genevieve is interested in the relationships between mental health and ill-health, the environment (that is accessible, adapted and safe), and participation in meaningful occupations in people of all ages.

Dr Beau Beza

Beau is Associate Head of School, Teaching and Learning in the School of Architecture and Built Environment. He has years of built environment consultancy and academic experience working on a variety of projects in Australia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, The United States, Norway, México, Colombia, Nepal and Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. His research revolves around developing an understanding in how people derive meaning from the natural and built environment and realise places in these settings.

Professor Paul Sanders

Paul has a discipline background in architecture, and during the thirty-five years of his career as both a professional architect and academic has engaged deeply across many areas of the built environment and design disciplines. He has established expertise as an architect and urban designer (1988-2010) through a range of architectural, urban, and community projects and has extensive design experience through built work, as well as international design competitions.

Throughout his academic career, he has paid special attention to the needs of developing a more sustainable and socially responsive architecture. This attitude to the discipline was developed through fifteen years as an architect and academic in South Africa, and has been honed during fourteen years in Brisbane. His training was at Kingston Polytechnic, UK, where the academic currency was design quality and rigor. As such, he has accumulated rich experience of living and working in three continents. Paul’s pursuit of research is founded on his discipline expertise, and he has published in a number of international journals in the fields of architecture and urban design. His service record is evidence of his ability to impact on the wider community and, as such, he believes it imperative to embolden the current generation of students to issues of social equity.

Recently his research has been industry focused following two consecutive Innovation Connections Grants ($100,000) that investigated the Culture, Management and Design of Fulton Trotter Architects. This has subsequently led to the development and successful award of a 5-year NHMRC Ideas Grant ($1,156,152) titled An Intergenerational Learning and Living Campus: A New Model for Healthy Senior Living and Integrated School Communities across Urban and regional Australia in which Paul is a Chief Investigator.

Associate Professor Patrick West

I am a writer and academic active across the borderlines of academia and public spaces of discourse and impact and my expertise straddles creative-arts practice and various modes of academic-disciplinary and cultural theory.

Dr Elizabeth Manning

Elizabeth’s research interests are: international trade policy, public finance, choice and welfare, and the economics of disability.

Associate Professor Lukar Thornton

Dr Thornton is an Associate Professor within the Institute of Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (IPAN) at Deakin University, Australia. His training spans the disciplines of social science, geography, epidemiology, and public health. Dr Thornton currently leads a program of research exploring associations between neighbourhood environments and health behaviours with a focus on food environments and food behaviours. He has been invited to contribute to several policy-documents aimed at the development of health-promoting built environments.

Dr Qiang Li

Dr Patrick Guay

Associate Professor Adrian Lee

research interests include fintech and real estate.

Dr Jerry Liang

Jerry Liang is a Lecturer of Property and Real Estate in the Department of Finance in Deakin Business School. Jerry completed his PhD of Property from the University of Auckland in 2016. He has also completed the Certificate of Higher Education in February of 2018. His research has been published in property academic journals and conferences. Jerry’s teaching interests include Property Investment, Advanced Property Valuation, Statutory Valuation and Advanced Property Development.

Dr Ameeta Jain

Ameeta Jain is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Finance in Deakin Business School. She completed her MPhil at the Delhi School of Economics and a PhD at Federation University, Australia. She has more than 15 years of teaching experience in Economics, Property and Finance units. Her research is informed by my training in sustainability and resilience. Her research is most often multi-disciplinary and directed towards the evaluation of sustainability in all its facets including resilience and the global framework of sustainability and inclusive grassroots up development provided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In doing so her research contributes to the DBS themes “Business and Society” and to Deakin 2030 Ideas to Impact strategy through the themes of Building Safe and Secure Communities and Enabling a Sustainable World as well as the multidisciplinary vision of the Property and Real estate research hub.