AIA 105 Visions of Australians: Time and Space from 1700-2010

Assignment 2: Home and Social Environment Field Report

Due Week 6 Monday August 25th at 11.59pm; On-Line submission only
Length: 750 words or equivalent visual and graphical materials
Weighting: 25%

In this exercise students are to systematically examine their home and household and its surrounding
social and geographical environment and connect them to major themes of the unit such as the
vision around the working mans paradise, suburban dream, affluence, baby boomers, progress, the
long boometc
Students should first detail the nature of their house and household (graphically or in words) and then
research their surrounding environments and then finally assess how how typical or different their
own home and household is.

Section 1 (100 words): House design and era:
You should draw or otherwise illustrate the floor plan of your own home/dwelling. This should also
include open spaces at the front and rear of the dwelling.
You should research the history of your home, in particular when it was built (approximately) and try
and determine its style. This can be done via documents, observations or through interviews.
Using the information in Topic 7 on house facades and floor plans you should describe both your house
plan and the era in which it was primarily built (and here the front or faade may be built at a very
different time to the interior of the house which may have been changed a lot over time).
Such information can be presented graphically and photographically as well as in words.

Section 2: Household composition (100 words):
You should indicate who exactly lives in your household, including :
o The number of people, their ages and genders
o Their education, employment and industry where they work
o Social background, which can include ethnicity and religion
o Car ownership and use as well as public transport usage
What might be interesting is to compare this with information you may have about who used to live
in this house. This is not required but if you can access it, then you can comment on any changes in
household structure over time.
Section 3: How typical is the house and its household? (200 words)
You should now compare your house and household with its neighbours the immediate
neighbourhood in relation to the actual house (in terms of size, year of construction, style, garden
etc). Again this can be photographic as well as involve writing.
Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (available on line at abs.gov.au) information on your area
and that could be your postcode, local government area, Census Collectors District (CCD) compare
your household to this larger area, noting any significant differences or similarities between the two.
It is best to access what is called a Community Profile (and this can be small or an extended version,
the short abridged version is adequate here) as these contain huge amounts of information about
your area that you can compare your household to.
The comparison and assessment of how typical or different your household and house is from its
neighbourhood (CCD), suburb (via postcodes) or local government area can be presented graphically,
in a table or in words.

Section 4: Relationship to unit themes (350 words):
Think about how your house and its household fits into some of the major themes of the unit.
Is your house an expression of the suburban dream? Or part of the bush myth? Is your household in
some way representative of the manufacturing history of Geelong, for example, or is its composition
and expression of the baby boom, the long boom or a globalised economy more connected to
services? If there an ethnic mix that reflects post-war migration? Does your household embrace the
car and consumer culture? In what ways? Or does it engage with sustainability and environmentalism?
You can also draw on other themes in this section to capture your house and its household and the
visions of Australia that it expresses.

Useful References
Boyd, R. 1951, Australias Home: Why Australians Built the way they did Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Dovey, Kim 1994, Dreams on display: Suburban ideology in the model home: in S. Ferber, C. Healy and
C McAuliffe (eds) Beasts of Suburbia: Reinterpreting cultures in Australian suburbs (Melbourne,
Melbourne University Press) pp. 127-147.
Fiske, J, Hodge, R. Turner, G. 1987 Myths of Oz. Reading Australian popular culture North Sydney: Allen
and Unwin.
Huxley, M. 1994, Space, knowledge, power and gender, in L. Johnson (Ed.) Suburban dreaming: An
interdisciplinary approach to Australian cities Geelong: Deakin University Press, pp. 181-192.
Johnson, L.C. 1993, Text-ured brick: Speculations on the cultural production of domestic space,
Australian Geographical Studies 31 (2) October, pp.201-213.
Johnson, L.C. 2006, Style wars: Revolution in the suburbs? Australian Geographer 37 (2), 259-277.
Marking Criteria
Criteria High Distinction Distinction Credit Pass
Fail and Needs
Significant
Improvement
Address the question
Knowledge of topic
Question is well and
fully addressed with
significant depth and
insights.

Question is well
and fully
addressed with
some depth and
insights.

Question is well
addressed in all
parts. Clear
understanding of
topic

Question is
adequately
addressed in all
parts. Adequate
knowledge of
topic
Assignment
question is not fully
addressed.
Inadequate
knowledge of topic

Critical thinking and
problem solving via
research

Good number of quality
references critically and
creatively engaged with
and used.

Good number of
quality references
critically engaged
with and used.

Good number of
quality references
used.

Adequate
number of
quality
references used.
Inadequate number
of good references
Assignment Structure

Assignment is extremely
well structured with
clear logic to each
paragraph with each
logically sequenced .
There is also an
excellent summative
conclusion.

Assignment is
very well
structured, a
logical
sequencing of
paragraphs and a
very good
conclusion.
Assignment is well
structured with
a clear, sequencing
of paragraphs and
solid conclusion.

The assignment
has an adequate
structure with
logical
sequencing of
paragraphs and
conclusion.

The assignment is
poorly structured
without a
sequencing of points
and inadequate .
conclusion.
Assignment Writing

Assignment has
excellent grammar with
accurate spelling and
exceptional expression.


Assignment has
good grammar
with accurate
spelling and
eloquent
expression.

Assignment has
good grammar with
accurate spelling
and reasonable
expression.


Assignment is
grammatical
with accurate
spelling and
reasonable
expression.

Assignment is not
well written with
poor grammar and
spelling.

Presentation and
Referencing


Exceptional
presentation with
accurate referencing of
high quality sources.


High quality
presentation with
accurate
referencing.


Quality
presentation with
accurate
referencing.


Adequate
presentation and
clear
referencing.

Poor presentation.
Inaccurate
referencing.
Overall Score Level 5 Level 4 Level 3 Level 2 Level 1