Louise is a social geographer with a keen interest in apartment living and in the politics of verticality in westernised cities. Her research so far has focused on the meanings and practices of “home”, social relations across difference, emotions, belonging and socio-materialities in housing.
She is currently researching the consequences of apartment design regulations and guidelines on housing outcomes as part of ARC Linkage Project HOME, based at CUR. This project explores what “good” design means for infill multi-household developments, and analyses both apartments themselves, and the lived experience of their occupants.
Louise is also involved in several housing-policy-related projects. This includes the AHURI-funded project Building materials in a circular economy. This project is part of a larger Inquiry into housing in a circular economy, which aims at establishing an evidence base and framework to support a transition to circular economy housing in Australia.
In 2020, she participated in an AHURI-funded research project entitled: The lived experience of COVID-19: housing and household resilience. The outcomes of this research were linked to the need for better standards in high-rise living.
Louise’s doctoral degree (awarded in 2019) focused on the micro-politics of high-rise living, analysing the relationship between social class relations and housing change in Melbourne inner-suburbs using qualitative methods.
For her doctoral thesis, Louise fostered research collaboration between French and Australian geography institutes, working with Emeritus Prof. Ruth Fincher and A/Prof Ilan Wiesel at The University of Melbourne, and with Prof. Christian Montès and Prof. Manuel Appert at Université de Lyon.
Previously she participated in two other international research projects (ANR projects SKYLINE and HIGH-RISE) on the socio-political impacts of high-rise developments in Europe and South America. As part of project HEVD (Habiter Ensemble la Ville de Demain), Louise helped coordinate interdisciplinary research activities addressing the production of apartment living for better and more inclusive housing practices and urban strategies.
