The urban interface between private and public space, the ways in which private plots plug into public networks, has long been recognized as a key issue in urban design theory. This paper presents a typology for the mapping and analysis of public/private interfaces. Drawing on mappings of the mixed morphology of the Australian inner-city, we develop a simple typology of five primary interface types classified according to access, setback, transparency and mode of access. From a theoretical framework of assemblage theory, the interface is construed as a socio-spatial assemblage wherein types are diagrams of connectivity that enable the creation, production and reproduction of ideas, goods, services and identities. In the second part of the paper we explore the complex dynamics of adaptation and transformation from one type to another. The paper raises questions about the methodology and ontology of micro-spatial analysis in urban research, as well as the importance of interface connections to urban production, exchange and innovation.

Research on creative clusters or milieus has established the importance of urban diversity for the embedding of concentrated creative production in certain neighbourhoods of the city-sites that are often characterized as having a creative 'buzz' or 'atmosphere'. This paper seeks to ground such a proposition empirically in characteristics of urban morphology through a study of creative clustering in Sydney and Melbourne. Relations between creative production and urban morphology are mapped and analysed at multiple scales within a framework of assemblage theory. These clusters are shown to be characterized by synergies that emerge from a multiplicity of diversities-a 'mix of mixes' that link socioeconomic , functional and morphological factors. The morphology embodies a mix of lot sizes, building ages, types, and public/private interfaces. These are linked to a multiplicity of functions (production, exchange, reproduction, recreation), firms (start-up and established), rents and people. The paper concludes with some prospects for rethinking questions of urban diversity as multiplicity.

meets powerful resident resistance to change, often in the name of 'neighbourhood character'. This conundrum is nowhere more apparent than in Melbourne where the state government's planning system seeks both to densify urban development and to protect existing 'character' . The metropolitan strategy aims to contain the city's outward expansion by identifying a growth boundary and by concentrating development in transit-oriented AbstractDuring the 1990s, urban planning in Melbourne changed from prescriptive regulation to a place-based performance framework with a focus on existing or desired 'urban character'. This paper is a case study of a contentious urban project in the innerMelbourne suburb of Fitzroy: a highly valued place characterised as an irregular and transgressive mix of differences: between building types, functions, forms, heights and people. Contrasting conceptions, experiences and constructions of 'character' are explored from the viewpoints of residents, architect/developer and the state. To what degree does the regulation of 'character' open or close the city to creative innovation? Can it become camoufl age for creative destruction? How to regulate for irregularity? The paper concludes with a discussion of theories of place (Massey vs Heidegger) and the prospects of concepts such as habitus (Bourdieu) and assemblage (Deleuze) for the interpretation of a progressive sense of place.

This article examines fundamental changes in the form and content of Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, between 1989 and 2003, which would seem to represent a radical departure from planning's `normal paradigm'. It draws on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to provide an account of these changes, showing how the planning process moved from a grounding in site, history and community, through an unbounded, ungrounded and dream-like phase of `deterritorialization', to a phase of `reterritorialization' with the production of new identities and desires. It concludes by considering what this analysis entails for understandings of urban planning practice; planning's relationship to capital and desire; the exercise of power in planning; the `discursive turn' in urban studies; and the relevance to planning of Deleuze and Guattari's privileging of `immanence' over `transcendence'.

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