Born England 1943; arrived Australia 1947, educated Melbourne Grammar School and Melbourne University; finalist, Rome Scholarship 1966; University of Melbourne Special Award 1966-1969; full-time appointment at Melbourne University from 1970. Elected to fellowship of the Australian Academy of Humanities, 1988. Part time member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Victoria, 1988-90. Visiting Scholar in Historical Archaeology and Architecture, University of Sydney 1990-1991. Participant in the Tianjin Urban Conservation Study, China, 1991-4; Honorary Research Associate in Historic & Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Sydney, 1993-7; Auckland University Foundation Fellow for 1996.

Joint recipient of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Robin Boyd Environment Award, 1973, Walter Burley Griffin Award, 1982, and merit awards 1979 and 1983; Certificate of Town Planning Achievement of the Town and Country Planning Association 1977; Royal Australian Planning Institute [Victoria] Award for Excellence, 1994; RAPI [Victoria] Honourable Mention, 1995; Royal Australian Planning Institute [National] Occasional Special Award, 1995; Member of the Order of Australia, 2002; Centenary Medal 2003; Honorary Life Member of the Comité International d'Architecture Vernaculaire, 2005.

There have been histories of the metropolitan areas as a whole and there have been studies of special areas and aspects within it but no account has been written of the heart of Melbourne. Yet this is also the heart of Victoria, and has for much of its life been the heart of Australia. It cries out for an account of what has made it culturally and physically distinctive