Fresh Air and Sunshine: The Health Aspects of Sleepouts, Sunrooms, and Sundecks in South Australian Architecture of the 1930s

This paper examines the development of infrastructures for outdoor advertising and debates over visual ‘oversaturation’ in the built environment. It begins with the boom in posters that came in the 19th century with a plethora of new manufactured goods and the attempts by civic officials to create structures that would extend cities’ available surface area for the placement of ads. It then charts the rise of building-top ‘sky signs,’ articulated billboards, kiosks, and digital media facades while detailing the policy initiatives meant to regulate these ad surfaces. This work builds on ongoing research into the development of signage technologies in Sydney and Melbourne, the measurement and regulation of ‘visual pollution’, and the promotion of entertainment and nightlife in precincts defined by neon and historic signage.