News - What's Happening in ABP
International Conference on Women’s Safety: Building Inclusive Cities: Conference highlights
Highlights of The Third International Conference on Women’s Safety: Building Inclusive Cities held in New Delhi, India last November – an event which Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman helped to coordinate – are profiled on YouTube. The conference brought together 290 people working to enhance women’s safety and equality in urban environments. This important event stimulated debate and discussions on the diverse needs and concerns of women and girls in building inclusive and safer communities.
View YouTube film
Professor Philip Goad talks heritage, architecture and photography
Professor Philip Goad, Director of the Melbourne School of Architecture, was involved in various architecture related events around Melbourne in July. He hosted the second event in the 2011 MSD Director's Series at Villa Alba in Kew on 26 July. The MSD Director’s Series is one more forum where we explore and connect over the subject of design and architecture and features talks by some of Australia’s most creative thinkers and practitioners. ABP alumnus Peter Lovell was keynote speaker at the Villa Alba event and presented an intriguing talk on Heritage and Development: Second Rate Outcomes for Second Rate Buildings?
Professor Goad was a session panellist on 28 July for The photographer and the architect: a creative interaction – an event related to the exhibition As Modern as Tomorrow: Photographers in postwar Melbourneat the State Library of Victoria. The exhibition, featuring work by Helmut Newton, Athol Shmith and Wolfgang Sievers, showcases striking commercial photography from the Library's collection and provdies a unique insight into the changing social fabric of mid-20th century Melbourne. Other panellists involved in the panel discussion included photographer and ABP alumnus John Gollings and architect Vanessa Bird.
Finally, as part of popular Melbourne Open House event, Professor Goad joined broadcaster Alan Saunders (‘By Design’, ABC Radio National) on the City Circle Tram to talk about Melbourne's iconic and spectacular architectural landmarks. Other guests who hopped on the tram to speak included Peter Maddison (Grand Designs Australia, ABC TV), Rob Adams (MCC) and Victoria Thornton (founder of London Open House).
MSD students explore the housing and human settlement needs of Kiribati residents
University of Melbourne students will gain valuable experience in urban design, planning and architecture as part of a unique travelling design studio to the Central Pacific island of Kiribati.View Story
Dr Robert Crawford's study reveals inner city housing more energy efficient than 7 star suburban homes
Houses on Melbourne’s suburban fringe are responsible for drastically higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions compared to higher density housing or apartments in the inner city according to a new University of Melbourne study. View Story
Architect Gregory Burgess receives Order of Australia
ABP alumnus Gregory Burgess was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to architecture in the area of environmentally sensitive building design and to the community, announced in the Queen Birthday 2011 Honours List this week. View Story
Indigenous Community Development in the Pilbara: Gumala 0-5 studio
As part of its ongoing commitment to community development, the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning is working together with the Gumala Aboriginal Corporation to design and deliver an Early Childhood Education Centre in the Wakathuni community, in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. View Story
Architecture on Film
On 25 March 2011, the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning presented a unique cinematic event – a screening of short films by University of Melbourne architecture students from the 1950s and 1960s. The event showcased this collection of rare films, created by some of Australia's foremost architects and designers from this 'golden era'. Identities such as Robin Boyd, John Gollings, Dimity Reed and John Denton, as well as Melbourne architectural landmarks, were captured in these films in a period before the extensive urban transformations of the 1970s. View Story
Changing Cities: Martha Fajardo in Melbourne
Leading Colombian landscape architect Martha Fajardo gave an intriguing lecture on May 10 to an audience of 400 in her MSD Dean's Lecture entitled 'Changing Cities: Landscape as an integrated perspective'. Martha is CEO of Grupo Verde Ltda, a firm dedicated to the professional practice of landscape architecture, landscape urbanism and urban design, based in Latin America. View Story
The Faculty was profiled extensively in ‘Voice’ in The Age, Monday 14 February:
- The success of the BEnvs program and our broader international partnerships, including the recent Australian Space, Environment and Identity program, is the cover story.
- Melbourne's Research Mentoring Program, featuring an interview with Associate Professor Julie Willis, is profiled in Uncovering the BIG ideas.
- Bachelor of Environment student Edward Couper and his success at being shortlisted in the Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence is profiled in Architecture as social art.
VEIL gets animated at Fed Square
On a balmy Sunday night in January, as a huge crowd at Federation Square to watch the Australian Open tennis finals on the ‘big screen’, they were reminded in the ad breaks of the significant research being developed by the University of Melbourne through the screening of short films produced by the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL). View Story
ABP Dean participates in ‘G’Day USA – Australia Week’
Professor Thomas Kvan, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, has been in the USA this January to participate in the Australia-US Dialogue on Sustainable Cities event, part of the high profile ‘G’Day USA - Australia Week’. ‘G’Day USA’ is an exciting annual initiative designed to showcase Australian business capabilities in the USA - Australia's largest trading and investment partner. Essentially, it is about strengthening the key relationship between Australia and the USA in business, innovation and culture. Since its launch seven years ago, the ‘G’Day USA’ program has brought together industry leaders in government, business, tourism, the arts and academia to enhance the Australia-United States relationship and build strong connections. Over 30 events - from conferences and forums, to networking and product samplings - were scheduled in eight cities across the USA from 15 to 29 January, 2011. View Story
Digital design takes to the beach
Thirty-five students engaged in a summer workshop run by ABP’s Ex-Lab (The Experimental Design Lab) will construct an intriguing public installation on St Kilda beach, as part of the 2011 St Kilda Festival. The installation will be the creative result of a ‘Digital Design and Fabrication’ workshop – an intensive 4-week course which introduces students to advanced digital modeling and parametric design software with a focus on producing physical objects through different digital fabrication methods. View Story
The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric examines one of the most compact cities and sustainable cities in the world. Hong Kong’s irregular coastline and steep terrain has resulted in built-up areas that are compact, rich in spatial experience, close to hills and water and connected by an exceptional public transport system. The three authors – the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning’s Associate Professors of Urban Design Barrie Shelton and Justyna Karakiewicz and Dean, Professor Thomas Kvan - see value in these conditions: a metropolis with a small urban footprint, 90 per cent use of public transport for vehicular journeys and promixity to nature. View Story
Headspace enters the Melbourne Design Awards 2011
ABP’s innovative Headspace project, coordinated by digital technology expert Dr Stanislav Roudavski, has been entered into the 2010 Melbourne Design Awards (MDA). An initiative of the Design Institute of Australia and A Thinking Company, the Melbourne Design Awards celebrate the impact and role of design in our contemporary world. As well as profiling exceptional design, the Awards are a forum for design conversations involving not just designers, but anyone with an opinion about good design. View Story
Community: Building the Modern Australia
ABP’s Hannah Lewi and David Nichols will launch their new book Community: Building the Modern Australia on the green astro turf of the Thornbury Bowling Club on 15 December 2010. It is a fitting location for a book that surveys the unique place municipal buildings occupy in the life of Australian communities.