MPavilion: Recent Episodes
MPavilion
Join MPavilion and a slew of design pundits and punters for a momentary detour discussing the intersections between design and the world we live in.
MPavilion is an annual Melbourne-based architecture commission hosting the best conversations, workshops and performances over the Australian spring and summer.
This in-depth discussion is a collaboration between the social enterprise consultancy Amplifier Collective and Travellers Aid, experts in delivering services to people who face travel-related challenges. The panel discussion centres around accessibility in the city and the deeper dialogue around the real challenges many in our community face navigating Melbourne, while exploring progress made and new initiatives which could help everyone to feel more at home in their hometown.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, Country is the key to identity and spirituality. It is every living thing. In these yarns with local and visiting artists, we’ll explore the meaning of every living thing and its centrality to art practice for First Nations people. Join our esteemed lineup of cultural leaders and artists including host Leila Gurruwiwi, with panellists Paula Savage, Kim Ah Sam, and Luke Currie Richardson.The two talks continue MPavilion’s long-running partnership with Agency, an organisation that acts as a catalyst for connection with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, Country is the key to identity and spirituality. It is every living thing. In these yarns with local and visiting artists, we’ll explore the meaning of every living thing and its centrality to art practice for First Nations people. Join our esteemed lineup of cultural leaders and artists including host Leila Gurruwiwi, with facilitator Mayatili Marika, and panellists Nina Fitzgerald and Shahn Stewart.The two talks continue MPavilion’s long-running partnership with Agency, an organisation that acts as a catalyst for connection with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.
Explore the pitfalls and possibilities between tech, humans, and the planet with experts David Stringer (Bloomberg), Chris Speed (RMIT), Gemma Baxter (MAVlab), Joe Glesta (Climasens), Theodore Galanos (Aurecon; Infraredcity.ai), and Vanessa Toholka (Byte Into IT). Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Learn about the secret life of ants and the art of science communication in this discussion led by Museums Victoria Research Institute expert entomologists Dr Ken Walker and Simon Hinkley, with Melbourne Museum’s Antopia exhibition producer Jillian Clark.
Tune in to BVN’s principal Bill Dowzer as he charts the evolution of their New York-born Re-ply project, followed by a discussion with Professor Kerstin Thompson (KTA), and Anna Jankovic (Simulaa), who explore how similarly responsive urban initiatives can produce tangible economic and social benefits here – and wherever cities value vibrant street life.
Listen in on this brains trust with Urban Design Forum, the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, and VicHealth to help re-centre nature and improve neighbourhood health. Public health experts Jenny Veitch (Deakin), Georgina de Beaujeu (Deakin; Tract Consulting), and Professor Hannah Badland (RMIT) present their research ahead of a long-table workshop.
Get beneath the surface of Reef Design Lab’s ecological habitats. For Every Living Thing, Reef Design Lab took to the pond to install one of their Modular Artificial Reef Structures—a tower of cascading nodules that’s designed to encourage the restoration of marine life. Tune in and hear from Alex Goad of Reef Design Lab and marine ecologist Dr Brendan Lanham as they discuss approaches to designing ecological habitats for biodiversity. Moderated by neighbourhood wildlife scientist Dr Kylie Soanes, this conversation explores the intersections of art, design, education, and sustainability—and how we can all help shape the future of superorganisms.
An interactive yarn exploring earth, sound, and touch through Indigenous design and knowledge systems.How do we engage with earth, sound, and touch to deepen our connection to the environment? In our second BLAKitecture forum, audiences gathered around Bradley Kerr (Windsor Kerr), Clarence Slockee (Gardening Australia), Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, and Kaylie Salvatori (Country Oriented Landscape Architecture) for an interactive yarn exploring sensory engagement and design grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems. Linked to the Australian Pavilion for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, this conversation considers our relationships with all living things and reflect on “home” as a convergence of memory, sensation, and future. Led by a Creative Sphere of First Nations architects and practitioners, HOME challenges conventional architectural practices and fosters deep connections through sustainable, culturally rich design and programming.
Zoom into the multifaceted roles of microbes with help from a mycologist.It’s easy to forget that billions of microbial lifeforms are living beyond sight, helping ecosystems thrive and communicate. Danish Australian artists Rhoda Ting and Mikkel Bojesen give these tiny lifeforms some overdue time in the spotlight. Their collaborative sculptural installation 'Microbial Dwellings' invited us to explore these hidden helpers around the pavilion.In this talk, mycologist Tom May from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, unpacks the secrets of what has grown and offer fascinating insights into the microbes we cohabit with. What do these tiny organisms do, and why are they so essential?
Find pressure-free ways into mindful living and life-goal kicking with Chris Cheers.What even is mindfulness? How can we find space for it in our day, rather than feel like it’s another thing we aren’t doing? This short, interactive workshop is about redefining mindfulness so it tools up your composure, rather than feeling like something you have to add.Led by Chris Cheers, a psychologist, educator and author of the best-selling book 'The New Rulebook: Notes from a psychologist to help redefine the way you live'. Chris is passionate about creating accessible, safe spaces where people become empowered to reach their life goals. He’s here to help you shake off the anxiety of obligation and start the day feeling grounded.
An interactive yarn with the creative team behind 'Home' as they prepare for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.Celebrate the opportunities of understanding and shared perspectives on what ‘home’ means with Bradley Kerr and the 2025 Creative Directors of the Venice Architecture Biennale's Australian Pavilion as they share insights on their exhibition HOME. HOME will present an immersive, culturally rich experience grounded in Indigenous Knowledge systems and architectural innovation.“HOME is a generous and timely offering to the Venice Architecture Biennale that will welcome visitors as active contributors and participants.Through design, enlivened public conversations, cultural practice and ceremony, we will facilitate a shared and collective experience that resonates with international audiences and recognises the criticality of First Nations knowledge.”- Emily McDaniel, Co-Creative Director MPavilion’s annual BLAKitecture forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. The eighth BLAKitecture series features three talks responding to our program series, curated by Bradley Kerr, a member of MPavilion’s Curatorial Collective. HOME is supported by the Australian Institute of Architects, Brickworks and Creative Australia.
A diverse, inquisitive panel of experts across design, anthropology and education asks how design can reimagine home for our aging population.Between now and 2050, Australia's elderly population is predicted to more than double, with the population over 85 set to quadruple. As we age, our requisites of the home evolve. While our need for belonging, comfort and connection is continuous, as our physical needs change, the site of our most fundamental necessities becomes more concentrated. How can we ensure that the home is not something that exacerbates, impairs, overwhelms or endangers, while still enabling our older people the autonomy and dignity of risk that isn’t always available in institutional models of care? How can good design help our older people stay for as long as possible with the greatest quality of life? What do our current urban models say about our cultural attitudes towards ageing? These are the questions are tackled by an expert panel featuring architect Ana Sá, landscape architect and horticultural consultant Tim Mitchell, design anthropologist Miguel Gomez Hernandez, and independent living resident Maggie Moran, guided by moderator Emily Wong (Landscape Architecture Australia) through a free flow of ideas and audience Q&A. This definition of ‘home’ blends physical, emotional, aesthetic, and social elements into a cohesive whole. They consider the role that design can play – from garden design to smart technology, to architecture and spatial design – in shaping the home as we age. It’s a curious, wide-ranging social and architectural critique that looks to a future where design can help radically improve the wellbeing of our older people. Which, after all, is something we all want to be able to look forward to.
A thought-provoking talk that sees heritage from new, open-ended angles.Questions of heritage can be fraught. This event takes a wide-ranging, laser-mapped view, led by Belgrade-born architect, researcher and curator Milica Božić. This talk focuses on the intertwined First Nations, colonial, and natural heritage embedded in Queen Victoria Gardens. The discussion features heritage experts from different backgrounds, bringing together Western and Indigenous architectural and cultural perspectives—allowing alternate forms of heritage to emerge.
A pond-side podcast about biracial belonging in the arts, recorded live.Maria Birch-Morunga is a Māori/Pakehā facilitator and craft queen. Kate Robinson is an Iranian/Australian family violence lawyer and artist. Together, they’re two biracial women who are endlessly fascinated by the juggling of cultures, identities, and family gossip that can come with being mixed-race. Their podcast Being Biracial is filled with heartfelt and funny interviews with guests discussing the dualities of living across multiple cultures. And now they’re bringing the pod to MPavilion for a special live recording. Joining them for a chat is MPavilion Season 11 collaborator Joel Bray, a proud Wiradjuri dancer and performance-maker, and Scotty So, a Melbourne/Narrm-based artist who works across media, including ceramic, painting, photography, sculptures, site-responsive installation, videos, and performance.As the Artistic Director of Joel Bray Dance, Joel Bray makes his work in collaboration with Elders, Community and Country, often in unorthodox spaces that draw on his Wiradjuri heritage. Using humour, Joel engages audiences in rituals that touch on themes of sex, history, trauma, and healing. Driven by the thrill of camp, Scotty So explores the often-contradictory relationship between humour and sincerity, creating a scene of para-fiction through the manipulation of found objects and existing imageries in the living experience. Born and raised in Hong Kong, So’s work has been shown in Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Europe, including the National Gallery of Victoria. Scotty So is represented by MARS Gallery in Australia.This is a celebration of shared stories and a peek behind the concrete walls into the work that makes up the Home Ground program.
Country holds embedded memory and narrative of place; landscapes hold knowledge, and we know that there is an interconnectedness of Country (Sky, Land, Water, Below). This architecture of Country is how we understand place. First Peoples in the industry share a commonality in appreciating and understanding that we are always on somebody else’s Country, and the work that we do primarily revolves around shaping places. So, how do we understand and respect the Country that we’re shaping? How has the Architecture of Country shaped the built environment, and where can we head if we all take the opportunity to care?
Our everyday lives are touched by the places that surround us, affecting how we understand, interact with and feel about our cities. This session in the City of Melbourne's Excellent City Series explores how conscious design practice can facilitate connection and a sense of belonging with the built environment, in turn creating culturally safe spaces. With Emily McDaniel, Jennifer Tran, Fatuma Ndenzako and Aretha Brown
Melbourne’s water story has been irrevocably shaped by progress and the impacts of our changing climate. This session from the City of Melbourne’s Excellent City Series explores how original, creative approaches and traditional knowledge are delivering innovative outcomes for improving our urban water environment. With Kirsten Bauer, Jefa Greenaway, Luke Cunningham and Sara Lloyd
From storage to scissors, egg cups to sake cups – good design is everywhere in Japan. Sori Yanagi, Riki Watanabe, and Masahiro Mori led the postwar design boom – renowned for their technical skill, application of materials, and simple design aesthetics. They created iconic household objects for everyone’s – everyday use. Recorded live at MPavilion 10 by Tadao Ando in partnership with the Robin Boyd Foundation, this talk is hosted by Japanese guide book author Michelle Mackintosh and features Jane Sawyer, Jenna Lee and Zenta Tanaka. Together they discuss the benefits of embracing good design in daily life, what makes Japanese design iconic, and how they have embraced Japanese design and craft philosophies in their practices.Below are links to some of the objects and projects discussed in this wide-ranging conversation.The Usu-hari (thin glass) Glass https://cibi.com.au/products/usuharitumbermfortwo-1The Cibi Glass for kids + adults https://cibi.com.au/collections/drinkware/products/cibiglass1-1Everyday Takeaway Cup – collaboration between Jane Sawyer / Slow Clay Centre x Cibi https://cibi.com.au/products/cibi-everyday-takeaway-cupJenna Lee's collaboration with Kojima Shoten - https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/melbourne-now/artists/jenna-lee-and-kojima-shoten/Sori Yanagi Kettle https://cibi.com.au/collections/brands-sori-yanagi/products/kettlematte
Polyglot Theatre and guests come together for a panel discussion on the joys of engaging children and families in arts experiences that connect to nature and natural environments.From its large-scale touring theatre works to small playful interventions, Polyglot has increased its focus on the way nature and sustainability feed into the organisation and its members’ arts practice. Exploring the intersection of this mindset and the built environment allows for creative adaptations and site-specific activations.
Scent is often overlooked, yet it is an incredibly powerful tool in the context of design. In this informal discussion, our panellists discuss the science of olfaction and how it can influence our experience of space. Together, they explore some wonderful historical uses of scent, and examine how the emergence of cities created malodours that have shaped our modern-day built environments.Examining the different ways that scents can be deliberately incorporated into buildings, whether emanating from the materials used, the incorporation of plants and landscapes, or deliberate environmental scenting, this panel discussion looks at how scent intersects with history, socio-economics, and our collective memory of cities.
The way we dress is central to how we express our identity. Perhaps more than other settings, the workplace has been a site of radical cultural shifts, played out through changing dress codes.Part of the Paypal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Independent Programme, Office Wear is a panel discussion that explores the impact, interpretation and subversion of workplace fashion standards, from power dressing, to the sartorial pragmatism of Silicon Valley and the loose bounds of post-pandemic workwear.The panel is moderated by Lucianne Tonti, fashion editor of The Saturday Paper and regular contributor to The Guardian. Speakers include Naarm-based fashion designer Erik Yvon, whose work is intended for all bodies and to bring joy to the wearer; Harriette Richards, Lecturer in the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT and founder of the Critical Fashion Studies podcast; and Jane Matthew, owner and manager of Swensk.
Explore the experiences, challenges, and stories of migrant female built environment practitioners working in Australia. Through discussing the challenges they have faced and overcome, this panel fosters a deeper understanding of the obstacles that female migrant designers encounter in their professional lives as well as how it plays into their interests in the chosen field.The discussion delves into the complex interplay between design, culture, identity, and migration, considering the diverse stories, tensions, and interactions these designers and academics have within the Australian context. By inviting these culturally and linguistically diverse designers and academics to speak about their experience, this talk provides a platform for these marginalised groups to build communities and bonds.This event is an outcome of the 2023 M_Curators program, which supports young and ambitious art, design, and creative workers to gain practical experience in developing and curating public events and programs.The M_Curators program is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Country is not just a physical place, but also a spiritual and cultural one. It is the land, the water, the air, and the creatures that inhabit it. It is the place where Indigenous people have lived for thousands of years, and it is the source of their identity and connection to the world.Come hear from Indigenous architects and non-Indigenous architects who collaborate with Traditional Owners on their projects as they demonstrate how architects can incorporate Indigenous concepts and materials into their designs to create beautiful, functional, and culturally significant buildings.
Place as Protagonist explores memories and place in the city through two modes of storytelling: online map-based community engagement platform CrowdSpot, and a storytelling event that brings a mix of voices together with a prompt to share a story about a time when the city made them laugh or cry.Come along to the event and hear a mix of storytellers share their stories through a medium that speaks to them, whether that’s spoken word, song, sound or dance.
BLAKitecture for MPavilion 10 will focus on the custodial relationship to Country as a means of furthering the conversation around First Peoples rights and perspectives around the impact we have to the built environment. Waterways are living ecosystems, with rights and agency. There are existing architectural vernaculars that relate to material, climate, sun, wind, seasonality etc and the Architecture of Country is embedded with memory, with traditional knowledge and fundamentally based on Care.
The Younghusband Woolstore Redevelopment reimagines a 122-year-old redbrick wool store and adjoining network of industrial early 20th-century buildings as a new mixed-use community precinct. Hear from speakers who have worked across all angles of the project, from the architects to the art consultant, as they discuss what will be Melbourne’s largest net-zero carbon, adaptive-reuse precinct.
Join us for a panel talk, which sees international guest speakers Nashin Mahtani and Keller Easterling come together with local urban designer Bree Trevena to discuss rethinking the future of AI, for a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable society.
First Nations speakers across the fields of architecture, planning and design from Australia and around the world will contemplate the good, the bad and the ugly of the built environment in an intimate yarning circle format spearheaded by BLAKitecture founder and ex-Curator Sarah Lynn Rees.
As Australia’s housing crisis deepens, higher-density living will be a crucial part of any effective solution. Building upwards rather than outwards can be more economically and socially beneficial: it makes use of existing services and infrastructure, and helps people live closer to jobs, schools and loved ones.From the people behind Nightingale Housing, learn more about the merits and pitfalls of increasing density in urban areas, often characterised as the ‘Yes-In-My-Backyard’ (YIMBY) or ‘Not-In-My-Backyard’ (NIMBY) movements. Through the lenses of planning, design and community care, this discussion asks: how do we respect memories of place while also responding to the need for centrally-located, high-density housing?
Join MPavilion founder and commissioner Naomi Milgrom AC to discuss the process of building the structure with esteemed Australian architect Sean Godsell – Principal of Sean Godsell Architects and Executive Architect of MPavilion 10 in Australia – and the thinkers behind the construction of the pavilion, Project Manager Harry Wynn Pope and Technical Director of AECOM, Nigel Burdon.Hosted by Australian architect and presenter of Grand Designs Australia, Peter Maddison, the talk will explore the extraordinary story behind MPavilion 10. This building, designed by Tadao Ando, marks the tenth anniversary of the iconic architectural commission and is the first of its kind in Australia.
We all know green spaces are good for us, but could they offer a cure for loneliness?Tune in to this panel discussion and hear more about how our city-makers (and others) have contributed to a “lonelygenic environment” that makes connection difficult, and hear about ways that could change this.Hear from panelists like epidemiologist Thomas Astell-Burt, who shared research he co-authored with fellow epidemiologist Xiaoqi Feng—that suggests that more quality green spaces could reduce our chances of loneliness by up to a quarter. Data analyst Angela Ryan (land supply and redevelopment analyst in the Department of Transport and Planning, formerly at AURIN as a social data scientist) discussed the importance of incorporating health and spatial data when making decisions around land use and city planning.The panel was moderated by AURIN’s Lara Brown, a writer-turned-urbanist who has studied urban loneliness and its causes. She guided this panel discussion that aimed to show why the pathway to more urban togetherness should be green.
How can we collectively shift away from widespread experiences of exploitation in the architecture industry to that of a new, empowered and future-proof profession?Architecture and related design fields are professions where ‘passion’ is sometimes used to excuse an exploitative workplace culture. In light of emerging movements around the world to counter the worsening plight of architectural workers, Professional Architects Australia presented a talk between local and international practitioners, advocates and academics.Hear from a diverse selection of guest speakers about their experiences.
Tune in to hear a panel discussion with regards to speculating our shared futures, the contemplation of possible urban trajectories, and the ways that diverse and creative perspectives intersect to imagine future environments.Learn as we explored new possibilities that emerge from interdisciplinary, artistic and experimental approaches.This was the final event in The Excellent City Series, listen in for an opportunity for both individual and collective interrogation on the future of our city.Future thinkers and creative collaborators include:Jocelyn Chiew – Director of City Design, City of Melbourne [she/her]Bebe Backhouse – Head of Strategy Policy and Programs, City of Melbourne [he/him]Tegan Kop – Head of Smart City Incubator, City of Melbourne [they/them]Xan Coppinger – Musician, DJ, podcast producer and radio presenter [they/them]Bronwen Hamilton – Design Manager, City of Melbourne [she/her]The Excellent City Series:City of Melbourne’s Excellent City Series is back in 2022/23. The series explores four key themes that are shaping Design Excellence conversations in Melbourne.The City of Melbourne’s Design Excellence Program reinforces the city’s commitment to enhance the function, liveability, sustainability and public contribution of our buildings and urban spaces.
Aldo Rossi, in The Architecture of the City, describes the urban artefact as a permanence, “a past we are still experiencing.”Rossi proposes permanence’s present two aspects: “they can be considered as propelling elements or as pathological ones: artefacts that enable us to understand our city in its totality, or artefacts that appear as a series of isolated elements that we can link only tenuously to an urban system.”Tune in to a discussion that focused on our built heritage and how it can be interlinked with urban design imperatives and opportunities.Are they appropriately interlinked? If not, why not? What might it be like to have these spheres more productively entangled? What policy and other changes in approach might better enable heritage to be integral to a vital and lived future within the context of a broader urban system?Join KTA and our panelists—Christine Phillips, Dan Hill & Felicity Watson—in conversation with compere extraordinaire Stuart Harrison.Curated by Kerstin Thompson Architects. KTA is the 2022 Urban Design winner for the Melbourne Awards, proudly supported by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
What makes good architecture or a good architect? Tune in as we dove behind the scenes of the architectural profession and examined the roles and responsibilities of those who work in the field.Architecture is often judged by aesthetics, but this does not always distinguish one architect from another, nor a good one from a bad one.What does the licensure, the regulations and contractual systems that surround architecture actually cause? How do these legal mechanisms allow architects to be accountable, to have a duty to the public, and a decision-making process regardless of whether they are good or bad?Based on discussions from the RMIT Architecture ‘Professional Practice’ area of research and teaching, this discussion looked at the ethics and standards of the architecture industry and to find the ‘good’ of architecture.
Held within a 140-year-old sandstone quarry in Beech Forest within the Otway Ranges, on the traditional lands of the Gadubanud people, Quarry Pedagogies Camp brought together a community of designers and creative professionals to consider the site and its post extractive condition, rehabilitation as an expanded practice and how to foster cultures through place.This inaugural Quarry Pedagogies Camp included a program of talks, workshops, daily activities and group discussions. Participants were invited to initiate projects in response to the site and were provided time, space, materials and tools to do so. The Camp was an experiment in culture building, group work and ecologies at the edge.One month later, please tune in as we reflected through conversation about what emerged, what lessons we learnt and how we might collectively consider alternate modes of design and creative practice through sites and projects such as these.
Design thinking shapes responsive, problem-solving, entrepreneurial thinkers and doers who can rise to the challenges and opportunities of complex issues; it’s an approach that has benefits beyond creative and technology-driven disciplines.Understanding and teaching the knowledge required for design thinking is akin to learning to swim from a book. Tune in and hear from an advocacy panel of design professionals and education leaders who discussed how to better understand and teach the skills required for design thinking.Topics covered range from different pedagogical approaches to how design professionals can better connect with those delivering design curricula, and how to better support and inspire young people, including those from under-represented communities, to discover the value of good design.
In a time of radically accelerated cultural and ecological change, four emerging landscape architecture educators come together to discuss: How can learning environments cultivate the practices of students to be ethical, critical and attentive to the future?Pedagogies developed by landscape architecture educators empower and equip students to shape future landscapes that are largely invisible to the public. Tune in to a discussion with four emerging landscape architecture educators exploring creative, experimental and critical approaches to design pedagogy.‘Pedagogies for Future Practice,’ is a conversation series developed by Dr Alice Lewis and Kyle Bush of RMIT University Landscape Architecture to explore the role of landscape architectural education in shaping the profession and the landscapes it produces.
There was a time when the single-family home was the dominant form of architecture. Apartment design played a poor, compromised support act. That day is now over.New award-winning apartment buildings are grabbing front pages, and more architects are diving into the opportunity. Yet what do we really know about their quality? Are they genuinely family-friendly? Are they long-term propositions, or just a make-do until something better comes along?The answers to these questions lie in a range of unseen and little discussed design considerations. These design considerations formed the basis of the Victorian Government’s Future Homes challenge.Tune in to learn more about these homes and the many detailed—and often unseen—design considerations that make them model apartments for future living.
Tune in to a a special a special conversation with engineers and makers as they reflect on the film, Frei Otto: Spanning the Future, a documentary about the incredible life and work of Frei Otto.As an architect and engineer, he laid the foundation for contemporary lightweight architecture and his ideas are still awe-inspiring decades after he revealed them. This fact was cemented when he was named the 2015 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Circular innovation is already paving the way to better outcomes for the environment and planetary health, as brands implement circular design concepts and move from a take-make-waste linear economy towards a circular economy.Hear from a series of experts and leaders on this topic who discussed the rise of biomaterials and biophilic design, circular design principles to design out waste and pollution, and regenerative design as a business model highlighting social enterprises with a focus on people, planet and purpose.This event involved a series of lightning talks followed by breakout group activities to explore the circular design processes that take place before products reach the consumer.
Recognised as a single living entity, the Birrarung (Yarra River) has shaped and formed the landscape over millennia, unifying this landscape that we all live within. Our river lives, breathes and supports the life of the community. In return, its life has been supported by the custodianship of Traditional Owners for thousands of generations.The Birrarung is more than just water. It is the layers in the landscape that the river has formed, the soils, the trees, the plants, and the animals. It is the cultural connections, stories and layers of history that live within this landscape. It is the new stories and layers that unfold as we flow like the river through time.The land belongs to the Birrarung. From the upper reaches of the catchment, passing through forests and farmlands, to residential and industrial areas, and finally entering the bay. A landscape and waterway brimming with life from source to sea. Tune in to Alexandra Lee (Birrarung Council member) with Birrarung Council Elders including Uncle Dave Wandin (Birrarung Council member and Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder), and our Birrarung Design Studio leads Sarah Lynn Rees (Monash Uni) and Jock Gilbert (RMIT), as they explored the concept of the Great Birrarung Parkland and discuss our shared responsibility and ideas on how we can change the way we view and value our river and its lands, the Birrarung.
Tune into an evening at MPavilion that delved into the power of unseen architecture through post occupancy evaluation. What is the potential to improve or diminish lives, to create community or sow division—and the obligation of the architect, if any, to inform it?Join us SONA (Student Organised Network for Architecture) and EmAGN (Emerging Architects and Graduates Network) as we highlighted the potential lessons learned from post occupancy, under the roof of MPavilion.Explore the works of budding architecture students and graduates, and sit with us as we invite different collaborators and industry professionals in a conversation—looking at what is possible, as well as sharing with us how we can design for future communities that could remain ‘unseen’ or yet to emerge.To what extent are the responsibilities of architects addressing this topic in the current world of design?
Tune in to a conversation about colour in architecture with Matthias Sauerbruch—director of internationally recognised, Berlin-based architecture firm Sauerbruch Hutton.From their earliest projects such as the “L House” in London (1990 – 1992), to their award-winning “GSW Headquarters” in Berlin (1995 – 1999) to their more recent “M9 Museum District” in Venice-Mestre—Sauerbruch Hutton have not been shy or restrained in their use of vibrant and sophisticated colours as part of their architectural language. Their facades and interiors are often patterned, accentuated and foregrounded with variegated tones and hues. In conversation with Professor Donald Bates, hear from Matthias as he takes us through the use of one of architecture’s often under-represented qualities and attributes.This event was presented in association with ABP and the Melbourne School of Design.
Technology’s relationship to sex is complex and ever-changing. Dating apps, the pill, and digital mass porn are only a few of the technological innovations that have radically impacted our sexual lives and how we relate to each other.So, how should we design technologies related to human sexuality and intimacy? What sexual dilemmas can be solved using technology and which can’t? Why do technological solutions so often feel like a bandaid for more profound issues of connection and intimacy?Hosted by The Philosophy of Sex podcast, this conversation will explored how design impacts our most intimate moments and how technology can be designed as a catalyst for connection. To help investigate, we heard from RMIT professor and sex toy designer Judith Glover, Sex-Tech School founder Lucy Wark, and author and researcher, Jenney Kennedy
The design of memory-making experiences is often undervalued in our everyday places and cities. But as narrative environment theorist Tricia Austin says, spaces speak and spaces narrate. So how might we apply this formula to create more memorable and meaningful places and experiences in our city?Tune in to learn more about various research theories that look at how the memory of place is created and reinforced, and why it matters. Join in on a magical aural journey deep into the history of storytelling—from the shaman in the cave, to the cathedral, to the most successful places of today—and see how a narrative arc and story-in-the-making approach can be applied towards the better design and activation of places and cities.
Architecture operates within colonial systems. These systems are often at odds with caring for Country practices, genuine participatory design practices and equity of opportunity.If you trace the systems back to their core, the problem is often a misalignment in the values that govern decision making. Some work has been done to align Aboriginal and Western systems more closely, but it is by no means perfect, and we certainly aren’t done. While one might find themselves thinking ‘just burn it all down and start again’ when confronted with their scale and deeply ingrained nature… If we don’t continue evolving built environment processes, we will continue to destroy Country and impact the health and wellbeing of communities.Tune into this yarn that stepped through built environment processes and explored opportunities for how and why systems could and should change, and how everyone can play a role in effecting positive change.Listen to Sarah Lynn Rees in conversation with Sophie Patitsas, Alek Kennedy and Paul Paton.MPavilion’s sixth annual BLAKitecture forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. Blakitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
Listen to an engaging discussion that explored the relationship between design and worldview—and how they both influence, shape and transform each other.The talk delved into concepts like ontological design, eco literacy and a systems-informed view of life. It investigated how the language we use shapes our reality—which, in turn, informs the beliefs and values that make up our worldview.As part of the discussion, the panelists shared their insights and experiences, providing practical tips and tricks that we can all use in our daily lives to become more conscious of the role design plays in shaping our worldview.Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the power of design and how it can influence the way we see and interact with the world!
Renting is the fastest growing tenure in Australia, and is increasingly a way of life. Today, more than half a million households rent their homes in metropolitan Melbourne.Tune in to this interactive open mic session, where you’ll hear the stories of other Melbourne renters as they examined the past and future of renting in our big city.How do we navigate the complexities of the renting lifestyle? How do we forge meaningful connections with our neighbours and build communities of trust? These are some of the questions that were raised in this cultural, social and economic exploration of the experience of renting in the expanding metropolis.
How can we ensure the perspectives of women and gender-diverse people are factored into residential building design? Equity in gender representation is essential at all stages of the process, from the earliest architectural plans, to decorating, to engaging with communities in need of affordable housing.Tune in to hear about the important subtleties of creating spaces that improve the lives of women and girls.The panel discussion featured people working in community housing, policy and architecture, and will be moderated by a representative from Nightingale Housing.
Melbourne prides itself on its parks, gardens and waterways, but with biodiversity loss threatening our quality of life, how is the private sector stepping up to care for our natural assets?When the Global Biodiversity Framework emerged from COP15 in December 2022 it was a huge moment for nature. Business and finance had its strongest presence yet, so now is the time for leadership and Victoria—’The Garden State’—to play a unique role.Tune in to a gathering that brought together some of our cities most forward-thinking leaders and organisations, who explored how Melbourne’s business community can become more active in caring for Kulin Country.
Tune in to a keynote lecture, presented by Dr Leanne Zilka of ZILKA Studios, as she explained her research and practice on ‘Floppy Architecture’. The premise of ‘Floppy Architecture’ is focussed on light weight fabric-based structures that look at techniques embedded in fashion and textile design in order to develop novel approaches to the fabrication of architectural elements.The combination of practice and research has produced installations, architectural projects, and been published nationally and internationally, most recently in a book titled Floppy Logic by international publisher, Actar.Leanne’s specialist knowledge and approach to fabric-based structures has assisted in the realisation of both the 2018 MPavilion designed by Carme Pinos and this summer’s 2022 MPavilion designed by all(zone).
Australia prides itself on its multiculturalism, yet the diversity of culture, character and community is not often reflected in its media landscape—or felt by the many minority populations that comprise the nation’s identity.How do we change this? We know it’s a problem, but there is widespread apathy about the path to evolution.What are the steps to take to from here? How can we work together to make sure we understand systemic change?By taking stock of what we take for granted, and the inherent biases and policies that impact members of the Asian diaspora, we can look towards the policies that impact our everyday lives. And rally behind a solution.Hear from global media platform Eastern Standard Times—the voice of Asian youth—and a diverse panel of speakers, discussing how we can work together to redesign years of unseen prejudice and to ensure stories are authentically told.
Tune in to the launch event and discussion around Kummargi Yulendj (Rising Knowledge Project)—an urban adventure leading you through lost markers, with Boon Wurrung elder N’arweet Carolyn Briggs.Connections between a tree, a rock and a beach are remade through increasing awareness of the ways in which Indigenous knowledge is central to the regeneration of our natural environments. This Indigenous-led cross-cultural walking and listening experience is part of Kummargi Yulendj (Rising Knowledge Project) that weaves together Boon Wurrung knowledge on caring for Country and western tools for regenerative living and working.Beginning at the Ngargee tree, in this journey N’arweet Carolyn Briggs shares her deep knowledge of place through experiences created in collaboration with artist Jarra Karalinar Steel and musician Allara Briggs-Pattison.Listen to the people behind the project as they discussed reimagining what a mobile device can do, how speculative play design can be a mindful engagement with place, and the role of augmented reality and other creative technologies in sharing stories, knowledge and reflections on the Yalukut Weelam clan of the Boon Wurrung.
Wellness lifestyle real estate—or homes designed to build and support their residents’ health in a holistic manner—is emerging as the next frontier in housing trends. As more people question where and how they want to live, investors, developers and city-makers are awakening to a powerful opportunity to build homes and neighbourhoods that put residents’ wellness at the centre of their conception and design.Curated by Neometro, this conversation explored how our recent reshuffling of priorities has left people wanting more from their living environments.Is built-in wellness the key?
It takes a village to build a better city! Listen in to short presentations from various designers and experts who spoke about their experiences in urbanism and the future potential of their disciplines. Following this, the discussion moved onto a ‘citizen-sourced’ design workshop where people and panellists worked together to draw, model and list the future city they wish to see and why.It’s easy for individual experiences of cities to go unheard, yet people experience cities in many different ways. This event highlighted the depth and power of tapping into the collective experience of local citizens.
Tune in to a special evening at MPavilion as we brought together the brilliant minds behind the MPavilion 2022 design, fabrication and build, in conversation with the founder and commissioner of the MPavilion project Naomi Milgrom AC.Hosted by architect and Grand Designs Australia host Peter Maddison, the stellar panel lineup featured all(zone) design director Rachaporn Choochuey, architect and founder of ZILKA studios Leanne Zilka, AECOM engineer Nigel Burdon, director of TENSYS Peter Lim and Graduate Design Engineer at Oasis Tension Structures Chloe Dang.They discussed all(zone)’s design for the 9th MPavilion, their intentions behind the project, and new ideas on architecture and design!
Does collective housing deliver on its promises?Over the last ten years, collective housing through deliberative development has emerged in Melbourne as an alternative model to speculative, for-profit housing. As a model, it promises better sustainability, affordability, and social connections, but still, many discussions tend to prioritise the perspectives of architects and developers.Listen in and learn about the latest research from RMIT PlaceLab’s ‘Living Together’ Research Project and hear from residents who live in collective housing. Moderated by Rebecca Roke, it’s a chance to learn what it’s really like to share amenities and live together better.
How can we create jobs that support people of all ages?Tune into a panel discussion that considered how we can advance age equality at work. Hear the voices of young people, older people and their advocates come together to consider how we can build intergenerational fairness at work.Let's generate creative ideas that can end age discrimination and age inequality once and for all.
Since 2016, Victoria has become the “knockdown and re-build capital” of Australia, with concrete the largest contributor to construction and demolition waste. Yet most of this material is down-cycled and used as backfill; the very ubiquity of concrete allows us to undervalue it.How can we think differently about how we use and value this resource? Tune into this panel discussion between builders, artists and designers as they explored the opportunities and challenges of reusing concrete in ways other than down-cycling. Dive into the process of demolishing and recycling concrete with our speakers, who will share their cross-disciplinary knowledge and offer inspiring insights into how we can work with concrete in more creative and sensitive ways.
Conceptions of our collective relationship to the Australian landscape have undergone transformative renovations in recent memory. The prioritisation of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in ecological discourse has raised an awareness to First Nations people’s connection to Country.Drawing on the contemplative lightscape by Jazz Money, a yarning circle took place that considers how we can preserve the ecological, socio-spatial, political, ceremonial, and cultural significance of Australia’s traditional Waterways, and investigate how we can integrate these into the decolonisation and de-westernisation of design and space creation.This event has been developed as part of the M_Curators, an MPavilion program engaging young makers, doers and programmers.
City Design and Aboriginal Melbourne invite you to tune into a First Nations-led conversation that explored ways of building relationships with Country in urban environments.Looking towards the future of our city environment in the face of climate change, individual care and custodianship is a must. The panel discussion explored the role of materiality and how this can enable living with, designing with and caring for Country for everyone.This conversation built on learnings from council’s Aboriginal City initiative, the ’Country’ themed AILA Festival of Landscape Architecture and other influences to facilitate a local discussion with Traditional Custodians, First Nations designers, makers, educators and land managers to build our understanding of what Country means, and to explore how we can work and live with Country to sustain all life.
What will the buildings of the future be made of? The construction industry is a material and energy hungry sector, accounting for a staggering forty percent of global CO2 emissions.Architects, designers and engineers are taking up the challenge to overhaul the materials economy. They are embracing new materials and processes, reducing our dependence on finite resources and minimising waste and redundancy.In this discussion, panelists from across the industry talked about how they adapted their practices to account for the intrinsic value of raw materials. They considered the principles of circularity, including design for disassembly, reuse and adaptability. The panelists also reflected on the possibilities posed by the emergence of new materials and products that sequester carbon, such as mycelium, hemp, algae and timber.
What is the future of biodesign in Australia? How do we design conditions for co-existence? Tune in for an expert panel conversation exploring how we can use biodesign to help humanity transition toward a circular, bio-based, regenerative economy.Biodesign is an innovative approach to product design that uses biotechnology, materials science, and engineering to create products that are based on natural processes—reducing waste and minimizing the use of non-renewable resources.What are the ethical considerations that need to be made when working towards a more sustainable future? From intellectual property rights, access, impact on both environments and communities, and the use of genetically modified organisms, there are a plethora of factors we need to balance.Hosted by Co-Labs Melbourne, this conversation showcased a selection of exciting Australian startups that are using biodesign to help humanity transition towards a circular, bio-based, regenerative economy.
Timber is an ageless material that has many uses and many lives; yet large volumes of it enter the waste stream every year. Thankfully, a dedicated group of processors and artisans tap into this resource to recreate, reuse and recycle new products.Listen in on a discussion on how timber enters the waste stream and how it is removed, recycled and repurposed for new uses—from garden mulch to high-end furniture. Starting with the pallet, we will explore how these humble items are collected, and the journey and potential pathways they can take as they are reused and recycled—or perhaps even crafted into sculptures and homewares to be showcased in the biennial recycled woodwork competition, Create from a Crate.Hear from recyclers and creators about the circular timber economy, about where the timber comes from and its sources, and about where the end products go.
For thousands of years possum skins were used to make cloaks by First Nations people in the south-east of Australia. Often given to them at birth, a person’s possum skin cloak told their life story, growing with them and collecting more elaborate designs as the owner moved through life. Sadly, after European colonisation, the practice was lost, lying dormant, with only a handful of cloaks remaining in museum collections.In recent years, the cultural practice of the possum skin cloak has been re-awoken and revived by communities, becoming a significant and profound way of connecting and strengthening culture.Tune in to a material lab and story sharing session about possum skin cloaks led by Hannah Presley, Senior Curator, Museums and Collections at University of Melbourne. Hannah was joined by Dr Vicki Couzens, Gunditjmara woman and Senior Knowledge Custodian for Possum Skin Cloak Story, Tarryn Love, Gunditjamara Keerray Woorroong artist, and Dr Sophie Lewincamp, Nyingarn Project Manager.This workshop was presented as part of the program for UNTOLD at MPavilion presented by Agency Projects.
The practice of painting on barks for ceremony, and for the transmission of stories, law and culture, are an important and enduring practice in Yolŋu communities around Arnhem Land and the Top End.Bark paintings today are appreciated around the world as a powerful expression of the beauty and strength of Yolŋu culture. However, the practice of harvesting, producing, painting and sharing a bark painting is also an important act of cultural conservation and preservation.This hands-on Indigenous-led exploration on the making of a bark painting enabled audiences to learn how a bark is harvested and prepared for painting, how to create ochre paints and paintbrushes, and discuss ideas of cultural conservation and knowledge sharing.
Material—by being composed of matter—is a tangible artifact. Materiality, on the other hand, is inclusive of tangible and intangible matter. Digital materiality is the state of representation of physical materials, whether they are tangible or not.Listen in to Gunditjmara, Djabwurrung artist Hayley Millar Baker and Burraguttumal Curator Sebastian Goldspink as they discussed the tangibility and the ephemeral in digital art making and self portraiture through a First Nation’s lens.This talk was presented as part of the program for UNTOLD at MPavilion presented by Agency Projects. UNTOLD brings together First Nations creatives, thinkers and writers from across Australia for exchange, storytelling and discussion.
The City of Melbourne is committed to addressing the Climate Emergency through its Emissions Reduction Plan 2021-2026 and Climate Change Mitigation Strategy. Until now, much of the emphasis has rightly been on reducing operational emissions. The focus has now turned to embodied carbon which is present in all materials and products we use today. This talk sought to facilitate an interactive discussion on the solutions to deliver sustainable built environments by using low carbon and low embodied energy materials, building better through robustness and minimising waste in construction. Tune in for a broad-ranging panel discussion that explored the role of materials, emerging technology and alternative solutions to delivering sustainable built environments for an Enduring City.
The selection of materials for application in the built environment contributes to the commodification of Country.If we reframe our approach to design with an understanding that Country is not solely a material entity, but a living entity—with a past, a present and future—we can be better placed to design buildings that heal Country.Tune in for a discussion that explores how the materials we select shape our spaces, have the ability to embed culture and knowledge, and contribute to a regenerative model of Australian architecture.MPavilion’s sixth annual BLAKitecture forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. BLAKitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
Tune in for a conversation championing new material explorations and research from the design industry. Find out about cutting-edge developments in bioplastics manufacturing, robotic fabrication and more, from panellists working across both commercial and institutional backgrounds.Many of these products feature biomimicry and advanced material science to create new technologies and materials. Working at the forefront of research and mass production, our panellists reveal the synergies and differences between their approaches and processes—and show the potential of what is possible.Hear about the latest challenges and successes from bioplastic manufacturers, material researchers, environmental concrete manufacturers and robotic fabricators!
Sharing food unites people across different communities and gives us space to share and learn from one another. For those away from home, food acts as a point of connection, remembering and nostalgia; for those wanting to explore new cultures, food can often act as the first step.Melbourne is home to a diverse range of cultures, and this is reflected in the city’s culinary offerings. It is no surprise then, that the sharing of food, and its history, has allowed this city to take great strides toward embracing its multiculturalism.Hear from a range of speakers that have shaped and encouraged the act sharing of food and cultural knowledge. They discuss where they believe the future of this work is heading and where they hope it will go, and explore sharing and making food more accessible to the public.
The most sustainable building is the one that lasts. In today’s state of accelerated social and technological change, can we design buildings that will last hundreds of years?We know materials are made of matter—with all the significant implications of lifecycle performance and embodied energy. Materials also matter, linking the physical environment and our embodied experience of the world. Reconciling this dual nature is key to creating sustainable communities.In their architectural practice, panellists Bettina, Alexander, and Paul have each taken a firm material position against the harmful mediocrity of Australia’s throwaway, knock-down rebuild construction culture.Listen as they unravel the complexity of designing for endurance and try to arrive at a common-sense definition of sustainability that both protects the planet and saves our souls.This event was developed as part of the M_Curators, an MPavilion program engaging young makers, doers and programmers.*Image by photographer Paul Haar, Self-builder Hobson Levi teaching neighbouring Islander the art of laying earth brick (Moa Island Queensland 1987)
Tune in to hear a conversation from filmmakers contributing to the Black Diasporas project, a showcase of 10 short films that document the experiences of individuals of African ancestry living in Naarm.Making a reference to African oral narrative cultural practices, the project is the result of seventy-five community members and creatives, collaborating to document topics like childbirth, daily life, and the effects of stereotyping.Telling stories is a political act. While no project can entirely encapsulate the diversity of character, experience, and community, the Black Diasporas series asks questions and provides a platform to hear directly from people of African heritage.Image from "TRAMS TRAINS TKZEE + ME" directed by Scottnes Smith, co-produced by Phillipa J. Smith, cinematography by Abdul Yusuf, and starring Kgomotso Sekhu.
Tune in to hear Fieldwork, the architects behind Collingwood Yards, hosting a panel conversation looking at how to foster connection and collaboration through architecture.Using Collingwood Yards as their case study, this discussion explores how physical space, materials and design can foster communication and collaboration. From community consultations to approaches that focus on minimal intervention and mixed use, there are many ways architecture can play a role in creating and facilitating a community.
As permanent visitors, working in professions that reshape Country, what if every person on a team shared the responsibility to look after Country by following a kinship to Country model? What would be the benefits and the potential pitfalls? Where would the line need to be drawn between appropriate and appropriation?MPavilion’s sixth annual BLAKitecture forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. Blakitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
This discussion celebrates innovative, cutting-edge design by Australia’s small architecture practices and hears from some of the winners of the 2022 ArchiTeam Awards. Learn more about the innovations behind this year’s winning designs, which rethink housing typologies, blur the edges between the indoors and the outdoors and facilitate new relationships with light and the space around us.Honouring the ingenious work of emerging, small and medium architecture practices, the ArchiTeam Awards are geared towards supporting these practices’ contributions to the Australian design community.
How can planners and developers design precincts that don’t just look good, but that truly make us feel like we belong somewhere?This stimulating panel, hosted by Six Degrees Architects, delves into the importance of connection and emotional well-being in place-making. They use different case studies to look at how to creatively transform a place—rather than destroying and rebuilding it—and at how this approach impacts our well-being and psychology. They also talk about what we can do to respect Indigenous heritage in our built environment.From understanding our attachment to place to focusing on more resourceful and naturally sustainable ways of operating, we think about how city planners, developers and architects can rediscover how to relate to place, and create people-oriented places that fulfill our emotional needs.
The Parlour for the Summer Salon is a lively intergenerational conversation between Marika Neustupny and Suzanne Dance.Marika and Suzanne set the scene with a public conversation about life, architecture and everything in between.
Dan Hill curates a discussion with Mae-Ling Lokko, Xu Tiantian and Joseph Grima to discuss the commonalities between them and their work in more detail. After delving into the specifics of the highly-localised nature of Mae-Ling’s and Tiantian’s work,the panellists turn to a broader discussion around whether a local response can contribute to a global response. Questioning how we can factor externalities into the design process to ensure that the idea of stewardship is ingrained in projects, they discuss where responsibilities lie and how we can get more people to pay attention to our global problems.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
Joseph Grima takes a step back, literally, to show us an image of the earth taken from the Apollo 17 space shuttle. This is the moment when we realise that we operate within a finite, closed ecosystem while coming to terms with the fact that our economies depend on exponential growth. Discussing the historical, entrenched views humans have towards the environment – notably dominated by our economic framework – Joseph unpacks the ways in which this world view was created, how it evolved, and why it is flawed. Finishing with a provocation, Joseph asks us to question whether environmental depletion is necessary and what other models are out there, calling for a ‘non-extractive architecture’ – design without depletion.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
Introducing us to the concept of ‘architectural acupuncture’ Xu Tiantian presents four projects in rural China, where small projects have created big opportunities for revitalising rural villages. Each project is vastly different, an outcome of the highly-localised approach to design using traditional materials and building techniques. In this way, materials and their production are a cultural expression and each of Xu Tiantian’s projects seeks to restore cultural heritage, preserving tradition and history as a resource with which to revitalise local villages. Demonstrating how architecture acupuncture can make use of limited funds to create low-tech systems for public buildings, Xu Tiantian is able to achieve cultural, social and economic sustainability through her work.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
How can dealing with waste become less of a punishment and more of an opportunity? Sharing her work in Ghana, Mae-Ling Lokko explores three key material flows, involving the land, the plate and the building. Using coconut husks and mycelium – a type of fungus used to compost food waste – as examples of alternative building products, Mae-Ling demonstrates a transformational pathway in which agricultural and food waste materials can present new opportunities within a bio-economy. Through her exploration of these material flows she pays careful attention to the humans involved and their potential to disrupt or enhance these processes. Mae-Ling also presents ideas on how designers might engage with these processes to help identify value translation and circulation opportunities.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
In this summative discussion, Mel Dodds is joined by Dave Wandin, Indy Johar, Jane Mah Hutton and Vo Trong Nghia, as together they crystalise the common themes throughout the morning’s presentations. Emphasising our need to examine our relationship to materials, panellists discussed how to re-orient our focus from ideas of ownership towards ideas of material stewardship and responsibility towards the land. Although the scale of both the projects and the ideas presented differed greatly between speakers, they all discuss how the greatest challenge is in the conflict we currently have in our relationship with the environment.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
Vo Trong Nghia’s approach to architecture embodies mindfulness towards materials which demonstrates the possibilities of thoughtful, considered designs. Join Vo Trong Nghia as he presents a series of projects created by his practice – each one a powerful testament to his belief that we need more greenery in our cities for the health of our urban environments, as well as our own. Building predominantly in Vietnam, Vo Trong uses familiar materials such as stone and bamboo in his designs, to create an immediate and direct relationship with the sourcing and production of materials. While this certainly keeps construction processes simple, his designs appear anything but. He credits this material mindfulness to his daily meditation, which he has also embedded in his design practice – a holistic approach toward problem-solving.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
Have you ever paused to consider where all the materials around us come from, and what will happen to them? Walking us through her recent book – Reciprocal Landscapes – Jane Mah Hutton shares her research tracing the origins, labour practices and regimes required to bring five key materials to the streets of Manhattan. Guano fertilizer, granite, steel, trees and wood provide examples of how material flows can be disrupted by humans, and how we have become alienated from our materials, the places they come from and the people involved in making or providing them. Ultimately Jane invites us to consider: how can design, de-construction and materials stewardship help to change the history of exploitation of both people and the environment?
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
Climate change is a symptom of the failure of our systems: systems in which humans have constructed a theory of dominion and viewed the planet as an infinite resource to be exploited. In a fast-paced and provocative talk, Indy Johar presents a worrying overview of the climate crisis and global systems which have resulted in a fundamental transition in the way we relate to the world around us. But don’t be alarmed, Indy presents a range of opportunities and provocations to help create a ‘planetary civilisation’ in which resources are valued differently, new governance models emerge, and principles of ownership give way to ideas of stewardship. Finally, Indy leaves us with an invitation to acknowledge the massive scale of the problem and to act today.
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
If we can re-conceptualise material flows as flows of energy – from the land, during use, and back to Country – we open the door to a conscientious stewardship of materials by acknowledging that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. After welcoming us to Country, Uncle Dave Wandin discusses how the financial cost of material acquisition ignores the ecological costs of material consumption. Following a discussion of circular ecology – an alternative method for valuing our global environment – Dave urges us to consider our personal responsibility to the environment and the energy that we borrow and use. The stage is set for the following speakers as we are invited to shift perspectives and ask ourselves: where does our personal and professional responsibility begin and end?
The Living Cities Forum is an annual assembly exploring the role of design, planning and architecture in shaping our society.
In July 2022 it returned to Melbourne with an impressive array of international and local architecture and urban design leaders—featuring keynote addresses from globally renowned thinkers including Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elder Dave Wandin, British architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs Indy Johar, Canadian landscape architect Jane Mah Hutton, British architect and educator Joseph Grima, Ghanaian educator and architectural scientist Mae-ling Lokko, Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, and Chinese architect Xu Tiantian.
For as long as humanity has traded, materials have flowed. The 2022 Living Cities Forum theme ‘Material Flows’ examined the global material flows that underwrite our growing built environments. Within the 2022 theme, Living Cities Forum delivered its fifth program of keynote lectures, with cross-disciplinary talks over the course of the day by globally renowned thinkers from around the world.
While there has been increased awareness into the impacts of our material use in recent times, our approach to building construction continues to reflect short-term commercial interests over long-term environmental sustainability. These short-term interests are most evident in the material flow of pollution.
Against this backdrop, the forum explored if the current global disruptions to material flows—as a result of the global pandemic, wars and other destabilising factors—might well be our chance to rethink the materials we have taken for granted. Can we seize this moment to accelerate our first steps towards a genuine circular economy? Can we support those who are decarbonising our supply chains, while also breathing new life into smaller footprint manufacturing? The forum was an opportunity to rethink logistics as ethics and to reframe scarcity as the catalyst for new abundance.
The Living Cities Forum is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria.
Living Cities Forum is the sister event to MPavilion, and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Visit: livingcitiesforum.org
Subscribe to the MPavilion YouTube channel for our latest videos and live streamed events: http://bit.ly/subscribempavilion
Explore our Living Cites Forum video & podcast library: https://livingcitiesforum.org/watch
#LivingCities22
Mae-ling Lokko is an educator, architectural scientist and biomaterials technology researcher from Ghana and the Philippines whose work centres on the upcycling of agrowaste and biopolymer materials. Her research integrates a broad range of criteria that questions contemporary material-value systems to evolve life cycle design to meet generative justice criteria.
Chris Bourke, the Melbourne bureau chief for Bloomberg News, spoke with Mae-ling ahead of the Living Cities Forum 2022, which centres around the theme of ‘Material Flows.’
In this conversation, they discuss the potential material uses of coconut husks, interrogate the colonial narratives that inform the cultural barriers which inhibit the uptake of certain materials, and much more.
The Melbourne Awards Alumni Breakfast Panel Discussion.
A panel conversation exploring the topic of redefining leadership in turbulent times, featuring Lord Mayor Sally Capp, Peggy O’Neal AO (President of the Richmond Football Club and Chancellor of RMIT University), Dr Linny Phuong (Founder of The Water Well Project) and Daniel Manly (Brand Director, Arbory Bar & Eatery/Arbory Afloat/HER Bar/BKK.
For the entirety of the period architecture and design have been part of university curriculums, Indigenous culture and heritage, First Nations perspectives and understandings of Country have been largely absent—or if present viewed through an anthropological lens rather than as a living culture. In recent times it has become clear this is not good enough. Yet with already packed curriculums where do we start? This yarn brings together three academics and practitioners to share their experiences and the work they are doing in relation to Indigenising curriculum.
MPavilion’s fifth annual BLAKitecture forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. BLAKitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
This event was part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.
Older women’s lived experience of different housing types is not well understood or documented. How do we design housing for older women at risk of homelessness? What do these women need to make a place they can call home?
In the coming years, Victoria’s Big Housing Build will deliver thousands of homes for vulnerable Victorians. It is important that we get this right.
Recent research by architects Samantha Donnelly and Sophie Dyring evaluated four different housing types provided to women over 45 at risk of homelessness in suburban Melbourne. The research explored how housing design impacts the lives of these women, how interior and exterior spaces are valued and how their homes could be improved to further enrich their lives.
Listen to a discussion with the authors and participants of this research. The conversation will look at the important role design has to play in housing older women at risk of homelessness. It will address the idea of home as a safe refuge, a foundation for economic security and look at the design considerations that allow women to make these houses, homes.
Listen to a conversation where we unpacked a group of images to expose the covert narratives of colonialism and slow violence embedded in extractivism.
Focused on coal mining in Australia, but also looking into instances in the UK, South Africa and the Americas, we cross-examined visual narratives that expand our understanding of coal mining beyond its economic and environmental repercussions — and well into its social, political and cultural implications.
This talk forms part of a two part series by the Global Extraction Observatory (GEO)—a research collective led by Eduardo Kairuz and Sam Spurr exploring how new forms of visual and spatial practice can amplify our climate change understanding. From the open-cut mine landscapes in Australia to the mine-tunnel interiors in the United Kingdom, we examined the aesthetics of energy production and resource extraction to disclose the political, ecological and multi-scalar implications of extractivism.
This podcast expands existing knowledge on the environmental impact of resource extraction, listen as they examine the spatial and scalar implications of lithium mining.
Presenting alternatives to dominant extractivist socio-political narratives, they explored design’s value regarding the formulation of sustainable post-carbon futures.
The Global Extraction Observatory (GEO) is a research collective led by Dr Eduardo Kairuz and Dr Sam Spurr exploring how new forms of visual and spatial practice can amplify the understanding of the single most pressing issue of present time: the climate emergency. From the open-cut mine landscapes in Australia to the mine-tunnel interiors in the United Kingdom, they examined the aesthetics of energy production and resource extraction to disclose the political, ecological and multi-scalar implications of extractivism.
Too often, through expediency, ignorance or habit, the design profession shapes environments to suit the needs and experience of an ‘average’ human being. However, designing for ‘average’ results in average design that meets the needs of some, while a diversity of people can be made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in a place.
To create the space for different approaches to how we plan and design our cities, we must start by making the time to understand the lived experience of the city from multiple perspectives.
Facilitated by Cities People Love, this panel session brings together design practitioners whose work is informed by a diversity of lived experiences. This informal conversation brings to light the lived experiences and personal stories of people of diverse backgrounds and identities to understand how the design of our cities affects them, acknowledging that they are the experts in their own lives.
Listeners are invited to learn and empathise from others whose lives may be very different to theirs—the starting point for making more compassionate cities that we can all love.
The world has changed. What imprint has the unpredictable, sometimes unfathomable, global pandemic left on who we are as ‘the public’?
Over the course of their prolific careers, our panel members have each, in different ways, been tasked with understanding who ‘the public’ is, and how place and space can respond to public needs and wants.
Listen as as we explore what we can see and understand from the meaning of ‘public’ today—and muse on its possible futures in the design of our civic places and spaces.
Moderated by Principal at Architectus, Ruth Wilson and featuring Kate Torney (CEO, Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation) Claire Martin (Associate Director at Oculus and President Australian Institute of Landscape Architects) and Dr Stephen Long (Principal at Architectus)
Architectus won the 2021 Melbourne Awards Urban Design Award supported by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.
Listen to experience masterplanners FreeState and guests have a conversation around the critical nature of co-design in the creation of better places. How does using a narrative structure help to define clear user journeys in public places and encourage transdisciplinary practices? Can it provide a catalyst for participatory programs and engender genuine diversity and inclusion?
This podcast is a conclusion of ‘The Excellent City Series’ hosted by the City of Melbourne.
The discussion reflects on the key themes explored in the series:
· Inclusivity and intersectionality (Designing Equity)
· Melbourne as an Aboriginal place (Design Yarning)
· Urban resilience in the context of the climate and biodiversity emergency (Designing Resilience)
An interdisciplinary panel discussion will unpack the role of designers, planners, government and thought leaders in influencing a great design culture. The panel will also consider what design excellence looks like for Melbourne.
Speakers include:
· Nicholas Reece – Deputy Lord Mayor at City of Melbourne & Chair of the Design Excellence Advisory Committee
· Bridget Smyth – Director City Design at City of Sydney
· Daniel Soussan – Principal Planner at Tract & Technical Expert for Melbourne Design Review Panel
· Karen Alcock – Owner/Principal MAArchitects
· Georgia Birks – Associate Editor at Architecture Media & Design Excellence Advisory Committee Member
· Karl Fender – Founding Partner at Fender Katsalidis Architects & Technical Advisor for Design Excellence Advisory Committee
· Philip Thalis – Principal at Hill Thalis Architecture and Urban Planning
· Moderated by Jocelyn, Director of City Design at City of Melbourne
· Series reflection from previous event moderators Ella Gauci-Seddon, Skye Haldane and Danielle Jewson
The City of Melbourne’s Design Excellence Program reinforces the city’s commitment to enhance the function, liveability, sustainability and public contribution of our buildings and urban spaces. Further information on the Design Excellence Program can be found at the City of Melbourne website.
Hear the story of how five Melbourne female creatives have generated a studio space—churning out some of Melbourne’s most well-known goodies.
The panel discussion features the duo behind SISTER Studios, the pair responsible for Blazed Wax, the creator of Hello Sisi, Textile Designer Megan McNeill, and the brains behind Kannava Jewels will explore the importance of collaboration within their community.
Each at the helm of their own creative label, the group of friends and entrepreneurs chat about how important it is to share a space with like-minded women in business.
Working in industries spanning fashion, accessories, textiles and homewares, the studio is, at the core, all about fostering a space of constant collaboration. Women supporting women—teaching, learning and leaning on one another to encourage brand evolution.
Join Parlour for a special Seasonal Salon exploring what it means to make homes for others.
How do we, collectively, ensure that everyone has a home? What roles can different professions play in preventing homelessness and supporting women in accessing and making homes? What can we learn from each other, and how can we contribute?
The Salons are informal casual conversations on the topics that matter. Hear from architect Eloise Atkinson and community housing manager Charlotte Dillon as they share their experiences, expertise and strategies for the future.
Co-hosted by Readings, hear Omar Musa discuss his work and gift us a performance to take you into the moment.
Omar Musa, a Malaysian-Australian rapper, poet and author is one of Australia’s most important young voices. In his writing and music he confronts the dark realities of Australian history and culture. His latest release, Killernova, is a collection of poetry and wood cuts that burns blindingly bright. With equal parts swagger, humour and vulnerability, Musa charts a journey through the colonial history of South-East Asia, environmental destruction, oceans, bushfires, race in Australia, the isolation and addiction of COVID lockdown, family, lost love and, ultimately, recovery.
How do we design to survive? (Responding to a climate and biodiversity emergency)
In 2019, The City of Melbourne declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. The Declaration recognises that climate change and mass species extinction pose serious risks to the people of Melbourne and Australia and should be treated as an emergency.
How does the built environment of our city need to change to help us survive this emergency through hotter days, bushfire smoke, more intense storms and flooding as well as sea level rise?
Hear a deep dive exploring what Design Excellence looks like when responding to a climate and biodiversity emergency.
The City of Melbourne’s Design Excellence Program reinforces the city’s commitment to enhance the function, liveability, sustainability and public contribution of our buildings and urban spaces.
The Excellent City Series explores several key themes that shape Design Excellence in Melbourne.
Speakers include:
- Tiffany Crawford – Director, Climate Change and City Resilience at City of Melbourne
- Florian van den Corput – Senior Advisor, Circular Economy at Sustainability Victoria
- Stephen Webb – Design Director and Architect at Design Inc
- Johanna Trickett – Associate, Sustainability at ARUP
Introduction: Jocelyn Chiew – Director City Design, City of Melbourne
Moderators: Danielle Jewson – Design Manager & Principal Strategic Designer / Sarah Bell – City of Melbourne Chair in Urban Resilience and Innovation at University of Melbourne
How do we design for intersectionality?
Whether we are aware or not, the fundamental principles that shape our city are based on a preconceived idea of the ‘average’ person.
Our experience of cities is influenced by gender, ethnicity, physical ability, sexual orientation, age, and many other factors. By celebrating these unique experiences, we can shape our cities to allow everyone to thrive.
Hear a panel discussion addressing the importance of inclusivity and intersectionality in achieving Design Excellence.
Designing Equity addressed questions such as…What are your experiences of inclusion, equity, safety, and wellbeing in the city? How can we champion equity to influence change in our city? What does it mean to design for equity?
The City of Melbourne’s Design Excellence Program reinforces the city’s commitment to enhance the function, liveability, sustainability and public contribution of our buildings and urban spaces.
The Excellent City Series explores several key themes that shape Design Excellence in Melbourne.
Age-Friendly Design is a concept that’s increasingly being considered and applied across councils and cities both in Australia and internationally. A conversation that brings together multiple views, to interrogate whether AFD allows for expansion beyond older-age considerations to an all-age inclusive approach to urban design.
Curated by Young Seniors + Co, the invited speakers explore how the mixed needs of older-aged citizens overlap with the needs of other groups in our community.
In Australia, there is a growing interest in a collaborative design process that engages First Nations communities, Elders, consultants and designers. With the continued momentum of Indigenous engagement through design and beyond, how are we representing and acknowledging Indigenous voices in architectural projects after completion, in publications and in awards programs?
This discussion explores the progressive inclusivity of Indigenous voices across these two public platforms that promote and value “Australian” architecture.
MPavilion’s fifth annual BLAKitecture forum centralises Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. BLAKitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
The built environment industry is exploring how Country, community and culture can be embedded into their project outcomes.
It is imperative that we first listen to Traditional Custodians and knowledge holders to inform how we plan with Country, which forms the basis of this discussion.
MPavilion’s fifth annual BLAKitecture forum centralises Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. BLAKitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
MTalks—BLAKitecture: A Bid for Transparency
EOIs, RFTs and the complexities of bid writing are a challenge within themselves. In this context, how do we also then appropriately address Indigenous engagement and Indigenous knowledge with limited time, resources and probity requirements?
This yarn brought together built environment practitioners and Indigenous engagement specialists to share their experience with overcoming these inherent challenges to explore the systemic changes required to create better outcomes for Country, Culture and Community.
Learning environments are supposed to be safe spaces in which students can feel they are uninhibited to ask anything and hopefully achieve a level of cultural competency previous generations of architects could only dream of. But, are you curious about how and why Indigenising the curriculum sometimes feels like there are persistent questions you never get to ask?
This discussion was an open invitation to ask questions you’ve been too afraid to ask.
MPavilion’s fifth annual BLAKitecture forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments. BLAKitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
How do we see Melbourne as an Aboriginal place?
This informal, open conversation supports individual and collective learning, and knowledge sharing to progress awareness and capacity to support Reconciliation.
The City of Melbourne’s Design Excellence Program reinforces the city’s commitment to enhancing the function, liveability, sustainability and public contribution of our buildings and urban spaces.
The Excellent City Series explores several key themes that shape Design Excellence in Melbourne.
Speakers include: Aunty Joy Murphy-Wandin – Wurundjeri Elder Jason Eades – Director Aboriginal Melbourne, City of Melbourne Sarah Lynn Rees – Indigenous Advisory lead, JCB Architects Anne-Marie Pisani – Senior Associate, ASPECT Studios
What might the world be like if poets wrote our building and planning regulations? What if regulations were written by other writers too, not just poets, but also storytellers, songwriters, screenwriters, artists, choreographers, and philosophers?
The things governing bodies choose to regulate—and the methods they use to evaluate compliance—tell a story about what we, as a society, collectively value. But as the space between regulatory compliance and design intention collapses under the weight of relentless, aggressive value management processes, the regulation takes on new urgency as a site of creative resistance.
In this podcast, researcher-practitioner Loren Adams takes us on a journey through her recent project where she forced a bot to write building and planning regulations.
Design has the unique ability to dignify and make people feel valued, respected, honoured and seen. Architects and designers are expanding their ranks to serve not only the privileged few but the general public.
Architecture is no longer a matter of only form, but rather, a matter of what the projects enable.
This panel conversation discusses and celebrates the experiences and pro-bono work done by architects with the communities affected by natural disasters over the last few years. Hear about the evolving role of an architect in the broader context—a role that can instigate social and urban change, and support our communities.
From the pressure to appear in certain ways, to the power of resisting expectations through appearance, beauty is political. This panel looks at the politics of beauty when it comes to gender, sexuality, race, disability and other facets of identity. How should we think about different beauty practices that happen in the salon – like hair removal, manicures, and facials – from a critical perspective? Can the salon be a space for joy as well as political resistance?
From hyper masculine barbershops to super femininised nail bars, the space of the salon can be highly gendered. Salons are also often assumed to be associated with normative beauty expectations tied up with class, race and ability. How can the space of the salon be designed to challenge or change these expectations, and to make space for a diverse range of experiences and expressions? This panel considers the salon as a space where design can play an important role in changing how we think about beauty, who is welcome, and how we can experiment with our appearances.
This event was part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.
Future Practice (written by Rory Hyde) revealed alternative methods of design practice at the edge of architecture.
Nine years since it's publication, it is even more important that we empower emerging designers to have a more expansive approach to their practice. Challenges within today's society demand we confront conventional practice with collaboration—and become more adaptable for an uncertain future.
Hear about experiences outside traditional practice with a line-up of esteemed guests in a lively tag-team conversation as part of the annual MRelay series. Featuring over ten speakers, this experimental talkfest explores alternative modes of practice and ask the question—can we rethink design education, and the opportunities available to graduates?
In a sports relay, a team covers a distance in turns, passing a baton from one runner to the next. In MRelay, thinkers, activists, provocateurs, architects and design doyennes share insights and ideas in this marathon conversation.
It’s fast-paced, exhilarating and, best of all, deeply unpredictable.
Hosted by Monash Architecture Around group.
This event was part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.
When what is equal and what is just can often differ, can architects design to honour the rights of all humans, while also hold space for the non-human rights of waterways and animals alike?
Hear from a panel of Australian Institute of Architects industry thought leaders, who discuss and unpack what design excellence within placemaking for future generations looks like when designing for the moral codes of today—and the changing emotional landscapes of tomorrow.
Yesterday, architects designed for the ideal Vitruvian Man—but thankfully a more nuanced, inclusive and diverse conversation prevails today—or at least it should. Most organisations pride themselves on empathic, environmentally enlightened, values-driven policies—and would be disheartened that their optimistic ambitions have not yet been baked into the DNA of the buildings they create. How can we change this? How do we design for the human rights of the collective, while also acknowledging the undeniable climate emergency on our doorstep?
This talk was part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.
Content Warning: Discussions of family violence
A dancethropological exploration of trends.
The interwoven relationship between club counter culture and its drip fed influence into the mainstream could be credited as one of the biggest IP robberies of all time. From the moment this undercurrent emerged, it has continued to flow like an undammed, unpaid and uncredited natural resource for those that need to sell, own & name things.
Listen to a light hearted and well lived discussion about where club trends come from—and how they make their way from the wunderkinds doing it for a laugh and a creative outlet, through to the money men collecting that Filthy Lucre, while holding a bucket under the good old ideas tap!
From the Baggy Rave scene to Billie Eilish, garbage bags to Comme des garcons—with a quick break in the toilets at Studio 54—this panel deconstructs popular origins & influences, to find out what it takes to prepare a batch of that special sauce that simmers in the melting pot, meeting points of creativity and consumerism with a few gags thrown in for good measure!
*CONTENT WARNING: This podcast contains references to drug use.
Listen to six artists as they discuss the processes in procuring, and incorporating under-utilised materials in their practice.
The session focuses on how the artist—as creator and consumer—actively refuses to create wasteful by-products in their practice and where possible, uses discarded waste products and manufacturing by-products.
This talk was presented in conjunction with Craft Victoria's Melbourne Design Week 2022 exhibition 'Alternative Provisions'. Showing from Feb 10-March 26.
This event was developed as part of the M_Curators, an MPavilion program engaging young makers, doers and programmers. This initiative is made possible by our presenting partner Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Skateboarding has long had a reputation for being a rebellious sub-culture—but it's something much more meaningful than that. The skateboarding community continues to prove that this little wooden toy on wheels can be a force for good.
Listen as we explore the social impact of skateboarding—as we chat to a diverse range of skate panellists, each doing their bit to make the world a better place, one kick-push at a time.
This event was part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.
‘Future Homes’ is a government initiative to facilitate better density development in the suburbs. The first stage of the project achieves this through readily available, high-quality apartment plans paired with a streamlined planning process.
The ‘Future Homes design competition’ was launched at MPavilion in February 2020. Two years later, we invite you to come along and see the design evolution of the four winning schemes— from competition ideas to viable apartment developments for the suburbs.
This panel discussion explores how to deliver viable and excellent housing for more people.
This panel discussion works towards building the capacity of built environment designers to recognise their duty-bearer and accountability status as controllers of built environment design, however un-empowered they may feel.
Rather than exploring the right of access to design expertise, ‘Disability, Human Rights, and the Built Environment’ explores the implications of (disability)human rights principles on designers' mindsets and production.
Women over the age of 55 are the fastest growing cohort of homeless in Australia and current research estimates that more than 400,000 women over the age of 45 are at risk of homelessness.
Women who find themselves at risk of homelessness in later life have often led productive lives and have had conventional housing histories. What factors have placed them at risk of homelessness and what can we do to help?
This discussion addresses these questions from a personal, social and human rights perspective. It unpacks the issues and policies that have created this crisis and outline pathways for advocacy and action.
For more information, visit:
- Australian Human Rights Commission: Age Discrimination
- Housing for the Aged Action Group (HAAG)
How you can help:
Search for - HAAG Federal Election Advocacy Toolkit
This event was part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.
As housing prices increase, more and more older women are seeking access to affordable housing alternatives.
Nursing homes, retirement villages, expensive private rentals and traditional owner-mortgage arrangements are no longer meeting the financial or social needs of many.
Hear about existing and emerging alternative housing options in Victoria—why they are needed, what they are trying to achieve and how they are funded.
Speakers:
Jennifer Kulas – Development Manager, Nightingale Housing, 2020 Churchill Fellow investigating innovative housing models for women Caryn Kakas – Head of Housing Strategy, ANZ Bank Natasha Liddell – Development Manager, Women’s Property initiative Anneke Deutsch – President of WINC – Older Women in Cohousing
This talk was presented by the City of Melbourne with Jo Cannington, Affordable Housing Manager, facilitating the panel discussion.
Renowned visual artist Patricia Piccinini in conversation with wildlife scientist and marine mammal expert Dr Vanessa Pirotta.
Tune in to learn everything there is to know about these extraordinary creatures, their more typical journeys through the ocean and how their wondrous evolution became the inspiration behind Patricia’s Skywhales.
For 80,000+ years Aboriginal knowledge systems have guided the way humans interact with and care for Country.
Join Krystal De Napoli in conversation with Zena Cumpston, Kirsten Banks, and William Stevens as they discuss the strength within Aboriginal science and how engaging with Aboriginal perspectives can lead to the healing of both land and sky Country.
Zena Cumpston is a Barkandji researcher and curator of the exhibition Emu Sky now showing at Old Quad on University of Melbourne’s Parkville Campus.
Kirsten Banks is a Wiradjuri astrophysicist and renown science communicator known as @AstroKirsten on Tik Tok.
William Stevens is a Muruwari man with a long career working with native animals and plants, and is known as @Muzzawilly on the livestreaming platform Twitch.
Krystal De Napoli is a Gomeroi astrophysicist and the host of Indigenuity on 102.7FM Triple R.
Painting Country is about more than words can convey. It is at the heart of some of Australia’s most vital creative, cultural and political movements. To paint Country is to make visible a world of meaning and values that are otherwise often lost in translation.
Aboriginal artists, diplomats and intellectuals have continually sought to cross the divide of cross-cultural ignorance and misunderstanding through the sharing of their Country. From the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the Barunga Statement, the evolution of the Western Desert painting movement and contemporary Art Centres, to the presentation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, painted Country is how Australians have been asked to listen, and learn. Yet the importance of Country, and the complexity of painting it, is often reduced to the simplistic, landscape-driven language. Worse yet, it is often lost in the language of ‘art’.
So what is Country, why does it matter, and why do so many of the most important documents in Australian History draw upon its authority?
To explore the creative and political importance of painting Country today is an esteemed panel including Claire G. Coleman, Noongar woman and acclaimed writer, Sally Scales, Pitjantjatjara woman, artist and advocate, Professor Clare Wright OAM, historian, author and broadcaster, and Professor John Carty, scholar and Head of Humanities at the South Australia Museum and author of the acclaimed book BALGO: Creating Country
This talk was presented as part of the program for UNTOLD: Marking Life, Indigenous reflections on continuing/maintaining/living rituals presented by Agency Projects.
In Australia, post-war modernism was a response to the profound social change that occurred following World War II. We are now living through another time of intense global change, and uncertainty is impacting our lives.
How will current issues—such as the global pandemic and climate change—impact how we approach the way we live, and housing, for the years ahead?
This panel discussion looks at domestic spaces and the rituals surrounding them—how they influenced how we lived in the past, and shape our lives into the present.
Rituals have many functions—to maintain connection, honour history, and build the future by observing the important present. The rise of Asian-Australian podcasting did exactly this in the wake of increasing hostility towards Asians as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Through podcasts, Asian-Australians embraced their identities, celebrated their unique brands of pop culture, and shared their life experiences.
So take your shoes off, take a seat, and listen to this inspirational conversation celebrating the Asian-Australian community.
After 40+ years in print, Artlink proudly delivers its annual Artlink Indigenous issue, Visualising Sovereignty, edited by Paola Balla and Ali Gumillya Baker. Now in its eleventh year, this platform brings together leading First Nations scholars, artists and curators from across the country who have responded critically and candidly to the political, social and cultural issues of the moment.
Come and join Artlink Editor Una Rey, and Naarm-based First Nations writers as they discuss the magazine’s current issue’s theme, the editorial process and ideas addressed by the writers:
- Community-focused, Indigenous-led curatorial practice
- Blak architecture, public art and placemaking
- Educating contemporary art audiences
Featuring speakers Hayley Millar Baker and Kimberley Moulton.
This talk was presented as part of UNTOLD: Marking Life, Indigenous reflections on continuing/maintaining/living rituals presented by Agency Projects.
This talk brings together three of the most exciting and highly regarded emerging First Nations artists showing at the 2022 Melbourne Art Fair.
Butchulla and Burmese artist Mia Boe, Arrernte artist Thea Anamara Perkins and Quandamooka artist Kyra Mancktelow all work in different styles, mediums and methods but through their contemporary practice, they are all storytellers; exploring what it means to be First Nations in contemporary Australia, tackling historical inquiry and reclaiming their stories through their art.
Sit with these powerful artists as they share how they’re recovering, reclaiming and preserving their own and others' stories through their contemporary practice.
This talk was presented as part of the program for UNTOLD: Marking Life, Indigenous reflections on continuing/maintaining/living rituals presented by Agency Projects.
'Suspended Activation' is an installation designed by the Stockholm-based architecture office Secretary and fabricated in Melbourne by Ellen Sayers.
Part outdoor gym equipment, part children’s play equipment, the structure repurposes the resistance bands used in physiotherapy and fitness training in order to invite its audiences to engage with its malleable surfaces, which deform and stretch under the weight of bodies young and old.
'Suspended Activation' (affectionately known as 'Susie' to her friends) stood in MPavilion for nine days, and in this conversation, Secretary’s Helen Runting explains some of the key concepts behind the with fabricator Ellen Sayers, moderated by architect Timothy Moore.
The pandemic, climate change, and the continued constraints on international (and interstate!) travel have left us reimagining how we recharge. Exploring themes of resilience, tourism, place, culture, technology, transport and history, we question: How might we still get away from it all?
This discussion looks at lessons from our past to help reinvent our future—proving that the journey can be as important as the destination!
Climate change, the pandemic, and decades of unchecked development have left our city crying out for more meaningful design. As we grapple with the changes of the ‘now,’ and how to re-engage with the urban, questions on what needs to be done to repair our relationship with the city are increasingly relevant.
In this conversation, the multidisciplinary panel featuring Andy Fergus, Maddi Miller, Amelia Leavesley and Rory Hyde, moderated by Lily Di Sciascio and Woodrow Smith, seeks to answer the question: How can we repair our city?
This event has been developed as part of the M_Curators, an MPavilion program engaging young makers, doers and programmers. This initiative is made possible by our presenting partner Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Image by Fraser at Assemble Communities
In a scorching summer when we are seeking sand and sea, how does Melbourne entice its citizens to stay local and vacay in their own town?
This panel, convened by Yarra Pools, brings together activists, artists and thinkers to explore the possibilities of how the Yarra Birrarung could become the ultimate summer destination.
How do you talk about your work? How do you connect with what drives you? How have the past couple of years disrupted your practice? And how long has it been since you’ve paused and reflected on how and why you create work – and what might come next?
In this conversation, long-time MPavilion collaborator Esther Anatolitis provides much-needed space and time for reinvigoration designed to reconnect you with your practice, your peers and your future.
How do the spaces we inhabit allow for spontaneity and play? How can we embed these ways of being into the built environment?
Hear us unpack these questions and more in a two-part series dedicated to exploring the influence of active and accidental play on the built environment.
Join artist and assistant professor at Williams College, Pallavi Sen, sit down with two fascinating practitioners who investigate the meaning of play in their work—Melbourne based painter and illustrator Esther Stewart, and Architectural theorist, urban design, Urban Planner and founding partner in the Stockholm-based architecture office Secretary, Helen Rix Runting.
This event has been developed as part of the M_Curators, an MPavilion program engaging young makers, doers and programmers. This initiative is made possible by our presenting partner Bloomberg Philanthropies.
How do the spaces we inhabit allow for spontaneity and play? How can we embed these ways of being into the built environment?
Hear us unpack these questions and more in a two-part series dedicated to exploring the influence of active and accidental play on the built environment.
Join artist and assistant professor at Williams College, Pallavi Sen, sit down with two fascinating practitioners who investigate the meaning of play in their work—Melbourne based painter and illustrator Esther Stewart, and Architectural theorist, urban design, Urban Planner and founding partner in the Stockholm-based architecture office Secretary, Helen Rix Runting.
This event has been developed as part of the M_Curators, an MPavilion program engaging young makers, doers and programmers. This initiative is made possible by our presenting partner Bloomberg Philanthropies.
A series of ‘Illuminating Conversations’ with Place Intelligence explores the role of data in cities, in public institutions and how its role has changed with Covid-19 and the climate emergency.
DATA AS ILLUMINATION - Urban data experts discuss how new forms of city data make hidden patterns visible and public, illuminating access to knowledge, and how our knowledge institutions are responsible for the ways that ideas move and spread through a city.
KNOWLEDGE AS ILLUMINATION - Cultural and knowledge sector leaders shine a light on the role of their institutions in providing public access to knowledge and illuminating new ideas, and how this role is changing with covid and the climate emergency.
DESIGN AS ILLUMINATION - Leading architects, lighting and interaction designers explore the role of design in illuminating and engaging people in these important public institutions.
A series of ‘Illuminating Conversations’ with Place Intelligence explores the role of data in cities, in public institutions and how its role has changed with Covid-19 and the climate emergency.
DATA AS ILLUMINATION - Urban data experts discuss how new forms of city data make hidden patterns visible and public, illuminating access to knowledge, and how our knowledge institutions are responsible for the ways that ideas move and spread through a city.
KNOWLEDGE AS ILLUMINATION - Cultural and knowledge sector leaders shine a light on the role of their institutions in providing public access to knowledge and illuminating new ideas, and how this role is changing with covid and the climate emergency.
DESIGN AS ILLUMINATION - Leading architects, lighting and interaction designers explore the role of design in illuminating and engaging people in these important public institutions.
A series of ‘Illuminating Conversations’ with Place Intelligence explores the role of data in cities, in public institutions and how its role has changed with Covid-19 and the climate emergency.
DATA AS ILLUMINATION - Urban data experts discuss how new forms of city data make hidden patterns visible and public, illuminating access to knowledge, and how our knowledge institutions are responsible for the ways that ideas move and spread through a city.
KNOWLEDGE AS ILLUMINATION - Cultural and knowledge sector leaders shine a light on the role of their institutions in providing public access to knowledge and illuminating new ideas, and how this role is changing with covid and the climate emergency.
DESIGN AS ILLUMINATION - Leading architects, lighting and interaction designers explore the role of design in illuminating and engaging people in these important public institutions.
The Maldives is synonymous with luxury holidays: the ultimate “Robinson Crusoe” island escape where you can be treated like royalty and step out of your busy lives. Over the span of 50 years, Maldivian tourism developed from humble beginnings to a place that now welcomes over one million tourists per year (almost double the country’s population), and the number of resorts is reaching close to the number of inhabited islands. However, obscured from tourists' eyes are complex realities of a population of people grappling with the impact of rapid development, situated at the forefront of the biggest climate calamity facing human existence.
Two Maldivian artists, one living in Melbourne, one in the Maldives talk about their connection to the Maldives, and how their art practices have become a medium of telling their stories about what it means to live in and belong to, a place that is so romanticised in the global consciousness.
This conversation is facilitated by Helen Runting.
As Nyoongar Country morphs into Yamatji Country, off the coast of the small port town of Geraldton in Western Australia, there lies an archipelago of 122 islands and coral reefs known as Houtmans Abrohlos.
Home to Australia’s largest single species fishery, the Western Rock Lobster industry, the fishermen who drive this $500 million industry have grown their isolated community of colourful fibro shacks since the early 1900s—but times have never been harder.
In recent years, the pandemic and a shifting political landscape has decimated the industry, forcing many fishermen to empty their cray-pots back into the ocean and find alternate income streams, including continued exporting through unofficial ‘grey channels’.
Woven into the background of this contemporary geopolitical story is a history of shipwrecks, mutiny, sunken treasure and brutal survival. However before any tall ships arrived, the Yamatji and Nyoongar people told stories that go back tens of thousands of years, stories of crayfish and Country that go back to the Dreaming…
Come hear some of those stories, and learn about the past, present and future of traditional crayfishing on Sea and Country.
As Nyoongar Country morphs into Yamatji Country, off the coast of the small port town of Geraldton in Western Australia, there lies an archipelago of 122 islands and coral reefs known as Houtmans Abrohlos.
Home to Australia’s largest single species fishery, the Western Rock Lobster industry, the fishermen who drive this $500 million industry have grown their isolated community of colourful fibro shacks since the early 1900s—but times have never been harder.
In recent years, the pandemic and a shifting political landscape has decimated the industry, forcing many fishermen to empty their cray-pots back into the ocean and find alternate income streams, including continued exporting through unofficial ‘grey channels’.
Woven into the background of this contemporary geopolitical story is a history of shipwrecks, mutiny, sunken treasure and brutal survival. However before any tall ships arrived, the Yamatji and Nyoongar people told stories that go back tens of thousands of years, stories of crayfish and Country that go back to the Dreaming…
Come hear some of those stories, and learn about the past, present and future of traditional crayfishing on Sea and Country.
This panel discussion explores ideas of safety, movement, surveillance, physical distancing, visibility and invisibility within Melbourne’s public spaces.
Think Tank Moderator Nur Shkembi, artist, curator and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne, and Curatorial Advisory Group member for Who’s Afraid of Public Space?, is joined by esteemed local cultural contributors including Idil Ali, writer, performer, youth practitioner and community organiser; Antony Hamilton, Artistic Director, Chunky Move; Nicole Kalms, Associate Professor in Department of Design and founding director of Monash University XYX Lab; and Steven Rhall, artist, curator and PhD candidate at Monash University.
This Think Tank is fourth in the series presented by ACCA and produced as part of 'Who’s Afraid of Public Space?'
Tune in for a panel discussion hosted by Emerging Architects and Graduate Network (EmAGN) to hear emerging and established architects discussing future perspectives for young architects and designers looking to a brighter future in 2022.
The big challenges of our time such as climate change, biodiversity loss or social inequality are not directly visible and seem overwhelming for an individual to address. But all over Melbourne and Australia, there are people working away on tactics and solutions to make our cities more equitable and regenerative.
From temporary events and activations to city-wide strategies, these actions collectively give us a glimpse of what ingredients we need to build our future city.
In this conversation in the round, hear from the important but unseen actors in our cities, such as community leaders, activists and urbanists as they outline their potential solutions, many of which already exist.
What if we have enough vacant properties to house the 80,000 people on Victoria’s public housing waiting list? If you believe housing is a human right, this talk is for you.
Renegade economist Karl Fitzgerald explains how the traditional methods of evaluating residential vacancy rates are inaccurate and favour investors.
Urban geographer at the University of Melbourne Dr Kate Shaw weighs in on the economic, social, and cultural factors and incentives that cause property to be hoarded—and what policies need to change to correct the situation. Data science officer Flavia Barar discusses the challenges around obtaining data that shines a light on housing issues in Australia and spatial data marketing and communications expert Emma Joughin moderates on using data to uncover residential vacancy rates with the hopes of exposing the vacant residential properties that could house more Victorians
Crossing species lines and national borders, COVID-19 has swiftly foregrounded the interconnected state of all life, human and otherwise, illuminating the myriad ways human culture is entangled with and dependent upon the well-being of more-than-human ecologies.
As relentless change and unpredictability become ‘the new norm’, how might those other worlds, beyond the human, help to envision possible futures that centre care, hope and collaborative resilience?
And how might they help reimagine periods of instability as periods of transition, or even sites for transformation?
Reflecting on worlds beyond the human, this panel of interdisciplinary practitioners explore themes of adaptation, emergence, symbiosis, ecological stewardship, and storytelling for collaborative survival.
As Amazon and other logistics-based companies further establish themselves as household names, their increasingly automated operations continue to redefine our cities and our lives. Behind faceless big-box facades, vehicles, workers and robots follow intricate choreographies to ceaselessly circulate goods.
In this talk, panel members will discuss how design can illuminate logistics—that largely opaque science of ‘moving stuff around'.
When logistics networks break down, they become visible, and their fragility is made evident—a scenario perfectly illustrated by the recent Ever Given fiasco, and even Australia’s vaccine rollout. Taking advantage of this recent visibility, the speakers shed light on an urgently important topic that, for the public, exists largely in the dark.
To celebrate the launch of MPavilion 2021, MPavilion 2021 architects Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel of MAP studio (Venice) will be in conversation with MPavilion founder Naomi Milgrom AC, hosted by architect and much-loved host of Grand Designs Australia Peter Maddison.
The talk will explore the minds, design and extraordinary story behind MPavilion 2021—the pavilion that will defy all pandemic setbacks to become the seventh iteration of Melbourne’s favourite cultural laboratory.
Join collective being for a series of guided meditations designed to orient you to the present moment, ground your feet on Country, and connect you to your own body, to those around you, and to the more-than-human world.
Each meditation presents an invitation.
In the second meditation of this series, you are invited to notice the ground underneath your feet, and the solidity and support provided by gravity and place. This is a meditative gesture of grounding and acknowledging.
Each meditation is invitational, mental health aware and facilitated by trained collective being team members. We invite your reflections, experiences and responses to this offering.
Torres Strait Virtual Reality (TSVR), is a virtual reality game that was created to raise awareness of one of Australia’s First Nations people, Torres Strait Islanders. The game is an exemplar of how cultural traditions and knowledge can be used to anchor cultural reproductions and research in new mediums and offers an Indigenous framework for developing culturally sound and culturally centred games.
Join Rhett Loban, designer of ‘Torres Strait Virtual Reality’ as he speaks with Jen Zielinska, creative director of MPavilion, about community engagement and playtesting, and the role of Indigenous cultural influences in game design.
Join Kate Rich—founder of grocery business and public experiment Feral Trade—in conversation with designer, writer and architect Rory Hyde.
Linking their discussion to MPavilion’s November theme ‘Island Life’—a theme that considers the literal places and figurative spaces that exist between others—Kate and Rory will talk about the groundbreaking ways that Feral Trade is challenging capitalist economies with the joyfulling subversive trading of goods, ‘passed by hand’.
Join collective being for a series of guided meditations designed to orient you to the present moment, ground your feet on Country, and connect you to your own body, to those around you, and to the more-than-human world.
Each meditation presents an invitation.
In this third and final meditation of this series, you are invited to connect with the moving aspects of your body—your breath, your heartbeat, your thoughts and your feelings, and to gently bring all aspects of your being towards momentary stillness. This is a meditative gesture of centring.
Each meditation is invitational, mental health aware and facilitated by trained collective being team members. We invite your reflections, experiences and responses to this offering.
Join collective being for a series of guided meditations designed to orient you to the present moment, ground your feet on Country, and connect you to your own body, to those around you, and to the more-than-human world.
In the first meditation of this series, you are invited to open your senses to the sounds, sensations and beings that surround you. This is a meditative gesture of orienting through present moment awareness.
Each meditation is invitational, mental health aware and facilitated by trained collective being team members. We invite your reflections, experiences and responses to this offering.
Exploring unique approaches to percussive performance, artist and composer Matthias Schack-Arnott’s work has been presented by Melbourne Festival, La Comete (France), Spor Festival (Denmark), Arts House, Supersense – Festival of the Ecstatic (Arts Centre Melbourne) and beyond.
In conversation with Creative Director and CEO of Melbourne Fringe Simon Abrahams, Matthias discusses Groundswell—a large-scale sound installation and public sculpture that directly involved the citizens of Sydney. Ahead of the work’s 2021 premiere, Matthias and Simon talk about the inspiration behind it, the process for developing an audience-led experience, and ongoing creative pursuits.
Groundswell was commissioned and co-produced by Melbourne Fringe and Sydney Festival with support from the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. Artists in Conversation was supported by Monash University Centre for Theatre and Performance.
This conversation is presented in partnership with Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Join Parlour for Women Transforming the City, a lively discussion about the many roles women play in actively making the Australian built environment – as grass-roots activists and as elected representatives, as policy-makers and public servants, as philanthropists and clients, as journalists, writers and historians, as architects, landscape architects, planners and other professionals. How have women shaped the spaces, places and policies of Australian cities? What What actions are underway now? What of the future?
This is the third session exploring this topic – the first was held at the MPavilion in 2015. Join us as we extend the conversation.
How might we rethink design and (re)construction in bushfire affected places? How can we do this through participation, interdisciplinarity and local cultural knowledge?
This conversation brings together insights from an ongoing collaboration between Justin Leonard (CSIRO), Daniel Miller (Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation) and Christy Bryar Architect along with Nikhila Madabhushi, a practising architect who is currently leading research and teaching on this complex topic within the Monash Innovation Fellowship.
The speakers unpack the wicked problems posed by the interface between built and natural environments with bushfires, cross-sectoral thinking towards adaptive design and reconstruction during the “pyrocene” and how local and traditional knowledge can be leveraged for “community-led” socio-technical approaches to bushfire preparedness and recovery.
The years continue on, but has the conversation?
This yarn between Maori and Aboriginal Australian built environment practitioners reflects on how—or if—the 'Indigenous Architecture' conversation has changed in recent years, and considers what conversations need to happen now, and in the future.
MPavilion’s fourth annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments.
BLAKitecture 2020/21 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
Liam Young is an Australian-born architect, filmmaker and founder of the urban futures think tank Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today.
Creative director of MPavilion Jen Zielinska spoke to Liam ahead of the Living Cities Film Series, which features a selection of films curated by Liam in response to the theme ‘The Long View’ titled Imagined Cities: Urban Futures Prototyped through Film.
In this conversation, they discuss everything from speculative fiction and the collapsing of time to using fiction as a language and growing digital cities with Amazon bots.
The Living Cities Film Series is presented in collaboration with ACMI and Open House Melbourne.
Timothy Morton is an author and professor of English at Rice University who writes and thinks broadly on philosophy, culture and ecology.
Co-director of Uro Publications Andrew Mackenzie spoke to Timothy ahead of their opening lecture at this year’s Living Cities Forum.
Listeners should prepare to have their minds slightly blown by what the world looks like through this apparently esoteric, but actually acutely real philosophical explosion—enjoy!
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Visit www.livingcitiesforum.org to watch Timothy's keynote lecture, on or after Friday 23 July 2021.
The Melbourne Awards is a community recognition program delivered by the City of Melbourne, proudly supported by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation & MPavilion.
As part of the program, in April this year, a stimulating panel discussion was facilitated by Melbourne based comedian Annie Louey. The subject was 'What makes a good capital city?' and featured as guest speakers: Lord Mayor Sally Capp; Professor Doug Hilton AO, Director of WEHI and 2020 Melburnian of the Year; Mitu Bhowmick Lange, Director of the Indian Film Festival Melbourne of Melbourne and Mind Blowing Films; and Luke Taylor, Director of the Sustainable Living Foundation.
Aleks Hammo sits down with Australian barrister, human rights and asylum seeker advocate, and author Julian Burnside AO QC to discuss meaning, work, hope, and much more.
What do our environments become if we consider the act of design to be less about responding to the rights of humans, and more about responding to our collective obligation to care for Country? This yarn explores the responsibilities we all share as humans that temporarily inhabit Country, and how these might influence the way we design.
MPavilion’s fourth annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2020/21 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
What do our environments become if we consider the act of design to be less about responding to the rights of humans, and more about responding to our collective obligation to care for Country? This yarn explores the responsibilities we all share as humans that temporarily inhabit Country, and how these might influence the way we design.
MPavilion’s fourth annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments.
BLAKitecture 2020/21 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
While there is still much work to be done on improving design processes so that they centre the voices of the Traditional Owners, not every project has the capacity to engage. So, when we can't engage, what can we do to ensure we are working in alignment with Country and its values? In conversation with Parbin-ata Carolyn Briggs, senior Elder of the Boon Wurrung People, this talk explores what we can still do for Country when we can't engage.
MPavilion’s fourth annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments.
BLAKitecture 2020/21 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
It could be argued that good food—and an exceptional dining experience—make Melbourne’s heart beat. So how have pandemic-induced changes to the restaurant industry affected the rhythm of our city’s dining culture?
Join two of Melbourne’s most beloved restaurateurs, Hana Assafiri of Moroccan Soup Bar, Khanh Nguyen of SUNDA _ and food communicator Dani Valent for a very special panel discussion that illuminates the trials and triumphs experienced by restaurateurs throughout lockdown.
While reflecting on the ways that COVID-19 has affected their own iconic businesses—both professionally and personally—Hana, Khanh and Dani also offer their insights into the pandemic’s effect on the restaurant industry, their thoughts around lockdown approaches taken by other restaurants, their guesses at the impact of COVID-19 on dining in the future, and their feelings about the role that food plays in our lives.
*Please note: Attica chef Ben Shewry was originally scheduled to participate in this event. Due to unforeseen circumstances he was no longer able to join us in the conversation.
After the disruption to MDW 2020, Home Made is returning with a new impetus as we emerge from the experience of Covid-19 lockdowns in an altered relationship with our homes. As vacancies rise in investor grade apartments, and city dwellers look to the regions for an improved quality of life, what is the future of compact living in Melbourne?
Inspired by the last decade of local housing innovation, which is unique in Australia, this exhibition explores what a more community-centred, sustainable model of housing might look like, and how we can provide attractive, generous lifestyles for all incomes and household types in our urban centres.
The exhibition presents a survey of housing projects both built and unbuilt, which reflect new approaches to finance, design, development, and shared living, including by Nightingale Housing, Assemble, Property Collectives, Tripple, and the Third Way. Together, these diverse models suggest a more optimistic and inclusive vision of how housing can shape our city.
Home Made will open with a special launch event presented in collaboration with New Architects Melbourne. Focusing on what we can learn from the communities making these projects home, a panel of residents will share their personal experiences and reflections, revealing what happens when design intention encounters the complex realities of everyday life.
Working with MPavilion’s MRelay format, the curators of UPTOWN present an actioned-packed session of speakers primed to discuss the role of artists and designers in Melbourne’s future. UPTOWN co-curators, Fiona Scanlan and Robert Buckingham, join forces with MPavilion and Turning Circle Collective to explore how artists and designers have contributed to the cultural and economic life of Melbourne in the past and how they can help Melbourne regain its mojo.
'UPTOWN: An art exhibition for out city' was devised to reactivate the city centre and unite retailers, visual artists, property owners and the City of Melbourne. The exhibition (15 December 2020 – 28 February 2021) reimagined the top of Bourke Street as a 24/7 outdoor gallery and used vacant shops, windows, architecture and laneways as the frame for a very different type of visual art exhibition.
Speakers include:
Robert Buckingham (creative director and co-curator UPTOWN) Fiona Scanlan (fashion designer, retailer, ceramicist and co-curator UPTOWN) Lord Mayor Sally Capp (City of Melbourne Mayor) Fleur Watson (curator, academic, director of Open House Melbourne) Millie Cattlin (architect, creative precinct creator – member Turning Circle Collective) Barrie Barton (director, Studio Right Angle, place maker) Su san Cohn (artist and City resident) Michael Trudgeon (architect, designer and educator – member Turning Circle Collective) Eugenia Lim (artist, lecturer VCA) Rory Hyde (architect, curator, formerly head of Architecture Dept at V&A) Wendy Lasica (creative producer and urban planner – member Turning Circle Collective) Athiqah Ummi Salma (M_Curator’s member and Signal Issues producer) Kent Morris (artist and curator)
We all experience the world through a body, a body that has certain powers, and certain constraints.
Three Bodies is a short documentary film by Dorothy Allen-Pickard, commissioned by Molonglo as part of their upcoming Designing with Difference publication. It draws out an embodied relationship with the built environment through the experience of three different people, who each take us on a journey from the interior of their spaces, outside, and into the world.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion that further explores how the built environment can either be a pathway or a barrier to community, opportunity, and pleasure, depending on how places are designed, and who they are designed for.
An expert panel discussion on the Social Housing future of Victoria, and how to make it happen.
2020 turned out to be unexpectedly tough, with few opportunities for the housing sector to come together. But it also saw the Victorian Government commit unprecedented levels of funding and support to increase social and affordable housing supply across Victoria and help stimulate the State’s economy.
A new Departmental structure was created - Homes Victoria, the $5.3bn Big Housing Build was announced, a ten year Housing Strategy is currently out for public consultation and a raft of other programs and shovel-ready social housing projects are now in the pipeline. Could one of the positive impacts of COVID-19 be a turning point in the delivery of social and affordable housing supply across Victoria?
A conversation around White Cube, the Dutch documentary by Renzo Martens that features OMA—the architecture studio behind MPavilion Monash.
Hear from Congalese artist Cedart Tamasala, dutch documentary maker Renzo Martens, our 2018 architect David Gianotten, Congalese architect Arsene Ijambo and artist Eléonore Hellio in conversation with urban planner and architectural theorist Helen Runting on the making of the documentary 'White Cube'.
ABOUT THE FILM
White Cube follows the work of Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), a plantation workers’ cooperative based on a former Unilever plantation in Lusanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. From the boardrooms of Unilever, to elite museums and galleries across the world, to the exhausted plantations of The Congo, the film documents the CATPC’s success in ending the destructive system of monoculture on their lands with a combination of art and activism. In moving viewers between the violence of the plantation system and the aesthetic ‘civility’ of the white cube, the film highlights a fundamental question: can museums ever hope to be inclusive when no reparations have yet been paid to the plantation workers who financed—and in some cases continue to finance—the very foundations of these institutions?
What’s the art of science education and the place of art-making in science?
Learn from leading science educators and artists about their study of nature, and how lessons from their research can shape our future.
Featuring insights from Melbourne Zoo experts.
Surroundings offers a fresh look at our relationship with space, the environment and each other. When we are in harmony with our surroundings we can be at peace with ourselves. Hosted by Triple R’s Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler, Surroundings is a series of monthly talks with individuals whose work and imaginations provide a new blueprint for cities and communities. Guests will describe the new frontiers of environmental design, surveillance and the possibilities of collaboration with artificial intelligence. These talks explore why now more than ever it’s critical not to take our surroundings for granted.
While there is still much work to be done on improving design processes so that they centre the voices of the Traditional Owners, not every project has the capacity to engage. So, when we can’t engage, what can we do to ensure we are working in alignment with Country and its values? In conversation with Parbin-ata Carolyn Briggs, senior Elder of the Boon Wurrung People, this talk explores what we can still do for Country when we can’t engage.
MPavilion’s fourth annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, and the present and future states of our built environments.
BLAKitecture 2020/21 is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
Listen in to a series of conversations led by beloved Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler in conversation with our Walsh Street Music artists.
For the final installment of our Walsh Street Music program, Gregor work his musical magic in a room of legendary architect Robin Boyd's famous Walsh St home. Melbourne prog-pop eccentric Gregor released his debut album Silver Drop via Chapter Music in late 2018, taking the restless, idiosyncratic spirit of his previous sketches and tunes and applying it to his own interior emotional world. Spacious and delicate, but peppered with acerbic pop moments and extended, loping grooves, the album drew together elements of Gregor’s eclectic influences, filtered through his increasingly personal vision. In 2019, Gregor was nominated for Best Album and Best Solo Artist in the Music Victoria Awards. His second album Destiny is due for release in November 2020.
MPavilion & the Robin Boyd Foundation bring you a six part series of live performances from the iconic Walsh Street house. Directed by Freya Esders and shot by award-winning cinematographer Edward Goldner, the series will place an eclectic roster of Melbourne’s favourite musicians in all corners of this architectural masterpiece.
The Walsh Street Music Program features the soulful multi-instrumentalist and proud Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman Kee’ahn, Chinese/Australian composer and guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang, the beautifully melancholic and ethereal Sweet Whirl, Sudanese born Melbourne bred rapper BabyT, the lo-fi soundscapes of unground cult lovers Sleeper & Snake, and finally Melbourne prog pop eccentric Gregor.
Walsh St house is the dwelling that Australian architectural giant Robin Boyd designed as his own family home. As an exemplar of modernist Australian architecture that continues to influence architectural thinking, the house has been the subject of extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally. The house remains unchanged from the time it was first designed and occupied by the Boyd Family in 1959, furnished with pieces designed by Boyd’s associates Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and others and then photographed by Mark Strizic. Now home of the Robin Boyd Foundation, the heritage icon provides a unique insight into Melbourne’s design leaders of the 50s and 60s.
Listen in to a series of conversations led by beloved Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler in conversation with our Walsh Street Music artists.
For part five of our Walsh Street Music program, Baby T occupies a seat in Robin Boyd's iconic home, filling the walls with his original style and emotive lyrical comprehension. The Sudanese-born, Melbourne-bred rapper grew up in the western suburbs before going on to make an impressive name for himself in Melbourne’s underground hip hop scene. With his hit single “Lingo” streaming up too 150k on YouTube and featuring on the last ever Juice WRLD Australian tour, BabyT has gone from recording in his closet to shaking up the Australian rap scene.
MPavilion & the Robin Boyd Foundation bring you a six part series of live performances from the iconic Walsh Street house. Directed by Freya Esders and shot by award-winning cinematographer Edward Goldner, the series will place an eclectic roster of Melbourne’s favourite musicians in all corners of this architectural masterpiece.
The Walsh Street Music Program features the soulful multi-instrumentalist and proud Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman Kee’ahn, Chinese/Australian composer and guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang, the beautifully melancholic and ethereal Sweet Whirl, Sudanese born Melbourne bred rapper BabyT, the lo-fi soundscapes of unground cult lovers Sleeper & Snake, and finally Melbourne prog pop eccentric Gregor.
Walsh St house is the dwelling that Australian architectural giant Robin Boyd designed as his own family home. As an exemplar of modernist Australian architecture that continues to influence architectural thinking, the house has been the subject of extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally. The house remains unchanged from the time it was first designed and occupied by the Boyd Family in 1959, furnished with pieces designed by Boyd’s associates Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and others and then photographed by Mark Strizic. Now home of the Robin Boyd Foundation, the heritage icon provides a unique insight into Melbourne’s design leaders of the 50s and 60s.
Listen in to a series of conversations led by beloved Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler in conversation with our Walsh Street Music artists.
For part four of our Walsh Street Music program, Sleeper & Snake fill a room in Robin Boyd's iconic home with their warbled vocals, fizzed improvised interludes, and shifting layers of sound.
Sleeper & Snake are duo Amy Hill (Terry, Primo, Constant Mongrel) and Al Montfort (Terry, Total Control, Lower Plenty, Dick Diver etc…). Setting a different pace to previous projects, Sleeper & Snake rest their homespun vignettes of skewed harmony and wistful yet pointed lyrical pep in a nest saxophone, synthesisers, drum machine, acoustic guitar and strings.
MPavilion & the Robin Boyd Foundation bring you a six part series of live performances from the iconic Walsh Street house. Directed by Freya Esders and shot by award-winning cinematographer Edward Goldner, the series will place an eclectic roster of Melbourne’s favourite musicians in all corners of this architectural masterpiece.
The Walsh Street Music Program features the soulful multi-instrumentalist and proud Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman Kee’ahn, Chinese/Australian composer and guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang, the beautifully melancholic and ethereal Sweet Whirl, Sudanese born Melbourne bred rapper BabyT, the lo-fi soundscapes of unground cult lovers Sleeper & Snake, and finally Melbourne prog pop eccentric Gregor.
Walsh St house is the dwelling that Australian architectural giant Robin Boyd designed as his own family home. As an exemplar of modernist Australian architecture that continues to influence architectural thinking, the house has been the subject of extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally. The house remains unchanged from the time it was first designed and occupied by the Boyd Family in 1959, furnished with pieces designed by Boyd’s associates Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and others and then photographed by Mark Strizic. Now home of the Robin Boyd Foundation, the heritage icon provides a unique insight into Melbourne’s design leaders of the 50s and 60s.
Listen in to a series of conversations led by beloved Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler in conversation with our Walsh Street Music artists.
In part three of the series Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler talk to versatile Chinese/Australian Composer and Guzheng Performing Artist. Mindy Meng Wang.
Born and classically trained in China, Mindy studied western musicology in the UK and then migrated to Australia.
She is a pioneer to bring Guzheng into many western genres such as experimental, Jazz, western classical, Electronic and improvisation. She has collaborated with many high-profile artists and frequently performed in many significant festivals, shows and venues in Australia, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and France.
Her work explores the fertile space between traditional and contemporary practices, is an important part of a significant movement of Chinese musicians redefining and reinvigorating their musical tradition on the global stages.
Her long term vision is to create a strong voice for young female composers/artist of Chinese heritage, and more importantly, create a deeper and reciprocal musical connection between Australia and China.
MPavilion & the Robin Boyd Foundation bring you a six part series of live performances from the iconic Walsh Street house. Directed by Freya Esders and shot by award-winning cinematographer Edward Goldner, the series will place an eclectic roster of Melbourne’s favourite musicians in all corners of this architectural masterpiece.
The Walsh Street Music Program features the soulful multi-instrumentalist and proud Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman Kee’ahn, Chinese/Australian composer and guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang, the beautifully melancholic and ethereal Sweet Whirl, Sudanese born Melbourne bred rapper BabyT, the lo-fi soundscapes of unground cult lovers Sleeper & Snake, and finally Melbourne prog pop eccentric Gregor.
Walsh St house is the dwelling that Australian architectural giant Robin Boyd designed as his own family home. As an exemplar of modernist Australian architecture that continues to influence architectural thinking, the house has been the subject of extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally. The house remains unchanged from the time it was first designed and occupied by the Boyd Family in 1959, furnished with pieces designed by Boyd’s associates Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and others and then photographed by Mark Strizic. Now home of the Robin Boyd Foundation, the heritage icon provides a unique insight into Melbourne’s design leaders of the 50s and 60s.
Listen in to a series of conversations led by beloved Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler in conversation with our Walsh Street Music artists.
In part two of the series Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler talk to Sweet Whirl. Sweet Whirl is the songwriting project of singer and multi-instrumentalist Esther Edquist. For the Walsh St Project she appears with guitarist Liam Barton and label mate Gregor – also on the Chapter Music record label.
MPavilion & the Robin Boyd Foundation bring you a six part series of live performances from the iconic Walsh Street house. Directed by Freya Esders and shot by award-winning cinematographer Edward Goldner, the series will place an eclectic roster of Melbourne’s favourite musicians in all corners of this architectural masterpiece.
The Walsh Street Music Program features the soulful multi-instrumentalist and proud Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman Kee’ahn, Chinese/Australian composer and guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang, the beautifully melancholic and ethereal Sweet Whirl, Sudanese born Melbourne bred rapper BabyT, the lo-fi soundscapes of unground cult lovers Sleeper & Snake, and finally Melbourne prog pop eccentric Gregor.
Walsh St house is the dwelling that Australian architectural giant Robin Boyd designed as his own family home. As an exemplar of modernist Australian architecture that continues to influence architectural thinking, the house has been the subject of extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally. The house remains unchanged from the time it was first designed and occupied by the Boyd Family in 1959, furnished with pieces designed by Boyd’s associates Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and others and then photographed by Mark Strizic. Now home of the Robin Boyd Foundation, the heritage icon provides a unique insight into Melbourne’s design leaders of the 50s and 60s.
Listen in to a series of conversations led by beloved Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler in conversation with our Walsh Street Music artists.
In part one of the series Lauren and Simon talk to Kee'ahn. Kee'ahn is a proud Gugu Yalanji, Jirrbal, Zenadth Kes song woman who has ventured from her home town in North Queensland, to pursue her dream in the Kulin Nation (Melbourne, Australia). With a name coming from the Wik people, meaning to dance, to sing, to play – Kee’ahn aims to honour her name and Ancestors through her soulful music that weaves lush melodies and words reminiscent of heartbreak and healing. The release of her debut single BETTER THINGS in May rocketed her to the national music attention.
“Kee’ahn has the ability to floor you with her spectacular voice, and as a song writer she brings intimate moments to the surface like she’s lifting a feather to the sky – it’s mystifying and gracious.”
MPavilion & the Robin Boyd Foundation bring you a six part series of live performances from the iconic Walsh Street house. Directed by Freya Esders and shot by award-winning cinematographer Edward Goldner, the series will place an eclectic roster of Melbourne’s favourite musicians in all corners of this architectural masterpiece.
The Walsh Street Music Program features the soulful multi-instrumentalist and proud Kuku Yalanji, Jirrbal and Torres Strait Islander woman Kee’ahn, Chinese/Australian composer and guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang, the beautifully melancholic and ethereal Sweet Whirl, Sudanese born Melbourne bred rapper BabyT, the lo-fi soundscapes of unground cult lovers Sleeper & Snake, and finally Melbourne prog pop eccentric Gregor.
Walsh St house is the dwelling that Australian architectural giant Robin Boyd designed as his own family home. As an exemplar of modernist Australian architecture that continues to influence architectural thinking, the house has been the subject of extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally. The house remains unchanged from the time it was first designed and occupied by the Boyd Family in 1959, furnished with pieces designed by Boyd’s associates Grant Featherston, Clement Meadmore and others and then photographed by Mark Strizic. Now home of the Robin Boyd Foundation, the heritage icon provides a unique insight into Melbourne’s design leaders of the 50s and 60s.
To many of us cities are places of freedom and opportunity imbued with values and qualities we respect. Yet every city has its invisible past and its forgotten people. This episode explores the legacy of colonialism in the contemporary city, speaking with Mabel O. Wilson in New York, Finn Pedersen in Perth and Sarah Lynn Rees in Melbourne. Presented by Andrew Mackenzie and Maitiú Ward from Uro Publications.
Due to the renewed lockdown restrictions, Open House Melbourne, MPavilion and Melbourne Music Week will be postponing the announced MERGE performances originally scheduled for Saturday 25th July until the end of August. All artists involved will remain engaged in the project which we look forward to immensely once we are able to recommence. The rescheduled performance date will be announced in early August.
In the meantime please enjoy this mixtape, showcasing the five MERGE artists and why we are so excited to be working with them.
Tracklist:
Tempo - IJALE Slow Dance pt2 - Mara II - The Opals Moon Face - Hachiku Shipping Container - Caspian Selector (of Shelly Senbei) Coffee Cups ft. Zephyr Greene - IJALE Food Chain - Shelly Senbei Glisten - Mara Refuge - Caspian Selector (of Shelly Senbei) Feeling - Mara Hotlines - IJALE Murray's Lullaby - Hachiku
Further Exploration:
https://theopals1.bandcamp.com/releases
https://maramaramara.bandcamp.com/album/specular
https://soundcloud.com/shellysenbei
https://hachikumusic.bandcamp.com/
www.ijaleofficial.com
Sentences are kind of like suburbs. They’re places where we can use space well… or badly. Are your ideas clear, human and easy to navigate? Or are your readers driving long distances to get to something they need?
In this workshop, the grammar enthusiasts at The Good Copy will explore some tactics to help us make the most of our sentence space.
Pull up a seat, pick up a pencil and join us for a two-hour dabble in the dark arts of deleting:
– squint at your adverbs – destroy prepositions – let your verbs live their best lives.
Will it be easy? No. As EB White once said, “I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn’t have time.”
Significant research and experimentation are taking place across the globe in the domain of new fabrication processes, prototyping studies and technical advances at the scale of facades, pavilions, structures and buildings. These trajectories are diverse and disparate, working with new materials, new technologies, new computational systems and multidisciplinary coalitions.
Prof Philippe Block of ETH is in the forefront of these advances and is visiting Melbourne as the Treseder Fellow at University of Melbourne and in conjunction with Melbourne Design Week. This provides the opportunity to provide a public conversation on Fabrication Futures, with a panel drawn from the design faculties of University of Melbourne, RMIT University and Swinburne University of Technology, where similar, yet different investigations are being undertaken in Australia.
The suburbs are no place to raise a child.
Does it really take a village to raise a child? How about a city, or a suburb?
On March 5, Right Angle Studio brought together some of Melbourne’s great minds to flesh these ideas out in front of a live audience. The inaugural Place Debate pits the city against the suburbs as two teams respond to the idea that ‘the suburbs are no place to raise a child’. The evening at MPavilion was moderated by the Strategy and Insights Director at Right Angle Studio, Barrie Barton, but we’ll mostly be listening to the voices of our clients, collaborators and the next generation of great urban thinkers.
For over a decade, Right Angle Studio worked tirelessly to understand inner-city audiences and environments. The city was what we knew, and what we strove to improve. When we started getting asked to work on projects in the suburbs we were forced to question our intention as urban strategists. Was our singular focus actually just snobbery? What we decided was that creating the suburbs of the future will require learning lessons from our cities: adopting increased density, building in room for change and growth and creating clusters of culture, commerce and education. We’re also paying attention to what the suburbs do well and making sure that they don’t lose their character.
In the last 12 months alone, we’ve worked on projects in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Geelong and the Gold Coast. We haven’t started hosing down our driveways, but we like to think we are having the same impact on life in the ‘burbs as we have in the city.
Poetry and beekeeping finally came together in this wonderful event, seeing creative beekeeping practice Honey Fingers debut his poetry anthology—titled Sparrows in the Supermarket—with selected readings and a honey-themed grazing table.
Honey Fingers is more than an urban beekeeping network—beekeeping is a wonderful and often mindful look into the natural world that exists in our urban environment. Beekeeping cultivates quiet observations of biological systems, the human community that lives in urban spaces, the technologies we use to share these observations, and the feelings that get caught up in all of this. In keeping with MPavilion’s theme for March—Knowledge: Shared Learning, Shared Power—the launch of Sparrows in the Supermarket welcomes into the world a collection of the lessons learned and little mantras assembled, in poetry, along the way.
Listen back to this artist talk with Yen Chou, Artistic Director of VM Studio + Very Theatre (狠主流 & 狠劇場) and Edwin Kemp Attrill, Artistic Director of ActNow Theatre about merging their artistic practices for Virtual Intimacy.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne with support from the Australian and Victorian governments. With major seed funding from the Sidney Myer Fund, Arts Centre Melbourne has initiated a landmark collaboration with Melbourne’s community of culture makers and national arts leaders to introduce powerful new voices from Asia to our stages. Asia TOPA takes place from January to March 2020.
This podcast from early 2020 explores the potential of technology-driven approaches to drive innovation in the area of healthcare architecture, design and research. Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging and rapidly developing technology that can be used as a powerful method to engage end-users in healthcare and design projects. It is well suited for projects aiming to design human-centered spaces, which contribute to positive outcomes and user experience. The topics for this session are drawn from the New and Optimised Virtual Environments Living Lab (NOVELL) project led by Professor Julie Bernhardt at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. This project sets out to rethink how rehabilitation facilities are designed and integrated into new models of care.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s Design & Science series of events.
Listen back as Takao Kawaguchi, Linda Sastradipradja and Amaara Raheem join in conversation with Dr Philipa Rothfield and Dr Priya Srinivasan. This conversation interrogates the politics of taste; in particular the politics of arts ecologies that define questions of aesthetic value and the systems that support them. In particular, we ask what it means to be a practitioner of “traditional” art forms in a landscape that privileges “the contemporary” and how taste can be thought to be hegemonic. Which art forms are seen, funded, showcased, valued and supported is ever-changing and exposes the trends of the time, but more so, the policy and power systems in place. This conversation asks whether the “traditional” can be unpacked to reveal its often colonial, postcolonial, hybrid and contemporary origins in order to rethink the very notion of taste.
In partnership with Dancehouse.
Listen back us as Parlour—an organisation advocating for gender equity and increased representation in architecture—hosts an informal conversation between Hélène Frichot, Professor of Architecture & Philosophy and Director of the Bachelor of Design at the University of Melbourne, and Charity Edwards, founder of The Afterlives of Cities research collective and lecturer at Monash University.
Casual and welcoming, the Parlour Summer Salon is an opportunity to connect with many of the women active in our built environment.
"Free admission is not enough, we need to do more... it means we have to go with art to the people." —Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London, in conversation with Victoria Lynn, Director of TarraWarra Museum of Art
Essential listening for anyone interested in art, curation and culture: Hans Ulrich Obrist spoke in early May with Victoria Lynn about what a building without walls can do for bringing art to the community. Exploring experimentation, conversation marathons, how early morning joggers use pavilions, a world after COVID-19, digital engagement, Roland Barthes, and the value of art in a crisis — this conversation is not to be missed.
Storytelling has been at the heart of every culture since the dawn of humankind. It’s how we’ve sought to make sense of who we are and how we interact with the world around us. From rock walls and campfires to theatres and dinner tables, the platforms for our storytelling have been as varied as the yarns themselves. As we find ourselves deeper and deeper in the digital age, our natural inclination to process experience through storytelling can be challenged.
In this interactive workshop, the team at School of Life shared tips and ideas for finding your stories through conversation and reflective practices. The team helped meaning in some of the key experiences of the audiences life and give them a narrative arc. Whether it’s a poignant story of loss, a fast-paced thriller or a rip-snorting comedy of errors, listen back to this talk and learn to craft your story and deliver it in a way that leaves you feeling invigorated and empowered.
This facilitated conversation and interactive workshop asks: Why is Australia not seeing a tidal rise of young women, and women of colour, rising up in politics?
This event brought together a range of perspectives, from youth activists, the Melbourne School of Government, Democracy in Colour, artists, and designers who specialise in systems re-design, to talk through some of the road blocks and what can be done to create better political systems that speak to and for women.
The audience was then invited to get interactive and a little bit witchy, too! They were asked to metaphorically ‘burn it to the ground’ by placing thoughts about what doesn’t work about the current political system into a cauldron. From that starting point, participants were invited to answer the question: What next?
Bring your lunch and your curiosity and listen back to this picnic conversation. Facilitated by Singapore-born artist Jamie Lewis, and joined by table hosts from a range of artistic, cultural and professional backgrounds, prod at the boundaries of the multiplicity of the ‘Asian-Australian’ narrative.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
For the final instalment of the Wednesday Assembly series, we were joined by South Sudanese Australian musician Ajak Kwai, broadcaster, producer and writer Namila Benson, and Dr Vicki Couzens. Simon, Ajak and Namila discuss MPavilion’s March theme — Knowledge: Shared Learning, Shared Power.
Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler, hosts of 3RRR’s Breaking & Entering, record a special podcast each month, with guests including inventive artists, musicians and creatives. Over four nights throughout the season, Lauren and Simon and their guests dig into 2019 program themes: Australian Design: Identity & Cultural Collaboration; Connection: Instruments of Harmonious Living; Unplugged: Energy Without Electricity; Earth: A Place of Reconciliation, a Reconciliation of Place; and Knowledge: Shared Learning, Shared Power.
Listen back to this talk with Takao Kawaguchi, Linda Sastradipradja and Amaara Raheem in conversation with Dr Philipa Rothfield and Dr Priya Srinivasan. This conversation interrogates the politics of taste; in particular the politics of arts ecologies that define questions of aesthetic value and the systems that support them. In particular, they ask what it means to be a practitioner of “traditional” art forms in a landscape that privileges “the contemporary” and how taste can be thought to be hegemonic. Which art forms are seen, funded, showcased, valued and supported is ever-changing and exposes the trends of the time, but more so, the policy and power systems in place. This conversation asks whether the “traditional” can be unpacked to reveal its often colonial, postcolonial, hybrid and contemporary origins in order to rethink the very notion of taste.
In partnership with Dancehouse.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
This talk explores the potential of technology-driven approaches to drive innovation in the area of healthcare architecture, design and research. Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging and rapidly developing technology that can be used as a powerful method to engage end-users in healthcare and design projects.
It is well suited for projects aiming to design human-centred spaces, which contribute to positive outcomes and user experience. The topics for this session are drawn from the New and Optimised Virtual Environments Living Lab (NOVELL) project led by Professor Julie Bernhardt at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. This project sets out to rethink how rehabilitation facilities are designed and integrated into new models of care.
Listen back to this cross-disciplinary expert presentation and discussion around VR technology and its potential in facilitating end-user engagement and research data collection in the design process. The audience was invited to live-test different environments and design scenarios using VR technology.
The either / oar sailboat docked at MPavilion for a special Friday sunset series, with DJs and discussion.
Listen back to our panel discussing the deep relationship we have with ‘place’ and exploring how place is simultaneously reconciling the past, the present and the future. Consider what is it that ties you to place, and how that relationship has changed with time. Unravelling the knots of a fishing net, our panellists untie how our experiences, ideas, memories and feelings come together to tie us to place.
Panelists were Isobel Morphy-Walsh, Senior Koorie Programs Officer and curator Museum Victoria, and Janet Bolitho, Former City of Port Phillip Councillor and Mayor and curator of Port Places.
either / oar is an urban activation project that utilises an old wooden sailing boat to tell the story of place, its past, present and future. With the boat retrofitted to operate as a pop-up bar, either / oar aims to activate under-utilised, abandoned or overlooked places in our fast changing city.
Join us for this talk with Show Director Tuan Le and Musical Director Nhat Ly in relation to À Ố LÀNG PHỐ.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne with support from the Australian and Victorian governments. With major seed funding from the Sidney Myer Fund, Arts Centre Melbourne has initiated a landmark collaboration with Melbourne’s community of culture makers and national arts leaders to introduce powerful new voices from Asia to our stages. Asia TOPA takes place from January to March 2020.
How do we build resilience through nature? Join us as we attempt to answer this question. An Australian first, Living Melbourne is a formalised strategy and report that seeks to connect, extend and enhance urban greening across the metropolitan area. Developed by Resilient Melbourne in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Living Melbourne unites the efforts of many different organisations to see our whole city better work towards three outcomes: healthy people, abundant nature and robust natural infrastructure. In an unprecedented effort, Living Melbourne has been endorsed by forty-one organisations representing local government, Victorian government, water authorities, statutory agencies, academics and industry bodies. Living Melbourne responds to the fact that our urban challenges exist across council boundaries and unites organisations around a common vision for our urban forest: our thriving communities are resilient, connected through nature. Come together to hear about the strategy’s progress, key lessons learnt, local and global case studies and, more importantly, your role in implementing nature-based solutions for a more liveable and sustainable Melbourne.
Nature, we know, is a significant driver of our city’s liveability—it reduces heat, cleans our air and water, improves our mental and physical health, fosters social cohesion through accessible public places and provides a connection to place and Country. Living Melbourne responds to the stresses of population growth, urbanisation, loss of greenspace and climate change. It is a platform for practitioners across Melbourne to improve biodiversity, create more extensive habitat corridors and engage and communicate the benefits of nature with their communities.
Listen back to presentations by prominent space-thinkers & thinkers alike who are experts in their fields, followed by a public discussion convened by Annie Handmer.
Many governments and private companies plan in the coming years to venture to the moon for scientific purposes, resource exploration and long-term human habitation. We ask the question: can going to the moon reconcile Earth?
The plan is to give the public a voice in the Moon/Earth relationship in context of Moon Village Association launching an ambitious project to send a camera to the moon for a live video stream for one day of the whole Earth; our home. A Public Forum on the Moon ‘MINI’ is a chance to discuss some of the deeper philosophical and ethical issues linked to any human lunar presence. Made more pertinent by the ‘Overview Effect’ being made available to the global community by the Moon Village Association.
Revisit this talk with Law Architects’ Senior Associate Jenni Webster, in conversation with Dr. Martyn Hook, to hear reflections on the Melbourne Award 2019 Urban Design Winner, the Carlton Learning and Community Hub School project.
Learn how the existing three-storey school building was transformed to include an integrated early learning centre, family services centre and community hub. With its signature element, the Covered Outdoor Learning Area (COLA), the project has raised the profile of the primary school and created a hub of community facilities where families can come and connect from birth through to the end of primary school.
Revist this talk, with an interactive exploration of the processes of the young Balinese performers of Bumi Bajra, featured in The Seen and Unseen.
In partnership with Performing Lines.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne with support from the Australian and Victorian governments. With major seed funding from the Sidney Myer Fund, Arts Centre Melbourne has initiated a landmark collaboration with Melbourne’s community of culture makers and national arts leaders to introduce powerful new voices from Asia to our stages. Asia TOPA takes place from January to March 2020.
Listen back to this conversation with fashion industry elder Janice Breen Burns and four of Melbourne’s renowned independent designers and couturieres, Estelle Michaelides, Kara Baker, Nevada Duffy and Julie Goodwin for a deep-dive into the art of original garments, the exquisite crafts of couture, and the heritage values they practice that offer consumers one solution to fashion’s very modern problem of sustainability and ethical supply.
The Meeting Points Series is a creative collaboration between the Australian Art Orchestra and Arts Centre Melbourne, bringing together musical styles from across the globe in unexpected collaborations. The concert Hand to Earth features Sunny Kim, Daniel Wilfred and AAO Artistic Director Peter Knight. Renowned Korean jazz singer Sunny Kim is a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and a close collaborator of the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO). In this capacity, she has worked extensively with Yolngu song man Daniel Wilfred, also a long-time associate of the AAO. Preceding their performance in the AAO’s Hand to Earth concert on Sunday 23 Feb at Arts Centre Melbourne, Sunny and Daniel will sing together and speak about their shared experience, and how their collaboration has changed their lives.
In partnership with Australia Art Orchestra.
Revisit Michelle Lim Davidson and Diana Lin in conversation with Benjamin Law exploring his new work Torch the Place, focusing on the representation of Asian-Australian characters on stage.
In partnership with Melbourne Theatre Company.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne with support from the Australian and Victorian governments. With major seed funding from the Sidney Myer Fund, Arts Centre Melbourne has initiated a landmark collaboration with Melbourne’s community of culture makers and national arts leaders to introduce powerful new voices from Asia to our stages. Asia TOPA takes place from January to March 2020.
Listen back to this talk with director Kamila Andini and dramaturg Adena Jacobs on the intercultural artistic collaboration for The Seen and Unseen Theatre/Dance production.
In partnership with Performing Lines.
The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts—or Asia TOPA—settles into MPavilion for an action-packed month-long residency from Thursday 20 February to Sunday 15 March. Each day of the residency, talented and multidisciplinary guests from Asia TOPA’s international roster of artists will give a lunchtime performance at MPavilion, from 12.30–1.30pm.
Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne with support from the Australian and Victorian governments. With major seed funding from the Sidney Myer Fund, Arts Centre Melbourne has initiated a landmark collaboration with Melbourne’s community of culture makers and national arts leaders to introduce powerful new voices from Asia to our stages. Asia TOPA takes place from January to March 2020.
For more than 65,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have studied the intricate ways in which the sky and land are connected. Listen back to Kamilaroi astrophysics student Krystal De Napoli to hear about the methods Indigenous astronomers use to predict weather and harvest cycles from the sky, plan ceremonial practices, and navigate vast distances.
This presentation will explores the use of orality as the vehicle for encoding and preserving astronomical knowledge over thousands of years, while describing phenomena such as solar eclipses, supernova, variable stars and moon halos.
Listen back to this 2019 Talk with Jeni Paay, Flavia Marcello, and Dan Golding.
Architects and planners don’t just plan for the present—they imagine the future. In past times of crisis and upheaval, architects have thought beyond the realm of the possible, creating new visions of the future that reimagine how people can once again live harmoniously in cities. We are currently facing new times of disharmony and uncertainty but the crisis is not world war it is global warming.
Post-war designs for the future hoped to shape society in new and radical ways, including: Bruno Taut’s City Crown, 1919, Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, 1920, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, 1958 and Archigram’s Plug-in city, 1964. How many of these utopian visions eventuated? Did they influence the design of the cities we live in today? Can we connect how we live today to these imaginings of harmonious and idyllic living?
In looking at past examples of future thinking, we see the importance of designers thinking beyond the boundaries of what is possible when designing for the future. The impossible becomes possible only when thinking beyond the realm of the possible.
How will today’s architects respond to current uncertainty? Adaptable and sustainable architectural design, like that of Glenn Murcutt, is one way to shape the future of the built environment. What else can we do?
This event is presented by Smart Cities Research Institute at the Swinburne University of Technology. This event is supported by RACV.
Where have Melbourne Music Week’s last ten years taken us? And where will its next ten lead? As MMW commences its tenth anniversary, lets analyse the idea and impact of the annual music week in promoting a city’s music culture.
Listen back to this 2019 talk from Dr Andrea Baker, lecturer and author of ‘The Great Music City’, sustainability-focused councillor Cathy Oke; Look Out Kid co-director Nick O’Byrne; Bakehouse Studios co-founder Helen Marcou, and Yorta Yorta poet, musician and activist Neil Morris.
Listen back to a special edition of our MRelay series, organised by the M_Curators. As young people from the age of 18-25, they have chosen to focus this MRelay on the biggest issue facing their generation: the climate crisis. The MRelay series takes the art of conversation and makes it into an intellectual team sport where—instead of batons—insights and ideas are passed down the chain.
In September 2019, record numbers of people around the world took to the streets to demand action on climate change—from government officials, to organisations and industries. But what happens now? How do we make concrete changes? We’ve assembled a diverse group of thinkers to tackle these issues together. There’ll be scientists interviewing fashion designers, youth activists talking art and design, architects meeting comedians…experts and every day people, young and old, all side by side, deep diving into the question “what is the change you would most like to see taking place?”
The lineup for MRelay is: Charity Edwards Stuart Outhred Jade Sarita Arnott Chelsea Hickman Yandell Walton Jane Morton Neil Morris Linden Ashcroft Alec Reade Dr. Mittul Vahanvati Jiri Lev Jess Wood Karin Traeger Hermosilla
The Climate Crisis host is Alanta Colley.
This event is supported by MPavilion’s principal partner RACV.
Join kundalini yoga teacher and founder of Mistletone Records & Touring Sophie Miles, Artist as Family, and musician Allara Briggs Pattison, as they discuss the alternate sources of energy, healing and renewal in this new climate era, in response to MPavilion’s February theme — Earth: A Place of Reconciliation, a Reconciliation of Place.
Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler, hosts of 3RRR’s Breaking & Entering, record a special podcast each month, with guests including inventive artists, musicians and creatives. Over four nights through the season, Lauren and Simon and their guests will dig into this year’s program themes: Australian Design: Identity & Cultural Collaboration; Connection: Instruments of Harmonious Living; Unplugged: Energy Without Electricity; Earth: A Place of Reconciliation, a Reconciliation of Place; and Knowledge: Shared Learning, Shared Power.
Listen back to this forum speculating on alternative models of reciprocity that could facilitate community empowerment and procurement; debating the pros and cons and imagining a future where this is commonplace.
MPavilion’s third annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2019/20 is co-curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees and Jack Mitchell.
This presentation by Dr Paul Toyne, Sustainability Practice Leader at Grimshaw, explores the ingenuity and possibility of architecture as we look for intelligent strategies for sustainable future living, and to strengthen humanity’s connection with nature. Drawing upon Grimshaw’s interest for projects with minimal footprints, Paul explores how the disciplines of architecture and urban design may adapt to, and regenerate, the Earth’s systems.
With its aspirational message about the natural world, ecology and technology, this event brings to the fore the responsibility we have to act quickly and challenge ourselves to do more to restore the health of our planet.
Melbourne is proudly Australia’s ‘most liveable city’ – but how can we best accommodate a doubling of the population without doubling the footprint of the city?
Join a wide-ranging discussion exploring how we can face Melbourne’s housing challenges as we grow to Australia’s biggest city. Andrew Mackenzie leads a range of experts from urban design, transport, economic, academic and government perspectives exploring the future challenges across these areas. Wild speculation, utopian visions and practical solutions are all welcome as we ask what do we need to consider now to ensure future Melbourne is an equitable, delightful place?
We are thrilled to join with Housing Choices Australia for the 2020 Oswald Barnett Oration. Listen back to this talk, with speakers from government, planning and property sectors.
Our panel this year is expert, diverse and opinionated but they share a common goal; to dramatically improve the housing opportunities of people in need, in the city fast becoming the growth capital of the nation, Melbourne.
Moderator: Journalist and lead moderator with the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, Peter Mares
Panellists: The Right Hon. The Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sally Capp Victorian Housing and Planning Minister, The Hon. Richard Wynne MP Executive Director, Property Council of Australia (Victorian Division), Cressida Wall Managing Director, Housing Choices Australia, Michael Lennon CEO, National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC), Nathan Dal Bon
Listen back to this discussion with Simona Castricum around the theme 'What is home'. This talk was presented as part of a 5-day long program exploring 'Who we are together, and what is home?', with talks and workshops supported by RACV.
Simona Castricum is an architecture academic, musician and designer from Melbourne. As an educator and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, her work explores gender nonconforming and queer intersections in architecture, the city and public space. Simona is an electronic music performer, and a community radio broadcaster on RRR and PBS FM. Simona is active in trans and gender diverse advocacy in music and the built environment as a design consultant, public speaker and freelance writer.
Listen back to this discussion with Andy Fergus, Alexis Kalagas and Katherine Sundermann around the theme 'What is home'. This talk was presented as part of a 5-day long program exploring 'Who we are together, and what is home?', with talks and workshops supported by RACV.
Andy Fergus is an urban design critic, commentator and practitioner. Andy is a design advocate at City of Melbourne, co-director of Melbourne Architours and Studio Lead at Melbourne School of Design. Through these roles Andy is engaged with the community, government, design industry and students to advocate for more inclusive, ethical and high-quality environments. Andy’s multidisciplinary background encompasses urban design, planning and architecture, enabling Andy to act as a translator between these disciplines. Andy is also a Nightingale Housing collaborator, a City of Sydney Alternative Housing Ideas Finalist and works in the facilitation of a number of non-speculative urban development prototypes.
Alexis Kalagas is an urban strategist and writer. Previously a foreign policy advisor with the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet, he spent four years at the interdisciplinary design practice Urban-Think Tank, working on housing and inclusive urban development projects in Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Inspired by time living in Zürich and London, he has a particular interest in scalable alternative development models for affordable housing, including the role of digital innovation. He has explored these themes as a Harvard GSD Richard Rogers Fellow, a finalist in the City of Sydney’s Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge, and as a participant in the 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism (with TEN).
Katherine Sundermann is an Associate Director at MGS Architects, leading masterplan projects for universities, creative employment areas and housing precincts. Drawing on her experience working as an architect and urban designer in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, Katherine is passionate about promoting ‘deliberative development’ models in Australia, to help create more diverse and inclusive neighbourhoods. Together with Andy Fergus and Alexis Kalagas, Katherine is a finalist of the City of Sydney’s Housing Ideas Challenge, with a housing model that brings Zurich-style cooperative housing to Australia.
Listen back on this keynote speech from the Royal College of Art's Tarsha Finney, on 'Domesticity: I am trapped'. This talk was presented as part of a 5-day long program exploring 'Who we are together, and what is home?', with talks and workshops supported by RACV.
Dr Tarsha Finney is an architectural urbanist, senior research tutor and program lead on the City Design MA, School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art. Previously she was visiting professor in the School of Architecture at the RCA, leading the Intergenerational Cities Research Cluster. Her work is focused on housing, the city and urban change. Her research interests cross several areas: domesticity, the housing project and the role of multi-residential housing in the constitution of the city since the nineteenth century; architectural typology and notions of architectural disciplinary specificity and autonomy; the architectural urbanism of innovation in cities; and the relationship between spatial performance, ownership and governance structures in urban resilience and transformation in cities, with particular reference to ideas of alternate housing and neighbourhood models.
In his recent documentary ‘2040’, speaking of the changes we’ll all need to make if we’re to save the planet, Damon Gameau says ‘transitions are awkward.’ If this is so, and we need to make a ton of them to survive, how do we help each other make them? What are the benefits of change? Why, and how, do we find it uncomfortable? How can we more openly approach it?
Look back on this MTalks session, with educator-artist Kate Ellis and a panel comprising artists yoga teacher Lucienne Shanti; writer and actor Candy Bowers, and Chunky Move teacher and independent dancer/choreographer Sarah Aiken.
Listen back to this talk from Global Gardens of Peace as they lead a highly engaging workshop of exploring perceptions, thoughts and attitudes. Can landscape design activate cultural and social transformation? Can we create landscapes that have profound positive impacts on people’s lives? Explore new landscapes and ideas that will open the way you think about the land around you.
Your health is not usually the first consideration when choosing a new postcode, however where you live is increasingly recognised as a key determinant for your health and wellbeing. While the connection between health outcomes, planning and design is increasingly acknowledged, the role of the planning system to implement public health policy remains largely unexplored. This raises the question: how can the planning system be used as a tool for public health policy?
Revisit this MTalks session, which brings together an expert panel of planners, academics and designers, exploring the role and responsibility of planning and design to promote positive health outcomes, and suggesting how the Victorian planning system may be reinvented as a tool for preventative health policy.
In February we welcomed the razor-sharp team from The Conversation for a very special MPavilion Book Club session. Listen back to this podcast to hear from Arts + Culture editor Suzy Freeman-Greene as she leads a discussion about the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, Richard Powers’ grand novel The Overstory, joined by Kathryn Williams, professor of environmental psychology at the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public. Its team of professional editors work with university, CSIRO and research institute experts to unlock their knowledge for use by the wider public.
Revisit this conversation with Ross Harding and Joost Bakker moderated by Tasmin O'Neill, as part of the Green Magazine weekend of programming on Saturday 1 Feb.
Ross Harding's organisation Finding Infinity is dedicated transforming our cities from consumers to producers, will discuss how Melbourne can transition to become self-sufficient by 2030 by connecting technology with culture.
Joost Bakker, an environmental activist and florist, who discusses the scourge of greenwashing and challenges listeners to reconsider the way we live and the waste we leave behind.
What are the challenges that face Melbourne’s night time creative economy?
Look back on this interdisciplinary panel discussion, reflecting on the macro and micro pressures that face Melbourne’s night time creative spaces. Hear from representatives from the environment, government, and academic sectors on the role of spatial planning in the life cycle of these spaces, and how design can mitigate the impacts of night time activity, while ensuring night spaces are safe and inclusive. The discussion also addresses how decision makers can engage with and promote the night time creative economy, and looks at what we can do to open up night time spaces to broader audiences, without losing their essential qualities.
When asked what needs to change in order for the process of architecture to be more meaningful and respectful of Indigenous peoples, a common answer is time. Time to undertake proper engagement processes. This forum will explore the concept of deep listening and what it means for the built environment.
MPavilion’s third annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2019/20 is co-curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees and Jack Mitchell.
Join Sophie from Green Fleet, Kylie Lewis from Of Kin, Vanessa Petrie from Beyond Zero Emissions, Luke Taylor from the Sustainable Living Foundation to discuss what we can do in the face of the climate crisis.
Powered by bicycles, the Climate Emergency Cinema invites you to experience a series of outdoor films at MPavilion celebrating the urgent grassroots action around climate change. Co-curated by the Transitions Film Festival and the Little Projector Company, the curated program of short films and award-winning feature documentaries will be introduced by leading thinkers and activists leading the climate emergency campaign here in Melbourne.
Revisit the second MPavilion book club of the season, with thoughts from Cher Tan, Jaclyn Crupi, Bridget Caldwell, Chris Somerville and Justine Hyde, who’ll each reflect on one of the five shortlisted titles: Act of Grace by Anna Krien, Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas, Simpson Returns by Wayne Macauley, The House of Youssef by Yumna Kassab and The Yield by Tara June Winch.
Revisit this MTalks exploring storytelling processes and speculating about how architecture, a form of storytelling in itself, can contribute to and work in harmony with Indigenous understandings of Country. Our interpretation of the world we live in is communicated through stories and narratives. We can’t separate ourselves from these stories in the same way we can from data and science. This process of storytelling engenders empathy and equality with everything in our environment.
MPavilion’s third annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aims to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2019/20 is co-curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees and Jack Mitchell.
This event is supported by RACV.
The notion of neurodiversity—the breadth and difference in the ways we relate to our environments—raises a number of questions for spatial designers. How do different sensory modes enhance our understanding of the world? What approaches can designers use to engage with these diverse experiences, and how can this lead to more inclusive, higher-quality spatial environments?
Revisit this panel discussion from a diverse group of Monash University researchers and designers, including MADA’s Dr Chris Cottrell; architect—and principal of empathic-experimental practice BLOXAS—Anthony Clarke; and Dr Beth Johnson, who leads Monash’s Autism/ADHD Genetics and Neurodevelopment (MAGNET) project.
This event is supported by RACV.
Light is a crucial part of how we experience our surroundings, and lighting design brings this element into our homes, cities and shared spaces in particular ways. At its best, it can help us feel safe, empowered, convivial or enchanted; at its worst, it can engender unease or discomfort. But how can we better understand the ways in which light configures our worlds? And what do lighting designers, metropolitan authorities and city dwellers need to know about light and lighting to support our shared urban futures?
Revisit this discussion with moderator and researcher/author Shanti Sumartojo; Danish light-culture expert Mikkel Bille; illumination-focused cultural geographer Tim Edensor, and Sarah Pink, founding director of Monash University’s Emerging Technologies Lab.
This event is supported by RACV.
Guerrilla gardening. Housing equality activism. Mural art. Revisit this panel discussion exploring the various forms of subtle urban subversion being performed by young people in and around Melbourne.
This event was facilitated by Rachel Iampolski, Phd candidate at RMIT with research into intangible cultural heritage in urban spaces, and University of Melbourne design anthropology student Zane Pinyon. It is part of our youth expressions of interest, engaging collaborators aged 15–25.
This event is supported by RACV. Photo by Nathan Iampolski.
Look back at this Q&A after the screening of Set the Tone: an online talk show conceived by Adier Maluk, Angeth Malual, Adior Deng and Yar Biar, young Australian women of South Sudanese descent driven to create a platform that speaks to them and their peers. The show is about shifting up the conversation, opening up points of view and challenging the status quo, creating a platform for young women from the African diaspora to deep dive into the issues that matter to them and challenge assumptions from both within and outside their communities.
This talk was supported by RACV.
Has technology caused us to lose the art of connection? Is loneliness a modern pandemic? If so, how do we cure it? How can we better reconnect?
LIsten back to this very special Night of Better Conversation hosted by the much-loved School of Life, with friendly discussion about making friends and building relationships, and an exploration of the current state of connection. How can our failures make us more interesting, and our vulnerabilities more appealing? How do we overcome shyness and connect with people with whom we seem to have nothing in common?
This talk was a part of December 2019—Connection: Instruments of Harmonious Living, supported by RACV.
Dive into this thought provoking podcast hosted by artist Eugenia Lim with leading thinkers and advocates from across the fields of labour and industrial relations, gig workers’ rights and the arts. This panel explores working in the digital age, and the impact of the gig economy on our relationships, rights, creativity and bodies. Speakers include Sarah Kaine, Associate Professor, School of Business, UTS; artist and performance maker Roshelle Fong; and former Foodora worker Josh Klooger.
Revisit this 2-part discussion of how Melbourne is providing more open space for its growing population from micro and macro levels: first a case study of the newly opened Prahran Square, a $62M development undertaken by the City of Stonnington to transform a run-down car park into public open space, followed by a broader look at how Melbourne property leaders are incorporating open spaces into their developments and how it’s shaping our society.
This event was presented by AECOM.
Listen back to this talk, as guests Sui Zhen (Becky Freeman), Alicia Sometimes and Paul Gorrie address the theme Connection: Instruments of Harmonious Living—What does it mean to be human in connection with other humans and in connection with the universe?
How can we create this positive change together? How can we totally reimagine the development industry to realise its soft skills and human obligations to our growing population?
Small Giants Developments brings together an array of perspectives that are bound by their intention to re-imagine how we live together. This panel conversation explores a future where developments are facilitators of vibrant, nurturing, accessible communities. Small Giants Developments and friends investigate why developers are in desperate need of an intention makeover, with a huge emphasis on empathy and compassion both for people and the planet.
We’ve all felt lonely at some stage, whether in a fleeting or ongoing capacity—it’s part of the human experience. Even so, why do many of us feel more isolated than ever, despite our unprecedented technological connectedness? And why are these feelings still so heavily stigmatised?
Listen to this panel of experts and social-change pioneers discuss loneliness and explore what we can do to combat its measurable increase in our communities.
Cross-cultural design often requires a set of protocols to maintain respect throughout the design process. What are these protocols from Indigenous perspective and how can they be embedded in the way we create the built environment?
MPavilion’s third annual BLAKitecture forum brings together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments.
BLAKitecture 2019/20 is co-curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees and Jack Mitchell.
What is it like to paint a famous face? What relationship is formed between artist and sitter? And how does a painting go from blank canvas to winning the coveted Archibald Prize? Listen back to Archibald Prize 2019 winner Tony Costa and his subject, the renowned painter and sculptor Lindy Lee, for a deep dive into the artist studio.
Listen back to this interesting discussion with Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand, ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott, and Archibald Prize 2016 winner Louise Hearman on the Prize’s place in global art economies and what winning the Prize means in real terms for an artist’s career.
Narrm/Melbourne, editor and writer Sally Olds and Kōtare (fka DJ Sezzo) present the 88th WRITING & CONCEPTS talk reflection on texts contemplating the liminal space of queer expression and sensory experience within club culture.
WRITING & CONCEPTS is a lecture and publication series exploring the insights that visual arts practitioners have in to their own creative and cultural practices, and provides an opportunity for them to discuss and publish these insights in a public forum. Contributors include practitioners for whom the written form is their primary professional output and practitioners whose work manifests as exhibitions or events within the domain of contemporary art.
The ‘Australian Dream’ of a freestanding house on a quarter-acre block was popularised in the 1950s and iconised by Howard Arkley in Suburban Home (1993). However, for many people, that dream is no longer affordable, sustainable nor capable of supporting contemporary households. This panel looks at alternative models of housing that either provide, or have potential to provide, meaningful additions to a necessarily diversifying residential landscape. Having consideration for affordability, inclusion, location, safety, active ageing, diversity and identity, this discussion asks “What does housing mean to you, how has it shaped your sense of identity and belonging, and where do we go from here?”
Developed in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Architects, Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and the Planning Institute of Australia.
In 2019 the Louvre Pyramid by Chinese-American architect I.M Pei turned thirty. Designed as a contemporary art installation, the pyramid is nowadays a landmark of the Parisian museum—but it was also one of the most controversial cultural projects of François Mitterrand’s presidency. Since, the Louvre Pyramid has been accepted and embraced, and now houses art installations that look back on this controversial birth and refresh its myth. This talk welcomed Ludovic Laugier — curator in the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre Museum — to speak about the pyramid and Pei’s work.
In a Smart City, how will we identify people, organisations and things in the digital realm? How will we decide who, and what, to trust? Will we have choice and agency?
Join an expert panel of futurists, designers and creative thinkers exploring 'the Smart City', highlighting barriers and benefits of a future where our identifying documents and objects are digital, sharing facts and fictions around digital identity - something that is likely to affect everyone in the future.
Listen to this panel discussion about critical issues for our future cities: approaching climate change from a place of positivity. This talk was recorded as part of the Assemble Papers 'Living Closer Together Symposium: Future Legacies' a series of discussions exploring the intersection of design, action and community.
Listen to this future-focused panel discussion about Smart Cities: what does innovation look like in the 21st century? This talk was recorded as part of the Assemble Papers 'Living Closer Together Symposium: Future Legacies' a series of discussions exploring the intersection of design, action and community.
Listen to this future-focused panel discussion about citizen-lead housing projects, as part of the Assemble Papers 'Living Closer Together Symposium: Future Legacies' a series of discussions exploring the intersection of design, action and community.
Revisit this panel discussion with Amelia Wallin, Edition Office, Mark Feary, Mathieu Briand and Megan Cope, as they investigate the possible guidelines and outcomes for the creation of contemporary art spaces, and explore the important relationship between architects and the contemporary Australian arts ecology: How is a contemporary narrative suggested through architecture and design? What is the significance of this to the community when we don’t all share the same perspective.
Listen to host Peter Maddison in conversation with Glenn Murcutt AO and Naomi Milgrom AO (founder of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation which commissions each year’s MPavilion)as they discuss Glenn's design for the 2019 edition of MPavilion, his illustrious fifty-year practice, and his most recent and forthcoming projects.
In this special presentation podcast for our MPavilion 2019 season, architect Glenn Murcutt AO spoke with Triple R broadcasters Lauren Taylor and Simon Winkler while sitting inside his newly completed pavilion. Glenn explains in poetic detail his design for the 2019 edition of MPavilion. We hear how the surrounding park breathes into this seasonal structure, and how all his works are is in deep dialogue with their environment. We also learn more about the origins of his keen observational skills and work ethic, instilled in childhood.
Leading the first all-black curatorial team for the 10th Berlin Biennale, Gabi Ngcobo has made international headlines this year, speaking about the importance of revisiting history in our art institutions.
This MTalks event, co-presented by the Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), brought a lecture by Gabi, the curator and educator titled 'Working with the unknown', which was MUMA's Boiler Room Lecture for 2018.
In this talk, Gabi Ngcobo spoke about her collaborative curatorial practice starting from the founding and ending of the collaborative platform Centre for Historical Reenactments (2010–2014) to co-establishing NGO—Nothing Gets Organised.
Both projects traverse her artistic and educational approaches and have influenced some of the large scale projects she has been worked on during the past five years, including A Labour of Love, 32nd Sao Paulo Biennale and the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.
The lecture was convened by Hannah Mathews, MUMA’s senior curator.
What does Indigenising education mean in the built environment? Should we learn about the Indigenous built environment and, if so, what should we learn, and when, how, why and from whom? Hear from current students, graduates, practitioners and educators about the past, present and possibilities for the future of education and its representation of Indigenous perspectives and realities.
MPavilion’s second annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The 2018 forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2018 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
What does Indigenising education mean in the built environment? Should we learn about the Indigenous built environment and, if so, what should we learn, and when, how, why and from whom? Hear from current students, graduates, practitioners and educators about the past, present and possibilities for the future of education and its representation of Indigenous perspectives and realities.
MPavilion’s second annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The 2018 forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2018 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
Many individuals, groups and institutions in Australia now incorporate an acknowledgement of country into official proceedings—a recognition of the Traditional Owners of the land in which people gather, and events take place. But what does that actually mean in practice?
In so many ways, architecture and urbanism are invested in ideas of land, and historical conceptions of ownership—be it through force or other means. So, to kick off MPavilion’s 2018 season, we sought to take some time out and think Critically about Country: the levels of meaning, understanding, occupation and use of land.
Participants in this chat included Melbourne Festival director Jonathan Holloway, MPavilion 2018 architect Carme Pinós, architect Jefa Greenaway and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Melbourne’s Robin Penty.
Explore the different aspects of sound healing and music therapy in this intellectual and spiritual discussion at MPavilion as part of Melbourne Music Week 2018. Hear how music and sound can help improve your physical and mental health, and how sound can induce a state of profound relaxation, meditation, expansion of consciousness and self-healing.
FOREGROUND brought conversations and storytelling that is usually in the background to the foreground at MPavillion—mapping the intersection between spoken-word, poetry, sound, movement and discussion.
One of the uniting aspects of humanity is storytelling. In this performance and discussion, the collective of artists used ritual and space to alchemise history and experience through collective storytelling.
The event's intention was to create a playful and safe space for important and meaningful conversations to be had. By creating a poetic space for things to emerge, such dialogue will, in time, become part of everyday language and begin to change the public discourse.
After the spoken word and movement performance, there was a mediated and interactive panel discussion with the seven artists, allowing the audience to step into the narrative.
As a wrap-up to the BLAKitecture 2018/19 series, speakers across the fields of architecture, planning, archaeology and design contemplated the good, bag, ugly and inspiring aspects of the season's themes, exploring where the conversation and action should head next.
MPavilion’s second annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture is curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
“The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck,” said Paul Virilio, yoking together the opportunities and consequences of technological progress. We joined Rory Hyde, co-curator of The Future Starts Here exhibition at the V&A in London, to discover a landscape of possibilities for the future of design. Rory discussed the background to the major 2018 exhibition, which brought together 100 objects ranging from smart appliances and satellites to artificial intelligence and internet culture.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Mass attacks in public spaces, pedestrian trauma, gender-based violence... How do we better share our public spaces? Have our safety needs changed, and if so, what do we most immediately need to be addressing? What are the innovative ideas leading the endeavour to keep our cities open to everyone? This panel included Melbourne’s deputy chief resilience officer, Maree Grenfell, architect Orlando Harrison, Zoe Condliffe of XYX Lab and artist Glen Walton.
Listen in on a conversation on the changing nature of work over the generations. We spoke with active community member, Marg D’Arcy, as she shared her experiences working in government, not for profit and “grass roots” organisations. Marg is also the mum of Real Life Patron, Beci Orpin.
Melbourne is recognised as the world’s most liveable city, and the most intelligent. But what does the city do to remain relevant and maintain these accolades? European cities are seeing river and ocean pools open in the major cities almost monthly; urban farms are activating disused spaces and creating vital services and income to displaced members of the public; and events that encourage wide community participation have been created right across Asia to engage the active millennial traveler and growing population.
Listen in on a vibrant and urgent discussion about the processes and challenges of gaining funding and approval for community- and market-led projects in Melbourne with a panel of speakers who share their experiences of getting projects off the ground and developed. Led by Yarra Pools, this conversation sought to understand whether we are hesitant as a city to move forward on validated and global ideas.
Mat Pember from the Little Veggie Patch Co spoke about his pop-up patch in Federation Square; Courtney Carthy shared the journey of the Inflatable Regatta, and lastly Mirerva Holmes discusses the four-year journey to take the Yarra Pool from concept to community-driven reality. The panel was moderated by Caroline Clements, founding editor of Broadsheet and author of the exciting new release, Places We Swim.
Image courtesy of Yarra Pools and Studio Octopi.
What should cultural heritage encompass? What should be protected—how and why? Spring evening design debates with the Australian Institute of Architects returned to MPavilion during our most recent season of free events. Representatives from the Victorian Chapter of the AIA went head to head on timely and enduring ideas in architecture, including this debate, titled ‘New heritage’. Panellists included Sofie Kvist, Matt Gibson, Tania Davidge, Ross Turnbull and Clare Cousins.
Spoken-word, poetry, sound, movement and discussion intersect with a line-up of emerging storytellers. Last season’s ‘FOREGROUND’ event brought storytelling styles that are usually in the background to MPavillion with the intention to create a playful and safe space for important and meaningful conversations. Guests included Oscar Key-Sung, Aretha Brown, Jo Pugh, Shannon May Powell, Joshua Lynch, Ichikawaedward, Jonathan Homsey and Jacob Coppedge.
Following the performances was a panel discussion with the seven artists, allowing the audience (and now you!) to step into the narrative.
Listen to a vital panel conversation interrogating the role of gender in leadership, presented by Collectivity Talks. ‘Leadership and women’ interrogates the attributes of good leadership. Should gender enter the discussion? Why the controversy around quotas? Do female leaders have a responsibility to foster the careers of other women?
Listen to Sir Peter Cook, internationally influential architect and a founder of avant-garde architectural group Archigram. Sir Peter is Emeritus Professor at University College London, The Royal Academy of Arts and the Frankfurt Staedelschule, with recent works including the construction of his radical Art Museum in Graz, Austria (Kunsthaus).
He was in Melbourne to direct an intensive design studio at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, Sir Peter joined us at MPavilion in a discussion with Professor Martyn Hook and architect Christine Phillips, offering thoughts, suggestions and provocations on the future of the 21st century city after Archigram and where architectural education is now tending. Professor Donald Bates provided the introduction.
This event was supported by Melbourne School of Design.
Join Marie Foulston, the chief curator of videogames at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, in this discussion about the current climate, challenges and changing conversations around exhibiting videogames in museum spaces.
The lead curator of the V&A’s ambitious 2018/19 exhibition 'Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt', Marie has championed the social and interactive nature of videogames, interrogating the medium through a design lens.
In a feature in the New York Times, Marie said: “People still justify video games as having value because of the amount of money they make, but that’s been true for a long time. We don’t talk about what makes them interesting as design. That’s what a museum can do.”
Marie was joined in conversation by Michael McMaster, co-director of the House House studio, makers of Push Me Pull You and the upcoming Untitled Goose Game.
What role does public space play in the everyday experience of women and gnc people? In the wake of ongoing deaths and violence, how are we responding and galvanising in public spaces and online?
This event was a facilitated discussion and workshop around the ideas of activating spaces, community actions and ensuring the conversation around the right to safety in public continues collectively.
To begin, a discussion of complex issues were discussed by a panel providing a range of perspectives: academics, writers, activists and lawyers. The panel were invited to share their reflections on using and owning public space with particular regard to violence, feminism, memory and resistance, as well as thoughts on the online vs public sites for feminist activism.
Australia’s acclaimed contemporary dance company hosted a panel discussion exploring the relationships formed between the body, architecture and space.
Moderated by Vanessa Bird of Bird de la Coeur Architects and the Dancing Architects and engaging members of the dance and artistic community, the panel interrogated the role of both the body and architecture in shaping lived experiences, and the creative possibilities that arise when the body—through dance—connects with architecture and physical space. Speakers include Ian Strange, Rebecca Jensen, Sarah Aiken, and Deanne Butterworth.
What are the similarities between dance and architecture? How does each engage the human body and spatial construction? Revisit this group of esteemed dance practitioners as they drew on a range of specific past and future works that looked at how choreographic practice and the body itself evoked architectural forms and structures.
Pedestrian trauma, attacks in civic spaces, road rage… As our cities become more global and urban populations increase, how do we better share our public spaces and design for safety? Have our safety needs really changed, and if so, what do we most immediately need to be addressing? Does our need for public safety override concerns about decreased privacy? What are the innovative ideas leading the endeavour to keep our cities open to everyone?
This panel discussion is made up of leading thinkers and doers, with speakers including Orlando Harrison, Zoe Condliffe and Maree Grenfell.
Revisit a conversation exploring how existing project procurement models can work for both Indigenous communities and built environment practitioners. How can we modify the models to work more significantly with Indigenous protocols, narratives, communities and Traditional Owners to achieve better partnerships, collaborations, processes and outcomes?
MPavilion’s second annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people.
The forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture 2018 was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
How does gender impact the way we perceive inland places? La Trobe University’s Centre for the Study of the Inland presents Dr Nikki Henningham from the University of Melbourne, oral historian and research coordinator for the Invisible Farmer Project. In an era where landscapes are undergoing rapid change—development, degradation, improvement, and climate change—we’re considering how gender impacts those changes and how those changes impact less visible inland populations.
Nikki delivered an overview of the ARC-funded research program into the lack of visibility of female farmers in public consciousness, teasing out how women of the land respond to their places, which double as home and work, and whether gender has any bearing on their response.
Revisit a panel conversation interrogating the role of gender in leadership, presented by Collectivity Talks. ‘Leadership and women’ will interrogate the attributes of good leadership. Should gender enter the discussion? Why the controversy around quotas? Do female leaders have a responsibility to foster the careers of other women?
Following the release of Assemble Papers's print edition (#10: ‘Housing’, available all season at MPavilion 2018), the AP team (editor Jana Perkovic with Eugenia Lim, Cat McGauran and Vlad Doudakliev) hosted a series of panel sessions exploring the intersection between the way we experience, design and plan for a lively and equitable city.
Panel four: Music Makes Cities
How does music shape the city as a civic force? We surround ourselves with it daily but don’t often think of music as something that leads to more open and democratic planning, policy, education and city systems.
Speakers:
Andrea Baker (Monash University), Bec Hornsby (3RRR), Helen Marcou (Bakehouse Studios), Sui Zhen and more.
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Image: Sydney Opera House under construction, 1966. National Archives of Australia A1500, K1431
Following the release of Assemble Papers's print edition (#10: ‘Housing’, available all season at MPavilion 2018), the AP team (editor Jana Perkovic with Eugenia Lim, Cat McGauran and Vlad Doudakliev) hosted a series of panel sessions exploring the intersection between the way we experience, design and plan for a lively and equitable city.
Panel three: What would an open city look like?
What would an open city look like? How will we grow old together? Who has the right to the city—and how can this right be more equally shared and distributed in future? From embedding Indigenous knowledge, culture and connection to place into the DNA of contemporary architecture to design with and for a diverse and ageing population, return and hear from active thinkers working towards more people-centred cities.
Speakers:
Sarah Lynn Rees (Palawa/Plangermaireener, Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria, MPavilion, JCB Architects), Jane Caught (Sibling Architecture) and Bree Trevena (Arup)
Following the release of Assemble Papers's print edition (#10: ‘Housing’, available all season at MPavilion 2018), the AP team (editor Jana Perkovic with Eugenia Lim, Cat McGauran and Vlad Doudakliev) hosted a series of panel sessions exploring the intersection between the way we experience, design and plan for a lively and equitable city.
What have we learnt from apartments we have built in the past? What kind of apartments do we want in the future? What do we know about apartment life in Australia and internationally; about design standards, enforced and common sense; and explore the spectrum of design responses that emerge from both public and private housing projects?
Speakers:
Mitra Anderson Oliver (urban planner and policy advisor), Quino Holland (Assemble, Fieldwork), Monique Woodward (Wowowa Architecture) and Katherine Sundermann (MGS Architects)
What makes a good housing market? Will Melbourne ever become affordable again? What is the future of the Australian dream, and can we do better housing for people? Old and new finance and ownership models are being designed by innovators across architecture, planning and finance. It is time to reconsider everything from housing co-ops to ethical market-based developments, via Baugruppen and other new models.
Speakers:
Andy Fergus (City of Melbourne, Nightingale), Ben Keck (Assemble, Fieldwork), Dr Andrea Sharam (RMIT University) and Dave Martin (The Sociable Weaver)
“Indigenous science is a way of knowing and a way of life. The power of Indigenous science lies in its ability to make connections and perceive patterns across vast cycles of space and time” – Marcus Hughes
Celeste Carnegie, Indigenous STEAM program producer at Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, stands strong on 60,000 years of technological advancement and environmental sciences that shape her exploration into science and technology while sharing the sophistication, richness, and leadership of Australia’s First Peoples within the STEAM space.
She discussed her journey through the STEAM space, her experiences and how she navigates a male-dominated industry as a First Nations Millennial woman.
This event was part of the MPavilion STEM program in partnership with the Australian Government's Office for Women.
Our buildings, interiors and urban landscapes are navigated daily by people with greatly differing access needs—and they often fail many. Our collective awareness of accessibility is increasing, but what do we really mean when we talk about designing inclusive spaces and places? How can we work to overcome ingrained and everyday ableism, from our cultural institutions to our civic spaces and workplaces?
Introduce yourself to this line-up of designers, professionals and activists as they talked about the opportunities and pitfalls when working to make our cities more accessible. Hosted by Alan Pert, director of Melbourne School of Design and director of NORD (Northern Office for Research by Design), speakers included Margherita Coppolino, an inclusion officer and president of the National Ethnic Disability Alliance; disability and LGBTIQ rights activist, writer and educator Jax Jacki Brown; Celeste Carnegie, Indigenous STEAM program producer at Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences; Anthony Clarke, director of BLOXAS, a practice for empathic and experimental architecture; Jane Caught of Sibling Architecture, a collaborative practice that works across a range of scales and sectors, always with an emphasis on the civic; and architect, artist and educator Tania Davidge of OoPLA, a practice that draws attention to the spaces we use every day.
This event was supported by VicHealth.
Our buildings, interiors and urban landscapes are navigated daily by people with greatly differing access needs—and they often fail many. Our collective awareness of accessibility is increasing, but what do we really mean when we talk about designing inclusive spaces and places? How can we work to overcome ingrained and everyday ableism, from our cultural institutions to our civic spaces and workplaces?
Introduce yourself to this line-up of designers, professionals and activists as they talked about the opportunities and pitfalls when working to make our cities more accessible. Hosted by Alan Pert, director of Melbourne School of Design and director of NORD (Northern Office for Research by Design), speakers included Margherita Coppolino, an inclusion officer and president of the National Ethnic Disability Alliance; disability and LGBTIQ rights activist, writer and educator Jax Jacki Brown; Celeste Carnegie, Indigenous STEAM program producer at Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences; Anthony Clarke, director of BLOXAS, a practice for empathic and experimental architecture; Jane Caught of Sibling Architecture, a collaborative practice that works across a range of scales and sectors, always with an emphasis on the civic; and architect, artist and educator Tania Davidge of OoPLA, a practice that draws attention to the spaces we use every day.
This event was supported by VicHealth.
This public talk, led by MPavilion’s inaugural Writer in Residence Maddee Clark, brings together First Nations writers and thinkers to discuss symbolism, memorialisation, diversity and decolonial aesthetics. Unreconciliatory landscapes is a public conversation on race, design, symbolism, diversity and representations of Indigeneity in built environments. This discussion considers the different ways colonialism and whiteness shape understandings of and interventions into public space. It was a critical discussion of race as an organising principle of space in settler colonial contexts, and how we can rethink meanings of place and property in architecture and design contexts with this in mind.
Join award-winning curator and writer Juliana Engberg—recently announced as curator of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019—in conversation with publisher Louise Adler about 'En Route', a little book about getting lost, an ode to wandering through time and place, and meeting personalities with no fixed addresses.
It’s almost impossible to get lost these days; the fastest and most direct route arrives with the press of a few keys. But what of the joys of unexpected discoveries off the grid? Juliana’s new book, En Route, out through Melbourne University Publishing, is all about adventures, and this conversation with Juliana and Louise traversed art, architecture, literature and history. Bump into Greta Garbo, Casanova, the Virgin Mary, or even the Dog on the Tuckerbox.
In so many aspects of our lives we continually strive for perfection—from needing the highest marks in school, to playing the best on the footy ground every week, to portraying the “perfect” life on Instagram. Sometimes this need for perfection is necessary for a task and at other times it hinders our performance.
Why do we strive for perfection when we know it is unattainable? Is it worth the anxiety it causes us? Revisit this intriguing discussion presented by Science Gallery Melbourne that explored how perfectionism exists both positively and negatively across a range of different industries, from the need for precision in making the next big scientific discovery to performance anxiety in the performing arts.
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This event was proudly supported by the Hugh Williamson Foundation as part of the Science Gallery Hugh T Williamson Lecture series.
The archives of the National Trust’s register of significant places largely document the work of male architects, engineers, builders, planners and politicians. But, while historically under-represented in these professions, women have shaped Melbourne’s cultural landscape in other ways. Through advocacy, activism and civic leadership, women have been instrumental in shaping the fabric of our city, from bluestone laneways, to public art, our green spaces, and the nineteenth-century streetscapes of suburbs such as Carlton and Fitzroy.
Reflect on this HERitage panel discussion that featured architects, academics, and advocates that explored the role women have played, and continue to play, in shaping our city. The discussion was facilitated by Felicity Watson, advocacy manager at the National Trust of Australia (Victoria).
Following on from the opening of The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (Brisbane), listen back to curator Professor Natalie King in conversation with regional luminaries including Elia Nurvista (Indonesia), Ly Hoàng Ly (Vietnam), Mithu Sen (India) and Lyno Vuth (Cambodia) discussing the role of artistic collaboration and collectivity.
Co-hosted by Centre of Visual Art, VCA, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne and Design & Creative Practice ECP, RMIT University.
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Image: 'Human Nature' by Khvay Samnang, 2010–2011.
What does it mean to be a woman working in the Indigenous design space? This discussion, the first of our BLAKitecture series, explored the moments of celebration, the challenges, the questions and the answers from the perspective of established Indigenous women practitioners to students across the fields of architecture, landscape, interiors and research.
MPavilion’s second annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
This event was endorsed by Parlour and has been kindly sponsored by Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA).
Every year, MPavilion takes a new form as a different architect responds to the changing face of Melbourne. This continual movement of space and meaning reflects growing international recognition—epitomised in the work of our 2018 architect, Barcelona’s Carme Pinós—that urban environments are increasingly dynamic. Victorian-era institutional buildings in our own city demonstrate that in the past, architecture emphasised solidity and permanence, whatever the reality of its inhabitants.
Now, designers across the globe are using temporary interventions such as pavilions and installations to disrupt this often false social immovability. Focusing on Pinós’s MPavilion design and the evolution of the space as a whole, this MTalk explored how contemporary design can sustainably contribute to evolving urban communities.
The digital revolution is changing the way we live today as radically as the industrial revolution did almost two centuries ago. As urbanisation accelerates across the world, digital media and information technologies integrated with the built environment hold huge potential for understanding, designing, and managing future cities. As Melbourne tries to secure its place amongst the most liveable cities, a multidisciplinary approach from diverse fields such as city planning, architecture, engineering, computer science, and social science is needed to foster urban innovation.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Senseable City Lab, as champions of urban imagination and social innovation through design and science, have been working in Melbourne to develop this vision with the Victorian State Government, MIT graduate students and Swinburne University’s Smart Cities Research Institute and postgraduates. Architect, engineer and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, Carlo Ratti, brings his experience of turning contemporary media technology to the cause of social innovation in cities across the breadth of the globe in this conversation with Professor Rob Adams AM, city design director at City of Melbourne.
The Melbourne Fashion Showcase forms part of Hong Kong Business of Design Week (BoDW), Asia’s premier design event, where the international spotlight will be on Melbourne as the event’s official partner city. Melbourne was the first Southern Hemisphere city to partner this major event, following 2017 Country Partner, Italy.
BoDW presents an unprecedented opportunity for Melbourne’s most influential fashion designers, and emerging brands, to tell their story to the world. Melbourne will send its most outstanding design masters and influential fashion business figures to Hong Kong where they can use the valuable platform to exchange ideas, network and explore new business opportunities.
The Victorian Government, through Creative Victoria, is supporting the mission to promote local fashion into a global marketplace.
Revisit Katrina Jojkity, Shareena Clanton, Philip Boon and Virginia Dowzer's discussion ahead of the showcase.
Enjoy a rare treat from Melbourne Theatre Company at MPavilion over three summer evenings as MTC presents a series exploring different facets of modern theatre practice. Hear play-readings of new Australian dramatic works commissioned by MTC and enjoy a discussion of the theatrical process with special international guest director Lila Neugebauer. Here they discussed the warp and weft of theatre, its role in shaping the future, and how it works both here and overseas. Make new discoveries and see how flashes of inspiration play an important part in the development of new and exciting theatre that speaks to the problems and possibilities of our time.
In demand by America’s finest new generation of writers, from Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker to Pulitzer Prize finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Lila Neugebauer will discuss the commercial pressures of being an artist in New York, and nurturing playwrights in such a public, pressure-cooker environment.
The Melbourne Fashion Showcase forms part of Hong Kong Business of Design Week (BoDW), Asia’s premier design event, where the international spotlight will be on Melbourne as the event’s official partner city. Melbourne was the first Southern Hemisphere city to partner this major event, following 2017 Country Partner, Italy.
BoDW presents an unprecedented opportunity for Melbourne’s most influential fashion designers, and emerging brands, to tell their story to the world. Melbourne will send its most outstanding design masters and influential fashion business figures to Hong Kong where they can use the valuable platform to exchange ideas, network and explore new business opportunities.
The Victorian Government, through Creative Victoria, is supporting the mission to promote local fashion into a global marketplace.
Revisit Katrina Jojkity, Shareena Clanton, Philip Boon and Virginia Dowzer's discussion ahead of the showcase.
We live in cities and towns that reflect the denial of Indigenous histories and perspectives, but momentum around this issue is building. What role can design play in addressing the lack of memorials and visibility to the memories and legacy of the frontier wars in Australia? What are the challenges around this for both non-Indigenous and Indigenous designers?
MPavilion’s second annual BLAKitecture forum brought together Indigenous built environment practitioners on the Yaluk-ut Weelam land of the Boon Wurrung people. The forum aimed to centralise Indigenous voices in conversations about architecture, the representation of histories, the present state and the future of our built environments. BLAKitecture was curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees.
Image:
Standing by Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner (2016) Brook Andrew & Trent Walter Bluestone, aluminium, steel, archival paper, Agfa P55 photo plates on aluminium Commissioned by the City of Melbourne, 2016 City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection
This event was kindly sponsored by RMIT Architecture.
We all learn to navigate society and our lives differently. For some, the path to wellbeing and fulfilment comes with unimaginable obstacles, amongst them societal inequality, health-related setbacks, and housing and family instability. How can we as a community better help those in need to reorient themselves within complex systems? How do we seek and create alternative routes to healthy and happy lives? How do we give everyone the tools needed to find their way?
Revisit this lively tag-team discussion featuring a line-up of individuals working in and designing to address social inequality as part of our MRelay series. Hosted by Dr Emma O’Brien OAM, speaking will be artist Troy Innocent; founder of The Water Well Project, Dr Linny Phuong; Ellen Jacobsen, social impact manager of HoMie Streetwear; Nigel Taylor, CEO Lifesaving Victoria; Mark Ayres of Today Design Studio; Fiona Gillmore, creative director of ID Lab; architect and researcher Dr Isun A Kazerani; Donna Stolzenberg, founder of the National Homeless Collective, and philosophy educator and writer Eliana Horn.
This event was supported by VicHealth and 3RRR.
We all learn to navigate society and our lives differently. For some, the path to wellbeing and fulfilment comes with unimaginable obstacles, amongst them societal inequality, health-related setbacks, and housing and family instability. How can we as a community better help those in need to reorient themselves within complex systems? How do we seek and create alternative routes to healthy and happy lives? How do we give everyone the tools needed to find their way?
Revisit this lively tag-team discussion featuring a line-up of individuals working in and designing to address social inequality as part of our MRelay series. Hosted by Dr Emma O’Brien OAM, speaking will be artist Troy Innocent; founder of The Water Well Project, Dr Linny Phuong; Ellen Jacobsen, social impact manager of HoMie Streetwear; Nigel Taylor, CEO Lifesaving Victoria; Mark Ayres of Today Design Studio; Fiona Gillmore, creative director of ID Lab; architect and researcher Dr Isun A Kazerani; Donna Stolzenberg, founder of the National Homeless Collective, and philosophy educator and writer Eliana Horn.
This event was supported by VicHealth and 3RRR.
Often named as one of the most important figures in contemporary British art, Hannah Barry is the founder of the Bold Tendencies Community Interest Company and Hannah Barry Gallery, both based in Peckham, South London. Transforming its multi-storey car park space into acclaimed programs of contemporary art, Bold Tendencies has reimagined South London and captured the attention of the art world as well the broader public, drawing nearly two million visitors since 2007. It has also hosted the BBC Proms, opera, dance and architectural projects, recontextualising these multidisciplinary forms.
Return to a conversation with Hannah Barry and Annika Kristensen, senior curator of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), as Hannah discusses the development of Bold Tendencies and its impact on London’s cultural and physical landscape; programming for public and unconventional spaces, and engaging audiences in contemporary cultural experiments.
Over the past twenty years we have seen very significant changes in the way in which art museums work with artists and how they engage with their public.
Celebrated former director of Tate, Sir Nicholas Serota CH, will discuss the impact of these changes on the outlook and programs of museums with special reference to the evolution of Tate during the period in which he led on the creation of Tate Modern, the adoption of a wider international perspective and the development of a new approach to audiences. In conversation with Rebecca Coates, director of the Shepparton Art Museum.
Sir Nicholas Serota CH was invited to MPavilion as a guest of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation courtesy of the Gordon Darling Foundation.
For MPavilion 2018's opening week, we were privileged to hear from two architects who have forged ahead in a traditionally male-dominated space. Carme Pinós and Kerstin Thompson were invited to have an informal discussion as part of Parlour's 'In Conversation' series. The chat was billed as an informal chat between two practitioners... only with an audience in attendance.
The two architects charted public space, ideas of neighbourly intimacy, and Kerstin's penchant for seeing life happen behind lit windows at night. We hope you find this a truly enlightening conversation.
Carme Pinós is a major influence on global architecture through her sharp and poetic designs and humanistic design philosophy, leading urgent conversations about public architecture, social housing and urban refurbishment.
She joined journalist and author Virginia Trioli in conversation with Naomi Milgrom AO, founder of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, the organisation that commissions the architect of each MPavilion. The trio talks all things urban design, leadership and the creative journey of 2018's stunning MPavilion.
Based in Barcelona, Pinós established Estudio Carme Pinós in 1991 following early international recognition for her work with the late Enric Miralles. Distinctive projects such as the CaixaForum Cultural and Exhibition Centre in Zaragoza (Spain), the Cube Office Towers I and II in Guadalajara (Mexico) and the Department Building of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria) have foregrounded Carme’s interests in human connection, folded materials and experiential design.
Diversity has become a catchcry, a battle cry and an umbrella term for opportunity and access—but is it holding us back? Does the framing of diversity in conversations about our cities and institutions continue to keep minorities and the underprivileged at the margins? How can we move beyond a focus on otherness, and to where do we move? As political and economic forces create rapidly changing populations, engaging design to respond to these changes is not only essential but also urgent. From the ways we house and educate to how we socialise and celebrate heritage, there’s much to consider in building the global city.
Listen back to the distinctions and possibilities of the global city with a line-up of esteemed guests in a lively tag-team conversation as part of our annual MRelay series.
Hosted by social change campaigner Nevena Spirovska, speakers include Farah Farouque, chair of Social Studio; Filipino-Australian writer and emerging curator Andy Butler; MPavilion 2018 Writer in Residence Maddee Clark; visual artists and co-director of A Centre for Everything, Gabrielle de Vietri; openly gay Imam, Nur Warsame; Immigration Museum general manager Rohini Kappadath; Moroccan Soup Kitchen owner and Speed Date a Muslim organiser Hana Assafiri; artist Stanislava Pinchuk (aka Miso);Leah Jing of Liminal magazine and photojournalist and Asylum Seeker Resource Centre volunteer Norman Katende.
This event was supported by VicHealth.
Diversity has become a catchcry, a battle cry and an umbrella term for opportunity and access—but is it holding us back? Does the framing of diversity in conversations about our cities and institutions continue to keep minorities and the underprivileged at the margins? How can we move beyond a focus on otherness, and to where do we move? As political and economic forces create rapidly changing populations, engaging design to respond to these changes is not only essential but also urgent. From the ways we house and educate to how we socialise and celebrate heritage, there’s much to consider in building the global city.
Listen back to the distinctions and possibilities of the global city with a line-up of esteemed guests in a lively tag-team conversation as part of our annual MRelay series.
Hosted by social change campaigner Nevena Spirovska, speakers include Farah Farouque, chair of Social Studio; Filipino-Australian writer and emerging curator Andy Butler; MPavilion 2018 Writer in Residence Maddee Clark; visual artists and co-director of A Centre for Everything, Gabrielle de Vietri; openly gay Imam, Nur Warsame; Immigration Museum general manager Rohini Kappadath; Moroccan Soup Kitchen owner and Speed Date a Muslim organiser Hana Assafiri; artist Stanislava Pinchuk (aka Miso);Leah Jing of Liminal magazine and photojournalist and Asylum Seeker Resource Centre volunteer Norman Katende.
This event was supported by VicHealth.
Queer music in Australia is arguably louder and prouder in 2018 than it has ever been—but this modern strength and visibility did not grow out of a vacuum. From singular artists in the ’50s and ’60s to women’s music groups in the ’70s, plus dance hedonism in the ’80s, ’90s and beyond, Australia has a long and rich—but often neglected—history of openly queer music.
This panel discussion at MPavilion is a vibrant reflection on Australian LGBTQIA+ musical expression across the decades, featuring renowned political singer and Federal Circuit Court of Australia judge Judy Small; Clitoris Band and Sheila musician Greadann Jack; academic, archivist and Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives volunteer Kathy Sport; DJ, producer, label-owner and club-night originator Gavin Campbell; and Nick Henderson, sound curator at the National Film and Sound Archive.
Presented by @chaptermusic, this eclectic MTalks gathers a lineup of pioneering artists, archivists and historians for an afternoon that was half panel discussion, half live performance and DJs—and one hundred percent celebration.
http://mpavilion.org/program/chapter-music-presents-australian-queer-music-history/
At a time when Melbourne is undergoing the greatest change since the Gold Rush, we joined Kim Dovey, Rob Adams and Ron Jones at MPavilion to launch their new book Urban Choreography: Central Melbourne, 1985– (Melbourne University Publishing, 2018).
A collective retrospective on the incremental transformation of central Melbourne from the mid-1980s onwards, Urban Choreography documents and discusses the key events, plans, projects, places and people involved in these transformations, seeking to understand the forces—political or otherwise—that drove, framed and constrained them. The book was launched by outgoing University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Professor Glyn Davis.
Following an introduction by Urban Choreography co-author and City of Melbourne director of city design and projects Rob Adams, City of Melbourne CEO Ben Rimmer moderated a panel discussion featuring co-authors Kim Dovey and Ron Jones, as well as former Lord Mayor of Melbourne (1987–8) Lecki Ord, and former CEO of Federation Square (2003–13) Kate Brennan. Together, they discussed the stories and ideas behind the book and why it’s a story that needs to be told now.
MPavilion 2017 attracted international acclaim as one of the top civic spaces in the world today. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of OMA, MPavilion 2017 was named by Wallpaper* as one of the top buildings that shaped culture in 2017. In an interview with Dezeen, Rem Koolhaas said, “We are happy that MPavilion can perform as a theatre of debate around the city and its development, and contribute to the ongoing civic discourse of Melbourne.”
In this exclusive behind-the-scenes event, we shared the details behind MPavilion 2017 from the perspective of its many key collaborators, including: Paul Jones (OMA), Tony Isaacson (Kane Constructions), Ben Cobham (bluebottle), John Noel (Arup) and Helen Wellman, and Tract Consultants. Together they walked us through their material, technological and botanical decisions around this year’s design, providing a behind-the-scenes peek into everything that goes into designing, building and wiring up MPavilion 2017’s groundbreaking, amphitheatre-inspired temporary structure.
Main image by Bec Capp
Australian artist Keg De Souza creates site- and situation-specific projects with people. With an emphasis on knowledge exchange, Keg’s investigation of social and spatial environments is influenced by her formal training in architecture and experiences of radical spaces through squatting and organising.
Keg’s work on an alternative mapping project of Shepparton was formed as part of the MPavilion 2017 regional program in collaboration with Shepparton Art Museum (SAM). At this insightful talk at MPavilion, Keg appeared in conversation with SAM director Rebecca Coates and MPavilion’s own Brendan McCleary, discussing her processes and outcomes, and reflecting upon her recent work in Shepparton.
This event was part of MPavilion’s inaugural regional program. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Main image: Keg de Souza, 'Temporary Spaces, Edible Places: Isle of Skye, Scotland', 2014, commissioned by Atlas Arts, Isle of Skye, Scotland. Courtesy of the artist.
How are women represented in the media and what are the alternatives?
Panellists Nayuka Gorrie, a Kurnai/Gunai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman who writes on Black politics, queerness and feminism; Brigid Delaney, journalist, author and features editor of Guardian Australia; Natalie Thomas, artist, writer and fierce advocate for the participation of woman in the arts; and Deb Verhoeven, associate dean of engagement and innovation at UTS (Sydney), came together at MPavilion on Saturday 3 February for a compelling discussion of women’s places within contemporary media.
This discussion marked the launch of a symposia series on feminist analyses and strategies in relation to the media, writing, new forms of publishing and text as form, unfolding as part of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art’s summer exhibition Unfinished Business: Perspectives on art and feminism. Surveying the diverse scope of feminist art practices, Unfinished Business focusses upon the dynamic formal invention and social engagement of feminist artists. Asking why feminism is still relevant, necessary and critical today, Unfinished Business explores trans-generational legacies, inheritances and shifts, alongside contemporary conditions and urgencies.
Main image: Sarah Goffman, 'I am with you' (2017). Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Andrew Curtis.
All urban environmental research, policy and practices occur on and in Aboriginal Country. A key challenge for urban practitioners and researchers is to respond meaningfully to the expectations, rights and aspirations of Indigenous people and communities in cities.
Presented by Indigenous researchers and advisory members of the National Environmental Science Program, this panel discussion explored a range of questions about the significance of nature in cities—including threatened species—for maintaining a connection to Country. Considering ways to better incorporate Indigenous values and knowledge of biodiversity into urban design and management, this dynamic conversation drew on traditional methods as a pathway to improving the liveability and conservation value of urban landscapes.
Facilitated by Maddison Miller, this event began with a special performance by the Djirri Djirri Dance Group. (Please note: The introductory performance is not included in this recording.)
Speakers: Bradley Moggridge—Kamilaroi man, hydrogeologist and Indigenous liaison officer with the Threatened Species Hub; Maddison Miller—Darug woman, archaeologist and co-chair of the Indigenous Advisory Group to the Clean Air and Urban Landscape Hub; Rueben Berg—Gunditjmara man, managing director of RJHB Consulting and founder of Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria (IADV); and Mandy Nicholson—Wurundjeri, Dja Dja wurrung and Ngurai-illum wurrung woman, PhD candidate and manager of Djirri Djirri Dance Group.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
This panel discussion was the third and final instalment this MPavilion season of Open Journal‘s popular and thought-provoking series High Density Happiness.
It looked at property ownership alternatives, from enforced re-sale restrictions in Brunswick’s Nightingale development, to more complex shared ownership structures and co-housing. The panel explored whether a new ownership framework could be the answer to affordable housing, and considered whether we might see a split market soon emerge. Underpinning these discussions is the idea that we truly do live in a time where generation-long housing stability has long given way, and these ownership alternatives could soon become the new normal.
Speakers: Katherine Sundermann (MGS Architects); Tim Riley (Property Collectives); Tom Alves (University of Melbourne); Nicola Foxworthy (Common Equity Housing Limited); and moderator Laura Phillips (Open Journal).
Main image courtesy Neometro
What does 2018 hold for contemporary arts? Let’s start this new year the right way.
The Australian Parliament commences its new year on the week beginning Monday 5 February, with both Houses sitting for four days. At the same time, artists across Australia are showing work in independent and state-owned galleries; in public and unconventional spaces; and in studios and online. Each one of these exhibitions offers perspectives on contemporary Australia that are sensitive and complex, timely and urgent. Like each bill before Parliament, these exhibitions have involved many months—or indeed, years—of work to prepare for this moment. So what have Australia’s artists chosen to make work about? What does the critical mass of these exhibitions tell us about the pressing issues of today? What is on the arts agenda, and how will we take it into the future?
This interactive discussion on contemporary advocacy for contemporary arts was led by Esther Anatolitis, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts. Creative practitioners and curious minds were invited to take part in this pressing, political and pivotal conversation.
Main image by Bec Capp
Everyone loves coffee, but what's the science behind the perfect morning cuppa?
This special MMeets event, presented by La Trobe University, brought together a physicist (Dr David Hoxley) and a coffee scientist (Dr Monika Fekete) to explore what makes coffee taste the way it does. Audience members were invited to 'pour over' the science of coffee in this interactive morning workshop, complete with crowd tasting (and scoring!) for adults and curious kids alike. The workshop started with a presentation by both speakers—have a listen below.
This event was made possible with the generous support of Three Thousand Thieves; and of the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion's series of events looking at design and science.
Since 2003, Architects for Peace have pioneered a mission of sustainable urban development based on social justice, solidarity, respect and peace. Listen as they lead this talk about the history and importance of democratic public spaces in urban environments, examining the necessity of places that are free and open to all members of the public and how such spaces foster a sense of community—critical for the reason that humans are said to be making fewer real life connections. Looking at relevant examples from Melbourne and around the world, this invigorating discussion delves deeply into contemporary challenges of public spaces.
Speakers include architect, urban designer and Architects for Peace founder, Beatriz Maturana Cossio; professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Melbourne, Kim Dovey; architect, design tutor and researcher Peter Raisbeck; and moderator Lara Brown—architecture and urban design writer, and former senior editor of Chicago Architect magazine.
This event was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Melbourne.
Narrative is a potent source for critical reflection and the dissemination of alternative knowledge and awareness. Narrative possesses a powerful capacity to affect change. And though fiction has been embraced within wider design communities, it continues to hold a peripheral position within mainstream architectural teaching and practice.
This one-of-a-kind MTalks explores the role of architecture as storyteller at community levels—considering diverse cultural, LGBTQIA+, gender-nonconforming and age-inclusive narratives. It also considers the individual, including the tales of the architect, the client and the student of architectural design.
Reflecting on the ever-evolving role of temporal media possibilities for students and practitioners, this panel interrogated alternative architectural environments—such as screen and online gaming—as a vehicle for rethinking both our spatial surroundings and public space.
Listen as Joshua Boggs, Katica Pedisic, Ken Wong, Rachel Hurst, Simona Castricum and Stephanie Liddicoat facilitate a timely discussion that approaches the role of narrative within diverse media platforms as a means to envelope the community, drawing us into more diverse and inclusive architectural and urban encounters.
PLEASE NOTE: This recording was cut short and is incomplete. It has been edited.
Your walls can talk, so what are they saying to your body and mind? Melbourne design, architecture and medicine collided in this exciting event that looked beyond functional approaches to consider health and wellbeing. Join a panel of medical and design experts as they explore the power of design in our devices and living spaces—from homes to workplaces to hospitals and more.
Curated by Jo Simkin, senior curator of human biology and medicine for Museums Victoria, the panel featured Leah Heiss, award-winning designer working at the nexus of design, health and technology; Julie Bernhardt, Florey Institute professor, clinician scientist and brain injury recovery expert; and moderator Hope Gates-Scovelle, a doctor specialising in emergency medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Main image by Kate Jenkin
Swimming, floating, playing in the Yarra River (Birrarung)? Nope, we’re not joking—currently in Melbourne, a number of community-led projects are working hard to activate the Yarra’s inner-city reaches. Though each of the projects are different, they all have one aim in common: to restore the river so it can be used for on- and in-water activities that can a) benefit health and wellbeing, b) drive investment to green infrastructure, and c) attract more people to our beautiful, vibrant city.
These projects, along with recent Victorian Government initiatives to improve protection of the Yarra (Birrarung), present a special opportunity to think about what’s next for the river.
Led by YarraPools—the team behind the proposal to construct a permanent swimming pool in the Yarra in Melbourne’s CBD—in conjunction with the Inflatable Regatta, the Yarra River Keeper, CoCreate Cremorne and the North Wharf wetlands proposal, this workshop and discussion explored community views of the Yarra. Each organisation pitched—in six minutes only!—their concept or idea for Yarra River improvement. This was followed by a panel discussion around how to get community-led projects happening.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Swimming, floating, playing in the Yarra River (Birrarung)? Nope, we’re not joking—currently in Melbourne, a number of community-led projects are working hard to activate the Yarra’s inner-city reaches. Though each of the projects are different, they all have one aim in common: to restore the river so it can be used for on- and in-water activities that can a) benefit health and wellbeing, b) drive investment to green infrastructure, and c) attract more people to our beautiful, vibrant city.
These projects, along with recent Victorian Government initiatives to improve protection of the Yarra (Birrarung), present a special opportunity to think about what’s next for the river.
Led by YarraPools—the team behind the proposal to construct a permanent swimming pool in the Yarra in Melbourne’s CBD—in conjunction with the Inflatable Regatta, the Yarra River Keeper, CoCreate Cremorne and the North Wharf wetlands proposal, this workshop and discussion explored community views of the Yarra. Each organisation pitched—in six minutes only!—their concept or idea for Yarra River improvement. This was followed by a panel discussion around how to get community-led projects happening.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Philosopher? Furniture designer? City planner? Generally bored and confused by stuff? This extra-special MMeets is for you.
Welcome to the Flat Pack Philosophy Circle: an active thinking space that aims to create an environment in which we can safely engage in conversation and ask questions in the spirit of wisdom, free from the stylised antagonism modelled by our politicians and usual talking heads. Led by Amy Rudder, this conversation invited the public to pull up a seat and free philosophy from the confines of late-night taxi rides and academic institutions.
Author, illustrator and founder of Melbournestyle, Maree Coote reads from Robyn Boid: Architect, her most recent illustrated book.
Robyn Boid: Architect tells the story of a small, dedicated bird who loves to build nests and dreams of becoming an architect. A gentle introduction to the world of architecture, kids will love learning about different architectural shapes and what makes good design, while following along with this encouraging tale of creative achievement paired with involved illustrations.
Signal is a creative studio that provides emerging and established artists with opportunities and spaces for exploration, creation and showcasing.
In this MTalks, hear the Signal Young Curators as they drop by MPavilion to chat with artists from the Signal Summer Program about their inspirations, creative processes and careers: featuring a dizzying bunch of artists including Yandell Walton, Amy Jo Jory, Michael Fikaris and more.
Beekeeper and artist Nic Dowse is joined by artist Zhu Ohmu, both of multi-disciplinary Honey Fingers Collective, for an MTalks that explores our human relationship with nature.
This discussion explores how urban beekeeping—and making things like insect hotels, swarm traps, possum boxes and bee hives—can teach us new ways to think about non-human beings, urban ecologies, urban food webs and the city-versus-nature divide. Nic and Zhu will guide us through the notions that getting involved in activities like insect hotels can give us a sneak peek into the complex entanglements of humans and ecologies in the twenty-first century. Special attention will be paid to ways that we can make room for a variety of ‘native’ and ‘exotic’ pollinators in our gardens and balconies.
Nic and Zhu will also present examples of beehives and insect hotels that they have made.
Come to MPavilion and bee involved!
Update: On Tue 21 Nov 2017, a change was made to this event. It was originally titled ‘Make an insect hotel: An urban ecology workshop’ and included a workshop component.
This event is made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
In January 2018, Soft Baroque—a.k.a. London-based creative duo Saša Štucin and Nicholas Gardner—brought their tentacular manipulations of interior design, furniture design and visual art to MPavilion with Foamy Feeling, an installation created specifically for Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten / OMA’s amphitheatre-inspired MPavilion 2017.
In this one-off artist talk, Saša and Nicholas appeared in conversation with MPavilion’s Jessie French, ruminating on the origins of their collaboration, their delicate navigation of the conceptual and the pragmatic, and the humour and sense of play that underscores their multi-pronged practice. They also shared the process behind the Foamy Feeling installation with an interactive, live ‘making’ session of these unusual and unexpected forms.
This event was part of the MPavilion 2017 International Program, supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grants Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Common Good is a major design exhibition opening in March 2018 at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney. The exhibition explores the diversity of design practice from the Asia-Pacific region, through an expansive selection of innovative projects including material explorations, contemporary craft, video game design, speculative practice and large-scale architectural interventions.
In this star-studded MTalks event, Common Good curator Keinton Butler led a panel of internationally recognised Australian designers featured in the exhibition, including: sci-fi artist, film director and ‘body architect’ Lucy McRae; game designer and co-founder of craft games studio Mountains, Ken Wong; design studio U-P co-founder, Paul Marcus Fuog; and digital studio Sandpit creative director, Dan Koerner. Together they explored some of the challenges facing designers today, and critically examined several key trends emerging in contemporary design practice, in Australia and overseas.
This event was produced in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, in association with the exhibition, Common Good, as part of the Sydney Design Festival 2018.
This event was made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Having a baby changes your perception of the city. Suddenly, things become less accessible: trams are difficult to lift a pram into, there’s no space in your favourite cafe to change a nappy and events happen at night while you soothe your baby to sleep—and so the trials of new parenthood are mostly screened off from public view. (Some public institutions do offer parenting facilities, but they’re usually hidden away next to the toilets.)
Collaborative duo Guest, Riggs will invert this private spectacle and take us with them, by turning MPavilion 2017 into a public performance of the banalities of new parenthood, where the rotating grandstand of Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten’s amphitheatre-style structure will raise nappy-changing to new cultural heights. Guest, Riggs take Rem Koolhaas’s and David Gianotten’s statement that the space could function as a playground literally: the floor will be given over to babies’ exploits, made possible with a series of baby-friendly interventions within the pavilion.
Across four events in our summer program, a rolling line-up of speakers will address the exclusion of parents from cultural events and the architecture of new parenthood by creating a space for parents and babies. (Non-parents welcome too!)
The fourth and final instalment of this gathering, ‘CITY’, will focus on the cityscape of parenthood: How can we improve experiences of parenthood, citywide? And what are the major infrastructural and cultural changes that could improve parent amenity? Carla Pascoe will discuss the history of motherhood in Melbourne; and Carolyn Whitzman will speak about how urban planning might better accommodate babies and parents in the city. We’ll also be celebrating the first birthday of Stephanie Guest’s baby!
This event is proudly supported by Baby Rest.
With Trump leading a war on reality in the United States, Pauline Hanson staging #BurqaGate closer to home, and Tony Abbott suggesting he could be drafted back into leadership, the volatile and often unthinkable year of 2017 has been one for the history books.
Join esteemed journalist and chief political correspondent for The Conversation, Michelle Grattan, and The Conversation‘s politics editor, Amanda Dunn, as they take centre-stage in the MPavilion amphitheatre to discuss the key political moments of 2017.
Photo courtesy The Conversation
Our MTalks series meets Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA)’s Boiler Room series as MUMA presents a lecture by artists Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, coinciding with their participation in the international exhibition The humours at MUMA from 7 October to 16 December 2017.
Mary Reid Kelley combines painting, performance and distinctive wordplay-rich poetry in graphically stylised black-and-white videos. Made in collaboration with her partner Patrick Kelley, her videos playfully jumble historical periods such as World War One and France’s Second Empire to trace the ways in which present concerns are rooted in the past. In particular Mary presents her take on the clash between utopian ideologies and the realities of women’s lives in the struggle for liberation.
Mary Reid Kelley, ‘The thong of Dionysus’, 2015. HD video (still), made with Patrick Kelley. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London.
Our MTalks series meets Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA)’s Boiler Room series as MUMA presents a lecture by artists Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, coinciding with their participation in the international exhibition The humours at MUMA from 7 October to 16 December 2017.
Mary Reid Kelley combines painting, performance and distinctive wordplay-rich poetry in graphically stylised black-and-white videos. Made in collaboration with her partner Patrick Kelley, her videos playfully jumble historical periods such as World War One and France’s Second Empire to trace the ways in which present concerns are rooted in the past. In particular Mary presents her take on the clash between utopian ideologies and the realities of women’s lives in the struggle for liberation.
Mary Reid Kelley, ‘The thong of Dionysus’, 2015. HD video (still), made with Patrick Kelley. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London.
Join us at MPavilion for an exploration of the potential intersections of landscape architecture and deliberative development, presented by AILA Cultivate—a committee of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) that aims to expand ideas of landscape architecture beyond traditional practice.
Deliberative development, a designer-led development process introduced to mainstream Melbourne by Nightingale Housing, is introducing a new vocabulary of spaces to Melbourne’s suburbs. Deliberative development projects are significant in that they recast crises—like housing affordability, increasing urban density, climate change, extreme work-life balancing acts and changing family models—as opportunities, creating new ways of residing, working and socialising in cities. The conversation around deliberative development has predominantly focused on the discipline of architecture and the apartment typology. Given the significant social and ecological elements of deliberative development, this dynamic discussion will ask: what is the scope for landscape practice to contribute to—and potentially lead—development projects?
Speakers: Andy Fergus, urban designer at the City of Melbourne and co-director of Melbourne Architours; Brighid Sammon, senior urban planner at Hansen Partnership; landscape architecture practice Emergent Studios; Kate Dundas, landscape architect, strategic planner, urban designer and co-founder of 3000acres; and Rodney Wulff, co-founder of Tract Consultants.
Image courtesy Tract
Having a baby changes your perception of the city. Suddenly, things become less accessible: trams are difficult to lift a pram into, there’s no space in your favourite cafe to change a nappy and events happen at night while you soothe your baby to sleep—and so the trials of new parenthood are mostly screened off from public view. (Some public institutions do offer parenting facilities, but they’re usually hidden away next to the toilets.)
Collaborative duo Guest, Riggs will invert this private spectacle and take us with them, by turning MPavilion 2017 into a public performance of the banalities of new parenthood, where the rotating grandstand of Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten’s amphitheatre-style structure will raise nappy-changing to new cultural heights. Guest, Riggs take Rem Koolhaas’s and David Gianotten’s statement that the space could function as a playground literally: the floor will be given over to babies’ exploits, made possible with a series of baby-friendly interventions within the pavilion.
Across four events in our summer program, a rolling line-up of speakers will address the exclusion of parents from cultural events and the architecture of new parenthood by creating a space for parents and babies. (Non-parents welcome too!)
The third instalment of this gathering, DISTRICT, will focus on parenting communities—both online and IRL. The council-assigned parents’ groups, Facebook groups, the so-called village it takes to raise a child, the public library, the pool and the museum—what is the role of community in developing spaces for parents and babies?
Guest speaker Karen Pickering will talk about her role as the architect of a very special online parenting community, leading interactive community-building exercises, while Clementine Ford will reflect on parenting in public and the need for greater community involvement—particularly by men. A number of Melbourne Museum representatives will also join the line-up to discuss baby-friendly community spaces: Murphy Peoples, experience developer; Scott Parker, senior exhibition designer for permanent exhibition Ground Up: Building Big Ideas, Together; Jo Pritchard, senior graphic designer for the Children’s Gallery; and Naomi Fogel, senior exhibition designer for the Children’s Gallery.
Having a baby changes your perception of the city. Suddenly, things become less accessible: trams are difficult to lift a pram into, there’s no space in your favourite cafe to change a nappy and events happen at night while you soothe your baby to sleep—and so the trials of new parenthood are mostly screened off from public view. (Some public institutions do offer parenting facilities, but they’re usually hidden away next to the toilets.)
Collaborative duo Guest, Riggs will invert this private spectacle and take us with them, by turning MPavilion 2017 into a public performance of the banalities of new parenthood, where the rotating grandstand of Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten’s amphitheatre-style structure will raise nappy-changing to new cultural heights. Guest, Riggs take Rem Koolhaas’s and David Gianotten’s statement that the space could function as a playground literally: the floor will be given over to babies’ exploits, made possible with a series of baby-friendly interventions within the pavilion.
Across four events in our summer program, a rolling line-up of speakers will address the exclusion of parents from cultural events and the architecture of new parenthood by creating a space for parents and babies. (Non-parents welcome too!)
The third instalment of this gathering, DISTRICT, will focus on parenting communities—both online and IRL. The council-assigned parents’ groups, Facebook groups, the so-called village it takes to raise a child, the public library, the pool and the museum—what is the role of community in developing spaces for parents and babies?
Guest speaker Karen Pickering will talk about her role as the architect of a very special online parenting community, leading interactive community-building exercises, while Clementine Ford will reflect on parenting in public and the need for greater community involvement—particularly by men. A number of Melbourne Museum representatives will also join the line-up to discuss baby-friendly community spaces: Murphy Peoples, experience developer; Scott Parker, senior exhibition designer for permanent exhibition Ground Up: Building Big Ideas, Together; Jo Pritchard, senior graphic designer for the Children’s Gallery; and Naomi Fogel, senior exhibition designer for the Children’s Gallery.
In this Monday night MTalks, Contemporary Art Organisations Australia (CAOA) brings together an esteemed panel of speakers to explore the present-day visual arts ecology from the perspective of independent, not-for-profit, and artist-run sectors.
Independent visual arts organisations occupy a space in the arts ecology—at the intersection of production and development—that necessitates a responsive and agile approach. Considering this unique position, how can the sector maintain equilibrium in a constantly shifting landscape? What is the relationship of independent arts spaces to new models for philanthropy and the changing role of state institutions? What does 21st-century arts advocacy look like? And most importantly, what do artists need from an arts ecology?
Join us at MPavilion for a timely discussion about independent visual arts platforms, and a look at alternative and collaborative approaches designed to support risk-taking in programming and organisational sustainability.
Raquel Ormella, 'Golden Soil', 2016. Photo by Sam Cranstoun.
With the long-held title of ‘world’s most liveable city’, Melbourne regularly attracts international interest as an economically viable space for exploration. In the eighties and nineties, an appetite for the international architectural elite drew the likes of I.M. Pei and Kisho Kurokawa to Melbourne. More recently, OMA—and its research arm, AMO—turned its attention towards Australia, describing it as the next frontier of architectural opportunity and possibility. In Melbourne, we’re fortunate to possess a vibrant local design community, proud of its pursuits of innovation and excellence—but for whom the question of Melbourne’s evolving identity also generates impassioned debate.
Does OMA’s recent interest in Australia foretell a new era of ‘starchitecture’ in Melbourne, and what does this mean for the preservation of local culture, architectural or otherwise? Peter Corrigan and Robin Boyd were pioneers in translating international design to a local sensibility—how can Melbourne continue to benefit from global knowledge and experience? And what can we glean from the successes and failures of other cities? In short: are prestigious international firms usurping or supporting existing networks of local architectural culture?
These are just some of the questions PROCESS—an independent public forum on architecture and design—will ask in its annual end-of-year debate, this time inside MPavilion 2017, designed by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of OMA and intended as a space for public debate.
Speakers include: Andy Fergus, urban designer at City of Melbourne and co-director of Melbourne Architours; Joachim Clauss, associate director at Bates Smart; Lisa Gerstman, co-curator of PROCESS, EmAGN committee member and member of the RAP Working Group; Mark Raggatt, ARM Architecture co-director; Nicole Allen, senior designer at Grimshaw and masters studio leader at MSD; and Sarah Lynn Rees, a Palawa woman descending from the Plangermaireener people of north-east Tasmania, Charlie Perkins scholar, director of Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria (IADV) and project manager of MPavilion’s inaugural regional program.
Illustration courtesy PROCESS.
Good design is essential for creating sustainable, inclusive, healthy and beautiful places, but can we actually measure ‘good design’? And if so, how should this influence how we design places?
The Office of the Victorian Government Architect brings us a fast-paced MTalks panel discussion exploring the tangible and intangible benefits of good design for health, education, public spaces, transport and neighbourhoods. For each of these themes, a design champion in government-led projects and a design expert from the Office of the Victorian Government Architect’s Victorian Design Review Panel will respond to these burning questions.
Jill Garner, Victorian Government Architect, and Andrew Mackenzie, from City Lab, will lead the conversation, and curtail any runaways or over-timers, while the following luminaries of the built-form sphere will present their cases.
For health: Stefano Scalzo, Victorian Health and Human Services Building Authority; Paul Katsieris, of firm Katsieris Origami; and Sophie Patitsas, Office of Victorian Government Architect. For education: Richard Leonard from practice Hayball; and Kerstin Thompson of Kerstin Thompson Architects. For public spaces: Adam Nitschke from Parks Victoria; Kirsten Bauer of Aspect Studios; and Bronwen Hamilton, Office of Victorian Government Architect. For transport: Kate Hardwick of Melbourne Metro Rail Authority; and Cameron Ritter of Grimshaw Architects. For neighbourhoods: Dan Brady from Development Victoria; and Billie Giles-Corti from RMIT.
Photos by Simon James, John Gollings and Andrew Wuttke
This event is made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Our current historical moment is one of profound global friction and uncertainty. From the ugly spectre of heightened tension in the Korean peninsula, underlined by the threat of nuclear weapons, to US President Donald Trump’s recent threats to drop the Iran Deal, the grave threat of nuclear conflict looms worryingly large. In the face of these perilous times, the growing imperative of a coordinated global ban on nuclear weapons is undeniable.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is working tirelessly to bring to an end to the most destructive weapon ever created. Originating in Australia in 2007, ICAN is a coalition of grassroots non-government groups in more than 100 nations. The organisation worked on negotiations for the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted by 122 countries in July 2017.
Join us at MPavilion for a momentous MTalks with ICAN co-founder Tilman Ruff and former ICAN board member, Emeritus Professor Fred Mendelsohn. Discussing the ICAN mission and the current geopolitical climate, they will illuminate the pathway to a nuclear-weapon-free world.
New for MPavilion 2017: Friday night debates. We put leading and emerging minds in architecture behind the microphones and pit them head-to-head in a series of debates on architecture.
On this Friday night, a six-person panel of established architects considers a critical issue in Australia today: affordable housing. The proposition posits: Is affordable housing just for the middle class? How can existing development methods and alternative housing options offer solutions to this zeitgeist dilemma?
Over the course of an hour, our group of architects will state their perspectives on a series of propositions. Will our architects go toe-to-toe or unanimously agree? Come to MPavilion to find out.
After the debate, stick around for drinks, networking and a very special DJ to be announced soon.
Join Alexis Wright, award-winning author of Carpentaria and The Swan Book, in conversation with Readings bookseller Chris Dite to speak about her new book Tracker: Stories of Tracker Tilmouth—to be launched by Indigenous activist Jacqui Katona.
Tracker is a collective memoir of the charismatic Aboriginal leader, political thinker and entrepreneur Tracker Tilmouth, who died in Darwin in 2015 at the age of 62. Tracker was a visionary, a strategist and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his determination to tell things the way he saw them. Having known him for many years, Alexis Wright interviewed Tracker, along with family, friends, colleagues, and the politicians he influenced, weaving his and their stories together in a biography composed of many voices. The book is as much a testament to the powerful role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of an extraordinary man.
Tracker is published in November 2017 by Giramondo Publishing.
The ‘smart’ city, the ‘liveable’ city, the ‘sustainable’ city—are these empty concepts, utopian metaphors or strategic objectives? And can cities be all these things at the same time, or are they dynamic emergent services that cities strive to provide their citizens?
This panel discussion—curated by Swinburne University of Technology and moderated by Peter Graham, deputy director of Swinburne’s Centre for Urban Transitions—will address these issues by focussing on the concept of a ‘responsive’ city, looking at the role of technology in empowering citizens to participate in the regeneration of smart, liveable and sustainable urban environments.
Together, this panel of experts will discuss responsive urban environments as well as the digital infrastructure supporting citizen participation in urban design, planning and regeneration, using examples from Barcelona, London and Melbourne. Inspired by these case studies, the goal is to move beyond the buzzwords and get to the bottom of how people can be meaningfully empowered by the intelligent urban spaces they live in.
This event is made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
In the midst of the Australian government’s widely criticised postal plebiscite on marriage equality, the ‘Yes’ campaign mobilised thousands of people—many involved in a political campaign for the first time in their lives. Now that the ‘yes’ result is in, where will these energies turn after the poll? And what will be the marriage equality movement’s next priorities?
In this special MTalks session, ABC broadcaster and anthropologist Sally Warhaft will facilitate a discussion with Dennis Altman, Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University; Ro Allen, the Victorian government commissioner for gender and sexuality; and Imam Nur Warsame. Together, they’ll discuss with sensitivity the outcome of the postal vote, the government’s next steps, and the implications for equality in Australia more broadly.
The drive towards smart cities is accelerating all over the world, with governments and private enterprises becoming increasingly eager to take part in the technology-driven push for more sustainable, efficient, clean and safe cities. But where does the ‘smart citizen’ come into the picture?
This public forum will explore a citizen-centric view of smart cities, looking at how interaction designers, architects, software engineers and interactive media specialists can create opportunities and shape practices specifically for citizens to embrace—all in the name of creating more liveable, sociable and sustainable urban futures. Chaired by Yvonne Rogers—the internationally acclaimed researcher, author and Professor of Interaction Design at University College, London—this forum will ask of its panel of experts (scroll down for speaker details!) and audience the what, where and how of augmenting people with emerging technologies.
This event is made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
Photo by Sebastian Voortman
Macau has undergone major shifts over the past 500 years. From merchant port of refuge and gateway for Jesuit missionaries to a 20th-century modernist Portuguese province—it has always been a place traversed by poets and artists. The Macau of today is a phantasmagoric site for gambling that rivals Las Vegas.
Come down to MPavilion for an enlightening conversation between artist John Young, novelist Brian Castro and writer/curator and Honorary Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Natalie King, to celebrate the launch of Macau Days.
Macau Days is a tri-lingual publication including poetic texts by Brian Castro and artworks by John Young, as well as classic Macanese recipes designed to engage shared histories of Macau. Natalie will draw from her experiences fostering numerous projects throughout Asia to lead a discussion about art, poetry, food and fiction.
This event is supported by the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice and the EU Centre for Global Affairs, University of Adelaide and published by Art + Australia. Art + Australia is a publishing and research body based at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), University of Melbourne.
New for MPavilion 2017: Friday night debates. We put leading and emerging minds in architecture behind the microphones and pit them head-to-head in a series of debates on architecture.
In Melbourne, we’re lucky to have a strong culture of discourse in the architecture industry, which starts from first year of architectural studies, critiquing our peers and critiquing ourselves against our peers’ work. These student debaters represent a cross-section of what Victorian students think about architecture beyond the classroom.
On this spring evening in November, join the current crop of emerging architecture students who together—but on opposing sides of the argument—will dissect the question: ‘In this new century, should we take risks or follow the traditional values in the architecture industry?’ Over the course of an hour, our group of student architects will state their perspectives on a series of propositions.
Speakers include: Isabella Peppard, Monash University, Year 1 Masters; Daniel Bickle-Lazarow, RMIT University, Year 2 undergraduate; Ilana Razbash, RMIT University, Year 2 Masters; Leonie Csanki, the University of Melbourne, Year 1, 300pt Masters; Diana Panagakis, the University of Melbourne, Year 1, 300pt Masters.
Image by Claire Scorpo
Join Patrice Sharkey, the director of Melbourne’s long-running CBD gallery West Space, as she presents the 46th WRITING & CONCEPTS lecture.
WRITING & CONCEPTS is both a public lecture series and publication produced by Jan van Schaik and published by ART + AUSTRALIA that reflects on the relationship between the process of writing and the development of social, political and philosophical questions within contemporary arts and cultural practice.
Come meet Patrice Sharkey at MPavilion as she guides us through her lecture on the heady intersection of contemporary art, philosophy and writing.
Lisa Radford, 'Dear Masato, all at once', West Space, Melbourne, 2016. Photo by Teresa Noble.
New for MPavilion 2017: Friday night debates. We put leading and emerging minds behind the microphones, and pit them head-to-head in this series of debates on architecture and the built environment.
On this spring evening in November, join Mel Bright (MAKE architecture), Andre Bonnice (WOWOWA), Ben Milbourne (Bild Architecture), Amy Muir (MUIR Architecture), Adam Pustola (Lyons) and Claire Scorpo. Together, but from opposing sides of the argument, they’ll dissect the statement: ‘The digital is more influential than the physical in architecture.’
Over the course of an hour, this group of emerging architects will passionately state their perspectives on a series of propositions. They’ll look at the competing dynamics of the speed and influence of architecture in the media and popular culture versus the reality of realising architecture and design.
Photo by Katelin Butler
What happens when you celebrate LGBTQIA+ elders, aged 65 and over, on one big night at Melbourne Town Hall? And how can we can we promote this feeling every day in our cities? Originating as a monthly social dance class, the Coming Back Out Ball was a red-carpet event held on October 7 this year to build a culture of respect for the LGBTQIA+ community.
As part of Sibling Architecture’s ‘Designing the age-friendly city‘ day-long takeover of MPavilion, join Coming Back Out Ball organisers and attendees at lunchtime for a performative and participatory conversation to explore the meaning and the significance of the Coming Back Out Ball as part of making an age-friendly and inclusive city.
The Coming Back Out Ball. Photo by Bryony Jackson
In 2017, Melbourne was again named the world’s most liveable city for a record seven years in a row—but how liveable is Melbourne for our ageing population? And what can we do better now to plan for the increasing percentage of people over 65 in coming decades?
As part of Sibling Architecture’s ‘Designing the age-friendly city‘ day-long takeover of MPavilion, this evening panel event will cover topics of technology, diversity, care and liveability, and will be an interactive conversation in which audience members are encouraged to bring questions and comments for a diverse panel of speakers, moderated by Sibling Architecture co-director Timothy Moore and Melbourne School of Design director Alan Pert.
SPEAKERS —Lorraine Calder, Head of Planning and Design, Australian Unity Retirement Living —Kim Dovey, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, The University of Melbourne —Frances Maloney, Coordinator Community Development and Positive Ageing, City of Yarra —Jenny Waycott, Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
Discover the full line-up for ‘Designing the age-friendly city’ here.
Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher has been headlined as many things, including ‘the world’s most provocative architect’. A true believer in innovation, Patrik is not someone who shies away from engaging in challenging conversations on some of the most urgent issues of our generation. He notoriously created a worldwide outcry following his keynote address at the World Architecture Festival in November 2016, where he presented a controversial ‘urban policy manifesto’ to initiate a critical discourse on the future of cities.
Standing by our belief that the MPavilion stage is a place for discussion and debate, Patrik Schumacher joins us at MPavilion, along with Victorian State Government architect Jill Garner, to talk architecture, planning and the built environment and explore what it takes to lead a world-renowned firm carrying one of the biggest names in modern architecture—the iconic Zaha Hadid.
Come along with your burning questions—this conversation between Patrik and Jill will be followed by an audience Q&A.
This event is made possible with the assistance of UEM Sunrise.
Open Tabs is a fast-paced, lighthearted exploration of trends and internet pop culture with five Melbourne creative luminaries—Beci Orpin, Dave King, Jeremy Wortsman, Lucy Feagins, and Marc Martin—who bravely bare their souls (and computing devices) to share their current internet obsessions. Peering over opened laptops with an eye on their open browser tabs, this eclectic panel of Melbourne cultural and creative leaders will talk about what’s shaping creativity today in this awesome MTalks gabfest. It’s beers and ideas like never before.
This MPavilion event is created in collaboration with SAMPLE Brew and The Jacky Winter Group.
As the housing affordability topic rises in our minds in unison with rental and purchase prices, Australian state and local governments have started investigating the possibility of helping propagate a build-to-rent housing sector. Described as ‘radical’ by Australian press, but an initiative common in the USA and the UK, build-to-rent communities involve development designed with the intent of long-term—sometimes indefinite—leases. Providing long-term security for residents, and touted as a topical treatment for the housing affordability crisis, building to rent is the topic of this High Density Happiness talk brought to you by Open Journal.
In this panel discussion lead by Laura Philips join Sam Tarascio, James Tutton, Nerida Conisbee and Matthew Palm to discuss the impact of the build-to-rent model across different spheres: from design implications and creating strong communities to the cultural acceptance of long-term renters and how to form the policy towards security of tenure.
Photo by Derek Swalwell
Celebrated Albanian artist Anri Sala has gained international attention for his video, animation and photographic works. With an emphasis on slowness, stillness and intimate detail, Sala explores the interface of documentary and fiction, with his work rooted in memory, history and a delicate navigation of political and social contexts.
In October, Anri Sala will visit Australia to unveil an innovative new installation of sculpture and sound, The Last Resort, co-presented by Kaldor Public Art Projects and Art & About Sydney. While in Australia, Sala will visit Melbourne and join Shepparton Art Museum director Rebecca Coates for this very special in-conversation event at MPavilion.
This event will be Auslan interpreted.
Special thanks to Kaldor Public Art Projects for making this event possible.
The Small Homes Service, initiated by Robin Boyd in 1947, sought to popularise the modern home and make it available to a broad public. It had an immense positive impact on the then burgeoning suburbs, with an estimated 15% of new homes in Victoria being built as part of the scheme. But toward the end of his life Robin Boyd could already see the deleterious effect suburban sprawl was having on the physical and social fabric of the city, advocating for new medium-density typologies. Boyd’s warnings went unheeded, and the suburbs continue to extend further into the horizon today. Meanwhile, the practice of architecture has all but abandoned the fringe, instead hitching its wagon to the boutique luxury market of the inner ring.
Could these issues be addressed with a new Small Homes Service today? What would such a programme look like? If he were here now, what would Robin Boyd do? Join historian Phillip Goad and curator Rory Hyde as they evaluate the legacy of the Small Homes Service, and invite you to join a discussion as to what form a revived version of it could take today.
With thanks to the Melbourne School of Design for their support. We acknowledge the Robin Boyd Foundation for the fantastic work they do.
Having a baby changes your perception of the city. Suddenly things become less accessible: trams are difficult to lift a pram into, there’s no space in your favourite cafe to change a nappy and events happen at night while you soothe your baby to sleep—and so the trials of new parenthood are mostly screened off from public view.
Collaborative duo Guest, Riggs will invert this private spectacle and take us with them by turning MPavilion 2017 into a public performance of the banalities of new parenthood, where the rotating grandstand of Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten’s amphitheatre-style structure will raise nappy-changing to new cultural heights, and where comfortable seating will support open-air breastfeeding and bottle-feeding. Guest, Riggs take Rem Koolhaas’s and David Gianotten’s statement that the space could function as a playground literally: the floor will be given over to babies’ exploits, made possible with a series of baby-friendly interventions within MPavilion.
The first instalment of four events across our program is titled HOUSE and focuses on the architecture of parenthood in the domestic realm: the housebound experience, the baby stuff you have to make space for, and your favourite breastfeeding chair.
Jessica Friedmann will read from her collection of essays Things That Helped, which charts her journey through postpartum depression after the birth of her son, and discuss the overlap between ordinary experiences of new parenting, mental illness, and other forms of disability. She will draw upon the question: what aspects of the city are still accessible to new parents, when they experience both the social exclusion that comes with a new baby and the physical and mental sensitivities to stimulus that accompany PND?
Natalie Miles and Caitlyn Parry—together Studio Neon—will discuss their experience of setting up a collaborative practice in the presence of a small human, and how this affected their working process and, in turn, their work. They will show Studio Neon’s competition entry for the ‘Workplace of the Future’ which is based around a pram walking loop (which they designed while pushing a pram around the streets of Coburg). Natalie will also present ‘Mills—The Toy Management House’ which she worked on with Austin Maynard Architects. Visitors will also see a mobile installation by Studio Neon referencing the theme of House — which we can all expect to see develop throughout the series.
Additional dates, with themes and guests to be announced, for MMeets—A stage for new parenthood:
Tuesday 14 November 2017, 12pm–3pm Tuesday 12 December 2017, 12pm–3pm Tuesday 16 January 2018, 12pm–3pm
This event is proudly supported by Baby Rest.
Having a baby changes your perception of the city. Suddenly things become less accessible: trams are difficult to lift a pram into, there’s no space in your favourite cafe to change a nappy and events happen at night while you soothe your baby to sleep—and so the trials of new parenthood are mostly screened off from public view.
Collaborative duo Guest, Riggs will invert this private spectacle and take us with them by turning MPavilion 2017 into a public performance of the banalities of new parenthood, where the rotating grandstand of Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten’s amphitheatre-style structure will raise nappy-changing to new cultural heights, and where comfortable seating will support open-air breastfeeding and bottle-feeding. Guest, Riggs take Rem Koolhaas’s and David Gianotten’s statement that the space could function as a playground literally: the floor will be given over to babies’ exploits, made possible with a series of baby-friendly interventions within MPavilion.
The first instalment of four events across our program is titled HOUSE and focuses on the architecture of parenthood in the domestic realm: the housebound experience, the baby stuff you have to make space for, and your favourite breastfeeding chair.
Jessica Friedmann will read from her collection of essays Things That Helped, which charts her journey through postpartum depression after the birth of her son, and discuss the overlap between ordinary experiences of new parenting, mental illness, and other forms of disability. She will draw upon the question: what aspects of the city are still accessible to new parents, when they experience both the social exclusion that comes with a new baby and the physical and mental sensitivities to stimulus that accompany PND?
Natalie Miles and Caitlyn Parry—together Studio Neon—will discuss their experience of setting up a collaborative practice in the presence of a small human, and how this affected their working process and, in turn, their work. They will show Studio Neon’s competition entry for the ‘Workplace of the Future’ which is based around a pram walking loop (which they designed while pushing a pram around the streets of Coburg). Natalie will also present ‘Mills—The Toy Management House’ which she worked on with Austin Maynard Architects. Visitors will also see a mobile installation by Studio Neon referencing the theme of House — which we can all expect to see develop throughout the series.
Additional dates, with themes and guests to be announced, for MMeets—A stage for new parenthood:
Tuesday 14 November 2017, 12pm–3pm Tuesday 12 December 2017, 12pm–3pm Tuesday 16 January 2018, 12pm–3pm
This event is proudly supported by Baby Rest.
PART TWO
“‘?interior’ is a question posed in a continually changing and dynamic outside and as such invites the potential for the new. This is one reason why there is a z rather than an s in this interiorizt and interiorization. The use of z in words can be described as “an active s”; shaped like a lightning strike, a z brings energy and movement to a word, its reading and meaning. While interiorizt practice includes interiorists it cannot become equated with interiorism as the z is like a bolt of the blue.”
— ‘interiorizt’ by Suzie Attiwill in The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design (2013), p116.
RMIT Interior Design brings to MPavilion an exhibition and presentation of experiments by interiorizts from IN—an RMIT undergraduate interior design specialisation. A laboratory for experimentation, IN invites students to inhabit the persona of an interiorizt and experiment with techniques of interiorization in the production of outside-interiors, interiority, and experience. MPavilion will become a theatre for exhibiting, viewing, philosophizing, discussing and learning as the interiorizts present their final experiments situated within a broader discussion about interior design, urbanity, nature and landscape.
Come to MPavilion to meet the following interiorizts and their provocations: Suzie Attiwill, Aisha Aziz, Agnes Bartha, Joshua Barron, Beatriz Chamsay, Madaline Ganton, Liz Ginter, Lauren Gostin, Isabella Head-Gray, Nazreen Hendricks, Emilie Holen Askildt, Milena Krstic, Erin Liacos, Jacqueline Miller, Kayla Pannuzzo, Shehani Perera, Amaara Raheem, Hannah Rawlings, Eleanor Rieniets, Zachary Sama, Maddison Savvidis, Silje Kristin Walmann and Keira Wu.
MPavilion acknowledges the participation of the Bachelor of Interior Design (Hons) program, RMIT University.
“‘?interior’ is a question posed in a continually changing and dynamic outside and as such invites the potential for the new. This is one reason why there is a z rather than an s in this interiorizt and interiorization. The use of z in words can be described as “an active s”; shaped like a lightning strike, a z brings energy and movement to a word, its reading and meaning. While interiorizt practice includes interiorists it cannot become equated with interiorism as the z is like a bolt of the blue.”
— ‘interiorizt’ by Suzie Attiwill in The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design (2013), p116.
RMIT Interior Design brings to MPavilion an exhibition and presentation of experiments by interiorizts from IN—an RMIT undergraduate interior design specialisation. A laboratory for experimentation, IN invites students to inhabit the persona of an interiorizt and experiment with techniques of interiorization in the production of outside-interiors, interiority, and experience. MPavilion will become a theatre for exhibiting, viewing, philosophizing, discussing and learning as the interiorizts present their final experiments situated within a broader discussion about interior design, urbanity, nature and landscape.
Come to MPavilion to meet the following interiorizts and their provocations: Suzie Attiwill, Aisha Aziz, Agnes Bartha, Joshua Barron, Beatriz Chamsay, Madaline Ganton, Liz Ginter, Lauren Gostin, Isabella Head-Gray, Nazreen Hendricks, Emilie Holen Askildt, Milena Krstic, Erin Liacos, Jacqueline Miller, Kayla Pannuzzo, Shehani Perera, Amaara Raheem, Hannah Rawlings, Eleanor Rieniets, Zachary Sama, Maddison Savvidis, Silje Kristin Walmann and Keira Wu.
MPavilion acknowledges the participation of the Bachelor of Interior Design (Hons) program, RMIT University.
13 October 2017
Join us for an MTalks with NH Architecture as they bring us a special MPavilion version of their popular SERMO series. Sermo is Latin for ‘the word’ and NH architecture’s SERMO discussions are hosted in Melbourne every few months. The events are founded upon NH’s core principles of collaboration and open debate, and each one explores topics that relate to the architectural profession and the design industry. Encouraged by the Institute of Architects, the series is an informal yet informative opportunity for passionate and informed discussion.
For this MTalks, James Tutton (Neometro), Alison Whitten (Resilient Melbourne), David Ritter (Atelier Ten), Jocelyn Chiew (Monash University) and Chris Robinson (Capire) will discuss how the built form of our city strongly influences the type and quality of community connections and interactions, and specifically how rapid-pace, large-scale development can speed by without consultation. The debate will posit that involving people in making decisions about their built and natural environments fosters stronger community identity and cohesion—making places more desirable, liveable and resilient against the forces of a fast-growing city.
12 October 2017
OMA / Rem Koolhaas & David Giannoten’s MPavilion 2017 reinvents the ancient amphitheatre for 21st-century Australia. In this dynamic reimagining, MPavilion becomes a platform for exploring interactions in today’s society. The design is conceptual spolia—defined as ‘the reinterpretation of earlier forms and imagery in a new context’—at its contemporary best. But MPavilion 2017 is not the first example of this approach in the city. Melbourne is filled with buildings that refer to the past as a way to respond to the present. Not only is it arranged on a Roman-grid plan, Melbourne’s urban environment transplants classical forms and ideals into a new context. In the process, the traditional visual concepts are abstracted and they gain new meaning. What role does the past have in informing our modern city and the lives we lead within it? How are external and historic ideals made relevant to the contemporary Australian landscape?
This MTalks presented by Monique Webber—State Library of Victoria La Trobe Society Fellowship; and an honorary fellow, principal instructor, and assistant coordinator at The University of Melbourne—will reveal the conceptual spolia of Melbourne’s streets.
In an MPavilion opening day tradition, we kick off our season with a very special MTalks event. Remember MTalks? It’s all about putting leading minds behind the mic to investigate new ideas. Join MPavilion 2017 architects Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of OMA; founder and patron of MPavilion, Naomi Milgrom; and our host, leading Australian journalist, author and broadcaster, Virginia Trioli, for our first MTalks ‘in conversation’ this season.
Together they’ll discuss their now favourite topic: MPavilion 2017. Specifically, their hopes and dreams for the project, the intentions and provocations in the design, and new ideas on architecture and design you best be there to hear. Join us for this special opening day event, the very first MTalks in the Queen Victoria Gardens for MPavilion 2017.
Join us on MPavilion’s first weekend in action to meet N’arweet (Elder) Carolyn Briggs, who this year is an integral part of our program with a rotating selection of her ‘Morning Stories’ broadcast over MPavilion’s speakers each morning at 9am.
A descendant of the First People of Melbourne, the Yalukit Willam clan of the Boon Wurrung, Carolyn established the Boon Wurrung Foundation in 2005, and has conducted significant work in cultural research—including the restoration of the Boon Wurrung language and the promotion and maintenance of Boon Wurrung culture and heritage.
Come down to MPavilion on this Sunday afternoon to hear Carolyn Briggs in conversation with MPavilion’s deputy creative director, Jessie French, and to learn stories about the Boon Wurrung people and Country on which MPavilion lies.
We are living through a period of intense global instability—one that is economic, environmental, social and political. It is an age dominated by precarious relationships and freelance employment, high rents, housing crises and the personal brand. In this context, it has never been more urgent to understand what it means to live today, in order to make a proposal for how we should live tomorrow.
Through several recent projects, London-based architect Jack Self (director, REAL foundation; editor-in-chief, Real Review magazine) will propose a new role for architectural design and thinking in the development of alternative models of ownership, postfunctional space, contemporary and sustainable forms of labour, and the formation of egalitarian socio-economic power relationships in housing.
Listen back to this talk presented by The Future Laboratory's co-founder that explored how a new cohort of creative citizens are redefining the intersection between space and culture. Learn how digital tools increasingly re-write our understanding of experience, from Pokemon Go to walking tour apps like Detour to the continued use of augmented reality in traditional cultural settings and spaces like the museum and gallery.
As culture—both traditional and contemporary—is increasingly less confined to 3D environments, creativity inevitably spills out onto a city’s streets, parks, laneways and public and commercial spaces, Chris joined us at MPavilion to guide us through this new, modern paradigm.
The Cities of Architecture series of talks presented monthly at ACCA from March through to October in 2017 explore the recent architectural, urban and cultural history of some of the world’s most inspiring destinations.
We were happy to host the program launch with an MTalks forum that discussed urbanism and architecture through the vehicle of the city. This panel featured Diego Ramírez-Lovering, head of the architecture department at Monash Art Design & Architecture and co-founding managing director of Monash Architecture Studio, together with John Denton, joint managing director of architects and urban design firm Denton Corker Marshall, and Qianyi Lim, founding partner and architect at SIBLING.
Eminent, highly-acclaimed and widely respected as a leading architect of his generation, British architect Sir David Adjaye OBE closed off one of MPavilion 2016's MTalks for the season. Sir David’s architectural work spans a great depth and breadth, most recently completing the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian Institute museum in Washingon D.C. Other works are many—from the private to the public—including the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management and Museum Contemporary Art in Denver and more.
Listen back and get up close and hear from one of the world’s leading architects in conversation with Michael Williams, director of The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas and formerly the host of the popular ABC Radio National’s cultural program 'Blueprint For Living'.
The city is our daily stage. What role do buildings play in the unfolding narrative? Among Buildings is a book by photographer Tom Ross, architect Michael Roper and graphic designer Stuart Geddes reflecting on twenty-six examples of significant Melbourne architecture through photography and poetry. The publication explores the complimentary tensions of the written word and the photographic image, engaging both the perceiving eye and the reflective mind. It builds an imaginative space between photography, poetry and buildings.
Tom, Michael and Stuart came to one of MPavilion 2016's final nights, joined by their collaborators: poet and poetry editor Micaela Sahhar and architect/artist/poet and mentor to the project, Alex Selenitsch, to discuss the book in its entirety.
Leading Danish architect, urban designer and writer Jan Gehl joined us for an MTalks on a fleeting sunny day in Melbourne. Along with Rob Adams, director of city design and projects at the City of Melbourne, and Monica Barone, CEO at City of Sydney, Jan discussed his fundamental interest in planning cities for people, where Rob and Monica placed these concepts in an Australian context. The talk focussed on the way in which the cities of Copenhagen, Melbourne and Sydney have addressed similar issues in very different ways.
Moderated by Shelley Penn, this open and engaging chat extrapolated Jan’s vision for humanistic urbanism and how versions of his design philosophy are re-oriented in other cities.
We tend to take what we know about design and architecture for granted, often based on assumptions rooted in history, culture, and geopolitics. But what happens when you change those assumptions?
This MMeets presented by Aric Chen, lead curator for design and architecture at West Kowloon Cultural District’s M+ Hong Kong focussed on how the museum aims to reveal lesser-known Asian narratives of design and architecture, while revisiting familiar global ones from the museum’s vantage point in Hong Kong, China, and Asia.
Aric Chen’s visit to Melbourne was made possible by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.
Sri Lankan-born, Sydney-based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran creates rough-edged, vibrant, new-age idols that are at once enticing and disquieting. His figurative sculptures experiment with form and scale and explore the politics of sex, the monument, gender and organised religion.
While proceeding from a confident atheist perspective, Ramesh draws upon his Hindu and Christian heritage as reference points, also looking to popular culture including the internet, pornography, fashion and art history. For his latest solo exhibition at The University of Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art, self-portraits make frequent appearances and the dual presence of male and female organs suggesting gender fluid realms of new possibilities.
Listen back to Ramesh and award winning journalist Santilla Chingaipe in conversation as they explore the possibilities of his latest body of work on show at The University of Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art, 'In the Beginning'.
Narrate rounded out the final leg of MRelay 2016/17.
Storytelling is a tool for knowledge generation and cultural transmission. The telling of one’s personal journey can be used to share cultural history and create social cohesion. This session provided a speaker’s corner for the city, a platform for ideas to be heard and stories to be told. It was opportunity to hear from ethnically and culturally diverse voices, ages and genders. Here we investigated digital storytelling, personal and architectural narratives.
Our questions were: How can new technologies encode narrative, strengthen identity and build community? With the rise of artificial intelligence, we explore what it means to be human.
Narrate was hosted by Karen McCartney, writer and editor extraordinaire. Speakers included Aric Chen, curator of art and design at M+; Sam Cooney, publisher of The Lifted Brow; Jill Garner, Victorian Government Architect; Candy Bowers, actress, social activist; Adele Varcoe, producer and fashion designer; Kenny Pittock, Melbourne-based visual artist; and Lucy Adams, manager of homeless law at Justice Connect.
The third leg of MRelay considered the theme 'Pause'.
What happens when we stop—if we push a symbolic pause button on our lives? How is pause used as a diplomatic moment, a break in verse, a strategic instrument, a historical atonement or a connection to place? This session presented a chance to reflect on our past lives, imagined lives and future lives, and considered our environment and the surroundings we are in. How a moment of pause can result in a total reassessment and recalibration. In our technology-based society, we explored the significance of pause in creative practice, techniques of mindfulness, the importance of learning from history, paying respect to our elders and the unifying moment of a minute’s silence in a crowd.
Pause was hosted by Nayuka Gorrie, Indigenous writer and activist. Speakers includedKenny Pittock, Melbourne based artist; Julie Bernhardt, professor at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne; Penny Modra, writing and grammar nerd at The Good Copy; Sue Maslin, hugely successful film producer; Daniel Teitelbaum, head of content at School of Life Australia; Amy Muir, director of MUIR Architects; and Eugenia Flynn, CEO at The Social Studio.
The second lap of MRelay was Play.
What can be learnt from seeing Melbourne as a playground? Recent decades have seen a rise in playful practices in the public spaces, ranging from street art to skateboarding to parkour. From flash mobs to urban gardening. From performative interventions to location-based digital games. In social frameworks how can play be used as a tool to promote inclusion, and improve and increase life opportunities and boost community morale? Architecturally, how can the concept of play trigger us to rethink traditional urban infrastructure and address important social issues and challenges by creating new experience and new situations? How does being playful capture imagination and trigger creativity in public spaces? These were some of the talking points our speakers set out to to explore—namely the intersection between social engagement, interpersonal relations and the environments we inhabit.
'Play' was hosted by Christian Thompson, Australian-born London-based artist. Speakers include Mary Featherston, famed Australian designer; Natalie Thomas, Melbourne-based interdisciplinary artist; Amani Naseem, internationally acclaimed artist, researcher and games culturalist; Linda Sproul, manager of education and community programs for Museum Victoria; Rob McGauran, urban designer and architect; Bruce Gladwin, Australian artist, performance maker and theatre director; and Scott Price, ensemble member of Back to Back theatre.
MRelay 2016 jumped out of the blocks with the theme 'Cultivate'. We looked at the city as a place to nurture and, in turn, asked the question: how do we create a civic space that nurtures its inhabitants?
Can we as citizens be both productive (and products of) a city? How do we take responsibility for moulding its environmental and cultural fabric?
This session explored the power of collective consciousness and how human infrastructure can grow and maintain a healthy coexistence. From rooftop honey apiaries to asylum centre-run food trucks, to the promotion of gender equality and social enterprises, Melbourne is a resource for both edible and social opportunities. Through a myriad of interventions, all of us can acquire knowledge and develop skills that have longevity and impact on our community.
Cultivate was hosed by Peter Maddison, director of Maddison Architects and host of acclaimed television series Grand Designs Australia. Speakers included Catherine Brown, CEO of the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation; Jefa Greenaway, director of Greenaway Architects, chair of Indigenous Architecture + Design Victoria; Russell Shields, Food Justice Truck manager at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre; Wendy Syfret, editor of i-D Australia; Amy Mullins, executive director of the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia; Dr Michele Lobo, senior research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation; and Kate Dundas, award-winning landscape architect and urban designer and radio presenter on 3RRR.
This event explored the concept of nothingness in scientific inquiry, sustainability, literature and cultures that express that they ‘do nothing’. Was it vague? There was nothing to worry about. This symposium brought together leading academics, thinkers and experimental artists to delve and dive, to poke and prod and explain to you, the very idea of nothingness.
On the night, international law scholar Hilary Charlesworth AM discussed the role of utopia (‘no place’) in international law; Dr Mark McMillan—a Wiradjuri man from Trangie, NSW— who researches in the area of human rights and presented the audience with all or nothing… unpacking Indigenous indifference to being legally “nothing”; founder and co-editor of the Lost Plays Database and lecturer in Shakespeare Studies Dr David McInnis explored the clues to lost plays that can be found in those which survive – clues to existence when nothing remains; Lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, and former astrophysicist, Dr Maurizio Toscano drew from the science of human consciousness, from the worlds of particle physics, cosmology and field theory to illustrate how nothing is the authentic source of the scientific imagination; Dr Trent Brown, research assistant at the Australia India Institute, spoke about how nothing has a power that we overlook in our relentless attempts to ‘do something’ and ‘be something’ as he discussed sustainability and food production; Oxford University’s Associate Professor in German and Comparative Literature Professor Barry Murnane spoke about how literature’s nothingness is extremely productive, and how writing allows nothingness to at least be evoked or somehow approximated within its fictional medium; Finally, rounding out the panel, director of the Australia-India Institute, Craig Jeffrey enunciated how young people in northern India refer to themselves as ‘doing nothing’.
At the close of the event, a sound installation was performed by nothing—a semi-automatic percussion system by sound artist Robbie Avenaim. At the talk's conclusion musician and producer Lisa Lerkenfeldt played a selection of music about nothing.
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This event was made possible by the Australia India Institute and the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
A leafy park, a noisy building site, a room with a view (or without) – for better or worse, the physical spaces we inhabit have a biological and psychological effect on us. Following January's 'Vital (De)signs: Sensing space through VR', we brought together a range of voices that discussed and debated the impact of the built environment on our health and wellbeing – and the game-changing potential of virtual reality. The panel included neuroscientist Professor Julie Bernhardt of The Florey Institute; architect and urban designer Dr Marcus White of Melbourne School of Design; and digital artist and academic Joel Zika of Deakin University.
Rose Hiscock moderated the session, formerly the Powerhouse Museum director and now the inaugural director of the Science Gallery Melbourne—an innovative new gallery dedicated to the collision of art and science, set to open in 2018.
This event is made possible by the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
In 2014 the State Government delivered its blueprint for Southbank’s Arts Precinct. The primary recommendations were driven by an urban design vision addressing the impermeable nature of the site and its disconnection from other parts of the city. Southbank is one of Melbourne’s densest residential neighbourhoods yet the lack of connection between the residents and the iconic cultural facilities remains only partially addressed.
Led by urban planner, theatre producer, choreographer and dancer Wendy Lasica and accompanied by a panel that includes MPavilion patron Naomi Milgrom, artist curator and writer Tai Snaith, architect and urban designer Rob Adams plus theatre and opera director Matt Lutton, this MTalks asked: What has happened in the last three years to address this? And if we want this part of Melbourne to “be vibrant and connected”, how can we make that happen?
Revisit Parlour at MPavilion to celebrate the launch of Marion’s List, a new public register for the women of Australian architecture. Marion’s List is created as a resource for those looking for expert commentary or input, and for those wanting to be involved in the people of architecture’s public culture—things like talks, panels, juries, teaching and much more! With Marion’s List, Parlour hopes that we need never again hear: ‘We asked a woman, but she wasn’t available.’ Marion’s List is also a space to be seen, a place to reimagine what an architect looks like and does, and introduce the myriad of women involved in Australian architecture and other built environment disciplines.
Hear Parlour’s Karen Burns and guest speaker Amy Mullins, director of the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia, on why Marion’s List matters and the importance of women participating in the public culture of architecture.
Despite the fact that the built environment affects all of us daily, directing our movements and shaping how we live, it remains determined by a male-dominated property industry.
This panel focused on representation of women across all fields of decision-making in the built environment from policy to design, and looks at ways to support, promote and increase gender equality across the industry. Listen back to this MTalks panel, a part of the always-engaging High Density Happiness series of talks presented by Open Journal, and join Amy Mullins, Laura Philips, Danielle Savio and Angus McNaughton.
Many young people in northern India argue that to survive in the subcontinent today you need jugaad. This is a Hindi word which means “a hack”—the shrewd use of available resources to find an ingenious solution. The classic Indian image of jugaad is a wooden ox cart that has been fitted with a modern engine, but it can describe everything from a form of housing to a way of acting in a government office, from a style of clothing to an approach to managing labour—search jugaad on Google images to be enlightened.
For this fun and accessible talk, Craig Jeffrey examined how young people in rural India think about jugaad. Young people value the concept. But youth also argue that uncritical celebration of jugaad can let the state off the hook because it distracts attentions from the need to improve education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Jugaad may be both a form of agency and a symptom of marginalisation.
In an era of ‘planetary urbanisation’ the making and moving of urban cultures becomes a global process, but also one firmly embedded in place. Creating the 21st century city requires new ways to understand culture, place and sustainability at a time defined by dynamic flows of people and ideas.
Taking cues from Bijoy Jain’s MPavilion 2016, this MTalks panel featured the shining lights of Australian academia on urbanism and kicks-off our November program that focuses on creative cities, urbanism and culture. This panel chat covered critical issues and ideas for contemporary urban change in an urbanising South Asia, and, at the same time, explores how a South Asian diaspora in Australian suburbia go through the process of making place and belonging.
Hear back from Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University; Dr Michele Lobo of Deakin University; Dr Harry Fischer of La Trobe University; and Dr Trevor Hogan of La Trobe University for this MTalks at MPavilion.
For this, the first (not a) book club, i-D AU/NZ's Wendy Syfret was joined by Penny Modra of The Good Copy to look at the twelve-part episodic podcast series ‘Charles Manson’s Hollywood’ from the podcast ‘You Must Remember This’.
The twelve-part series of podcast episodes “…explore the murders committed in the summer of 1969 by followers of Charles Manson, and the Hollywood music and movie scene surrounding the killings.”
Wendy and Penny discussed why we’re so obsessed with Charles Mason, other cults, how the Manson murders both inspired and were inspired by popular culture, and drew comparisons between those trends and things they observe in our present day.
The rise of fascism and the resulting European diaspora of the inter-war and post-war periods brought émigré and refugee modernists to live in Australia. Some were practitioners of Bauhaus from the German school of the same name often cited as the most influential modernist movement of the 20th century. Figures such as Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Inge King, Gerhard Herbst, Ernest Fooks, Fredrick Sterne, Harry Seidler, Karl and Gertrude Langer transformed Australian art, architecture and design education from the 1930s to the 1970s. Their systematic approaches to design, colour theory and art education have made a lasting impact on this country.
A group of leading academics—Harriet Edquist, professor of architectural history and director of Design Archives at RMIT University; Philip Goad, professor of architecture and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne; Ann Stephen, senior curator, University Art Gallery & University Art Collection, The University of Sydney; professor of art and art history at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany Isabel Wünsche and art historian and professor of visual arts at Queensland University of Technology Andrew McNamara—have assembled to investigate the impact of Bauhaus ideas on the history of modernist art, architecture and design in Australia. Their research on this new international framework for Australian culture will be published and exhibited to coincide with the Bauhaus centenary in 2019. To mark their journey through the project, this MTalks round table conversation brought them together to dissect and discuss how Bauhaus émigrés influenced Australian art.
Visiting Melbourne as part of the Bauhaus in Australia launch, Penelope Seidler met with Dr Ann Stephen and Philip Goad for this special in conversation MTalk at MPavilion. With an illustrious career as an architect and a life devoted to the arts, Penelope spoke about architecture then and now, as well as her life with her professional partner and husband, famed leader in Australian modernism and exponent of Bauhaus, Harry Seidler.
Revisit this MTalk with Glenn Murcutt, Australia’s best-known architect internationally, in conversation with MPavilion 2014 architect Sean Godsell chatting about Glenn’s enduring and award-winning career as an architect. Glenn’s illustrious career has seen him awarded the honour Order of Australia (AO) in 1996 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize for 2002—often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize of Architecture’. He is also a recipient of numerous Australian Institute of Architects Awards and has been a visiting professor at a number of prestigious universities. This MTalks convo is sure to provide insights into these two great Australian architects.
With a growing urban design movement focussed on creating liveable streets, the benefits of walking as a catalyst for sustainable, healthy, prosperous and attractive cities is gaining attention. From seventy years of practice, Arup recognises that a walkable city is a better city, and that the more we all walk, the better the city is. This knowledge, underpinned by hearty amounts of research, has resulted in 'Cities Alive: Towards a walking world', Arup’s recent publication.
Listen back to their talk at MPavilion with Dr Anne Kovachevich, Arup Australasia's "Foresight + Innovation Leader", to discuss the publication of this report, one which highlights the significant social, economic, environmental and political benefits of walking. Informed by specialist insight and multidisciplinary expertise from across Arup’s global offices, the publication highlights fifty benefits of walking explored across sixteen distinct indicative themes by eighty international case studies, and lists forty new actions that city leaders can consider to inform walking policy, strategy and design.
The Mahābhārata is South Asia’s most important literary text. A long narrative of epic struggle between two sets of parallel cousins, it tells of the transformation of social, religious and cultural mores in ancient Indian society between 200BCE and 200CE. It was once known at all levels of society and has continued to be read, heard and performed up until the present day.
Hear back from La Trobe University’s Greg Bailey for this MTalks lecture that speaks about the ancient yet enduringly significant Mahābhārata. Jump back in time to the beginning of the common era when it was first composed; Greg summarised the contents and principal characters, as well as described some of the most dramatic moments in the narrative. Learn how it fits in the modern world; the way it continues to be used in the media and political circles, and how it has been shaping modern Hindu culture.
Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) in association with Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA) and Curatorial Practice at Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA) were pleased to present a special lecture at MPavilion by visiting international curator and writer, Tirdad Zolghadr.
Tirdad Zolghadr is a curator and writer. He is the associate curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, director of the Summer Academy Paul Klee in Bern, and teaches at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem. His most recent book is Traction, published by Sternberg Press 2016.
About ‘The Artist as Quarry’:
Artists are always falling prey to something or other. Censorship, curators, bad lighting, jet lag, bigotry, cultural prejudice, institutions in particular and The Institution At Large. Never are they complicit in any of these things.
The goal of this lecture was not to trace examples of when victimisation is real or imagined. The aim, rather, is to trace the role and political rationale of self-marginalisation within the moral economy of contemporary art. The goal of this exercise, in turn, was to speculate as to how this rationale might be translated into a more meaningful professional identity, with more tangible political traction, over time.
Tirdad Zolghadr’s lecture is part of ‘The Artist As…’, a year-long lecture series co-presented by the IMA and Curatorial Practice at MADA. The series examines the ways artists move through the world and how that movement might involve adopting other roles to pursue a project, a position, a politic, or a practice. For any given project the artist may act as architect, as ethnographer, as archivist, as producer, as curator, as activist, as choreographer, and so on. ‘The Artist As…’ also recognises that many artists come to their practice as experts in other fields, bringing with them specialist knowledge that informs and shapes their work.
Following the lecture Tara McDowell, Associate Professor and Director of Curatorial Practice at Monash University, will lead a Q&A session.
This event is proudly supported by The Saturday Paper.
In 1914 the Griffins, minted from the firmament of the Prairie School, were newly arrived in Australia and ready to test their ideas in that rarest of all architectural laboratories, a grand urban design scheme for a new and entirely planned city. But their lofty ideals were to dissipate rapidly: their design for Canberra, which won the 1911 international competition, would meet vicious opposition and never be fully realised.
Instead they conjured up Newman College and the Capitol Theatre, estates at Castlecrag and Eaglemont, the towns of Leeton and Griffith, and a construction system known as Knitlock, eventually following their aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities to Lucknow, India.
Listen to Sir Jonathan Mills and Philip Goad for this conversation, one that promised to cover the legacy of the Griffins, a name etched in our capital and national consciousness.
Get up close to the mechanics of centuries-old instruments with an informal hour-long chat as the Australian String Quartet presented its new series 'Close Quarters'—a concept dedicated to playing in intimate and unique settings. Enjoy a diverse and lively conversation as Australia’s pre-eminent string quartet threw aside traditional conventions to present some of its favourite music over a tipple from our kiosk and a snack from its hamper. Over dinner have a listen to this insightful chat.
Liquid Architecture and MPavilion presented French sound poet and conceptualist Anne-James Chaton’s Testimonies, a new performance that extends his long-term interest in linguistic experimentation, phonetic rhythms, loops, repetitions and reverberations into new relational and conversational territories focused on world events.
Drawing textual material out of one-on-one encounters with visitors to MPavilion that took place in late October, this performance was the culmination of the works created from each unique meeting, and explores the texture of words and the shape of texts via the personal and intimate materials from the general public.
Vietnamese-born Danish artist Danh Vō joined us for a special conversation with Geelong Gallery director Jason Smith, for this MTalk.
Danh Vō’s early life was defined by upheaval: Danh and his family fled their native South Vietnam, launching seaward in a homemade boat to be rescued at sea by a Danish freighter and re-settled in Denmark. Danh’s art is often attributed to these early events and the subsequent new location he and his family found themselves in—a dialogue between the historical and the personal, of identity and belonging. Danh Vō’s art is wonderfully prolific, and perhaps most recognisable is the work We The People (pictured), one that continued Danh’s artistic narrative in the form of a 1:1 scale model of the Statue of Liberty but deconstructed into 250 smaller individual pieces: an exposition that prompts the viewer to ponder the very meaning of liberty. We invite you revisit to this MTalks event, to explore the depth of Danh’s work.
In the spirit of experimental activations of public space and the arrival of Public Art Melbourne’s inaugural Biennial Lab at the Queen Victoria Markets, listen to this MTalks event at MPavilion. Here you will discover what makes the Biennial Lab so intriguing. Join eminent curators in the public sphere, Khairuddin Hori and Natalie King, and Biennial Lab artist, Timothy Moore of SIBLING as they discuss their contribution to the Biennial Lab — the City of Melbourne’s latest public space engagement. Hear discussions on how a lab incubator can generate new experimental modes of working in the public realm, how local space can be used as a site for interrogation, and what the Biennial Lab means for Melbourne. Khairuddhin Hori’s involvement in Public Art Melbourne Biennial Lab is supported by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. For more information on Biennial Lab events, head on over to the Biennial Lab website.
Australian dancer and choreographer Atlanta Eke brought us 'Wetware', a performance concerned with time travel. The work, a response to the RMIT Design Hub’s Occupied exhibition and further developed for MPavilion, imagined that architects from 2050 had travelled back in time via the digital universe to share a dystopian tale from a near future; a drowned world where land-based life has returned to the sea.
The performance of 'Wetware' was followed by a related panel discussion entitled ‘The architecture of display: Scenography as an agent for performance and design’, and included such noteworthy participants as Atlanta Eke herself, Fleur Watson of RMIT Design Hub, David Neustein, and Grace Mortlock of Otherothers. Listen back to to Atlanta Eke’s performance and keep it locked for the talk!
Listen to Parlour's convivial afternoon of conversation and connection over a glass of wine. Casual and welcoming, their spring salon was the first of Parlour’s seasonal salons—supported by Parlour partner AWS—that gave an opportunity for the women of Melbourne architecture to meet, form new networks and relationships. Emerging or established, all are always encouraged to join in at MPavilion. This salon began with a short public conversation between two women of different backgrounds and shared experiences, Kerstin Thompson of KTA and Clare Cousins of Clare Cousins Architects who ‘set the scene’ before the conversation opened up.
Sonia Leber and David Chesworth are two artists who have been collaborating since 1996 in the creation of a series of large-scale installation artworks, using sound, video, architecture and public participation. These works often utilise the human voice as a principal element along with real world situations as a starting point. These situations include the old The Age newspaper building on Melbourne's Spencer Street in pre-demolition days in We Are Printers Too, and commuters stuck at an underground station entrance in Time Mirror.
Revisit this MTalk presented by Melbourne Festival and CCP, featuring Sonia Leber and David Chesworth in conversation with Naomi Cass as they sat down for a chat that explores their working methods. Naomi is from from the Centre for Contemporary Photography and curator of The Documentary Take, a new exhibition featuring Sonia and David’s works.
We all know Melbourne is big on art. And you can’t miss the fact—it’s team-coloured beanies, flags and scarves all—that Melbourne is big on sport. This special MTalks event explored Melbourne’s unique love of both, and even, the less-obvious connection between sport and art. Hear from MPavilion’s 2016 architect Bijoy Jain along with Robyn Archer as host and a bunch of people including Gideon Obarzanek, Yumi Umiumare and David Pledger who cross the worlds of art and sport. They discussed what it means to find ‘flow’ and how this translates to creative approaches, how dual arts and sports practice can form synergies in their creative lives, and there is sure to be many surprises.
What processes take place within the studio to realise works of architecture? Gain an insight into the collaborative nature of architectural design, and the studio culture of some of Melbourne’s most exciting emerging practices. Listen to this #MTalk to hear the emerging architects and graduates of Melbourne for a panel-discussion on collaboration and studio culture within architectural practice. Panellists included Monique Woodward and Izzy from WOWOWA; Michael Roper of Architecture Architecture; Claire Scorpo of Clare Scorpo Architects; Thomas Mckenzie of Thomas Winwood Architecture; all hosted by EmAGN (Emerging Architecture and Graduate Network).
At the heart of Bijoy Jain and Studio Mumbai’s ethos is the concept of lore, defined as “a body of traditional knowledge passed on by word of mouth”. It follows that, in the creation of MPavilion, lore was heartily practiced when the MPavilion building team travelled to India to learn Studio Mumbai’s methods. This MTalk was a panel talk with the hands-on crew behind MPavilion’s build. Tony Isaacson from Kane Constructions, Helen Wellman from Tract Consultants, Sam Redston from Flot&Jet, lighting designer Ben Cobham from Bluebottle and senior structural engineer John Noel from ARUP engineering sat down to speak about how MPavilion was built, the working process with Studio Mumbai, the team’s visits to India and, of course, lore!
The conversation around architectural design at all levels—from breakfast bars to boardrooms—has rarely been louder. And with Victoria looking at introducing an apartment design standards framework, this panel focuses on suggested improvements to the design review process, minimum size standards and aesthetic guidelines that would support quality, adaptable and sustainable housing. With these changes firmly in their minds, listen back to Minister for Planning Richard Wynne, Simon Knott of BKK Architects, James Tutton from Neometro, and director of MAArchitects Karen Alcock for this MTalks event brought to you by Open Journal. If you’re interested in the way we live now and the way we will into the future, get this on your playlist for the day ahead!
What does it take to commission and put together an event like MPavilion? How does the design process unfurl? What does the handmade architecture movement propose for the future of architecture? For our first MTalks event for MPavilion 2016/17 we revisited the process that has born Bijoy Jain’s stunning design—from brief, to Studio Mumbai’s unique creative process, to build. Join MPavilion 2016/17 architect Bijoy Jain and MPavilion’s patron Naomi Milgrom along with Peter Maddison as host, presenter of Grand Designs Australia and renowned architect in his own right, as they sat down and had a chat about all things MPavilion, architecture and more!
The word ‘lore’ refers to a body of knowledge, especially of a traditional nature, typically passed on by word of mouth. So, how does the concept of lore relate to architecture? At this Melbourne School of Design and MPavilion lecture, celebrated Indian architect Bijoy Jain discussed how the concept of lore is central to his practice and philosophy.
The founder of sustainable architecture firm Studio Mumbai, Jain studied and worked in architecture in the United States before returning to India in 1995 to establish his practice. Jain has won many awards for his work, including the Grande Medaille d’Or from the Academie D’Architecture in Paris (2014), and was commissioned by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation to design this year’s annual MPavilion in Melbourne.
Jain believes in using local materials, labour and expertise and drawing from traditional skills and and building techniques in all his projects. His philosophy of local collaboration and sensitivity to landscape and environment has influenced his plan for the MPavilion 2016, which will be a ‘symbol of the elemental nature of communal structures.’
In this lecture at the University of Melbourne, Jain informed attendees about how local lore can inform beautiful and sustainable architecture.
Presented in partnership with MPavilion, the University of Melbourne and the Australia India Institute.
Ethical beliefs shape the way we live and work—what we do, what we make and the world we create through our choices. Policy makers, architects and designers hold very privileged positons within our community as their beliefs impact many others due to the nature of their work.
In the Boyd Foundation's 2016 talks series, eight eminent speakers—all highly regarded for their thoughtfulness and recognised capabilities in their respective fields—reflect and discuss their views and approaches to architecture.
Hear from MPavilion 2016's architect Bijoy Jain on his ethical framework behind his approach to architecture, and its ability to heal.
Start your day with a conversation about how we shape the city—and how the city shapes us—hosted by Barrie Barton, co-founder of Right Angle Studio, Rooftop Cinema and Three Thousand, Melbourne’s first independent online city guide. Reporting on new music, good books, independent fashion, food and drink in the city since 2005, Three Thousand is written by locals for locals, and reflects the changing cultural landscape of Melbourne. Pop down after work and listen to a line-up of local thinkers and doers join Barrie to talk about what goes on in Melbourne’s lived spaces—day and night, rain or shine—and why.
Image: Lost and Found Hotel room, Melbourne, 2011. Photo by Right Angle Studio.
Opposites attract in the wild, in romance and—evidently—in architecture. Join Toby Whitfield (CEO of ShapeShift, our evening’s presenters) and Richard Blythe (dean of RMIT’s School of Architecture and Design) as they discuss the fascinating history of how architects and designers make use of composite building materials in their work.
How do you choose the right fibre and resin for a 34-storey skyscraper facade? What material will help a high-tech pavilion—specifically, the one we’re sitting in—respond to the weather? Just like a dressmaker or tailor, architects approach the merging of composites through the orientation of the fibre, the cut and the bias. Listen in as our panellists explain the act of weaving materials together for form and strength—a practice that dates back to the very first human dwellings—and offer practical information and insights into when and why certain approaches to woven materials are preferable over others.
Examining recognisable Melbourne structures—including the VCCC Hospital facade; the immediately iconic Swanston Square skyscraper, whose exterior features the portrait of Wurundjeri-willam elder William Barak; and MPavilion itself, whose carbon-fibre poles are strengthened as a result of their woven design—Toby and Richard will introduce you to composite engineering, and encourage you to look twice at the structures around you. #MPavilion
Consortium: A series of conversations within a series of talks—presented by a coalition of partners who support emerging and experimental art and design practices in Melbourne and beyond. This first Consortium of the 2015/16 season brought Next Wave, Gertrude Contemporary, West Space, RMIT Design Hub and MPavilion got together to consort on invisible hands.
The panel—including artists Anastasia Klose, Lou Hubbard and Liang Luscombe, writer and artist Aurelia Guo, and writer and feminist Eva Birch—asks: What kinds of emotional, affective and otherwise-hidden forms of unwaged labour hold up the art industry? To whom is this work relegated? What’s the relation between caring and sharing, and working and performing? In other words, what are the professional and social obligations of artists? And how can one strike or resist these un-unionised forms of ‘invisible’ labour?
Following the discussion, DJ and artist Lisa Lerkenfeldt will play a selection of music taking inspiration from notions of anachronism and lesser-known female music histories.
Let us know what you think #MPavilion
Image: Helen Hughes, ‘Watching Pickpocket’, 2015
When you think of the bustling sidewalks of New York City, walls of lush greenery do not immediately come to mind. But environmental artist Natalie Jeremijenko wants to challenge ideas about ‘normal’ cityscapes—through her Agbags project. Agbags are vertical urban farms that practically aim to promote environmental health and, more broadly, get people thinking about architecture’s intersection with the natural environment. In New York, Natalie created a wall of these soil-filled bags suspended in air as part of a project by NYU’s Environmental Health Clinic. At MPavilion, join Natalie as she teaches you to make your own Agbag, and listen as she talks about the environment—and how creative we can get in making our living spaces a little more green.
Tell us what you think #MPavilion
(Image courtesy of Natalie Jeremijenko)
Drawing our marathon MRelay to an end, Utopia explores an ideal, imaginary state in which society, politics and culture are perfect. It can often be difficult to face the reality of today’s world, where global climate change is leading to rising sea levels, unprecedented environmental destruction, a widening gap between rich and poor, and countless human rights violations. It’s easy to dream instead of a world in which all societal ills have been solved.
In his 1516 treatise Utopia, Sir Thomas More imagined a fictional island society. But the concept of utopia has evolved to mean any community with a visionary system of political and societal perfection – cities that function to improve their citizens’ daily lives. Some utopian visions focus on design and technology, others on open, untouched landscapes, or new social orders. Can radically avant-garde and cutting-edge design unite us? How do we help solve the world’s problems and society’s dilemmas?
Utopia was hosted by Michael Williams, director of the Wheeler Centre. Speakers included founding director of Breathe Architecture Jeremy McLeod; curator for the Australian pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2017 Natalie King; dancer and performer Becky Hilton; strategic adviser, theologian and master of Ormond College Rufus Black; artist and writer Aurelia Guo; landscape architect and managing director of Atelier Ten’s Australian office Paul Stoller; and medical anthropologist Gregory Phillips, who currently consults in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in his role as executive director of Abstarr Consulting.
After contemplating the defining nature of our urban landscapes it’s time to consider the role of personal transformation. Transformation design is a human-centred, interdisciplinary process that seeks to change the behaviour and form of individuals, systems and organisations in desirable and sustainable ways—often for socially progressive ends.
The Transformation leg of MRelay explores how we can apply transformation design skills in non-traditional settings, which often leads to new and original design outcomes. Transformation designers aren’t always ‘designers’—can each of us play a role as moderator, participant or co-creator?
Transformation was hosted by Rose Hiscock, director of Science Gallery Melbourne. Speakers included Ramona Koval, broadcaster, writer and editor; Professor Rob Adams, director of City Design and Projects at the City of Melbourne; Mary Portas, founder of creative communications agency Portas Agency; Simone LeAmon, Hugh Williamson curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria; Cameron Bruhn, editor at Architecture Media; Oluwaseyi Sosanya, designer, engineer and inventor of the 3D Weaver; and Justine Clark, architectural editor, writer and researcher, and founding editor of Parlour.
The second leg of MRelay is Ritual. It’s all about the origin of form, and its connection to the invention and interpretation of rituals. Do we offer a means of communication when we conduct a set of routine actions in the same manner, or perform a set of actions in a fixed sequence? Can these symbolic sets of actions create community? How do they persist in and affect our everyday lives?
How important is architecture to rituals? Do buildings express rules that go on to influence formal actions and even cultural movements? Do buildings lose their original functions and become monuments? The birth of contemporary rituals also enables our ideas of ‘design’ to evolve in ways whose shapes and languages are yet to be invented.
Ritual was hosted by Robyn Archer AO, singer, writer and artistic director. Speakers included artist and director in the performing, visual and media arts David Pledger; jewellery designer Susan Cohn; researcher, writer and poet Oscar Schwartz; journalist and writer Gabriella Coslovich; Indigenous contemporary artist Reko Rennie; Australian Centre for the Moving Image curator Sarah Tutton; and theatre designer Richard Roberts.
The first leg of MRelay is devoted to Habitat. As we leap from the starting blocks, we’ll cast our gaze around: at our natural environments, our sense of place and how place transforms us.
Today’s places are changing fast—whether they’re a tropical rainforest or a city such as London, Melbourne or Berlin, a habitat for artists or an ecology for designers. ‘Design thinking’ stimulates a natural inquisitiveness and embraces ideas of origins and place. The way people habitually use spaces becomes a guide for design, alongside rational, economic, civic and environmental necessities. Design is everywhere—what matters is how we look at it.
Habitat was hosted by Simon Knott, director and co-founder of BKK Architects. Speakers included Naomi Milgrom AO, MPavilion founder and commissioner for Australia, Venice Biennale 2017; Andrew McConnell, executive chef of Cumulus Inc. and Cutler & Co.; Alice Glenn, president and creative director of Schoolhouse Studios; Rueben Berg, founder and director of Indigenous Architecture Victoria; Rebecca Coates, director of Shepparton Art Museum; Professor Julie Bernhardt, scientist and director at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health; and Kate McMahon, co-founder of urban-strategy agency Hello City.
Treatment was a two-day, site-responsive public art project on display (via an eighty-minute bus tour) at Melbourne Water’s Western Treatment Plant in Werribee on 14 and 21 November 2015. Curators David Cross and Cameron Bishop invited six artists to work with the plant’s sights and sounds—its treatment lagoons and abandoned former township, its world-renowned wetlands and resident waterfowl—in order to explore its history, landscape and technology.
Listen to this MTalk as David and Cameron lead Treatment’s six featured artists—Catherine Bell, Bindi Cole Chocka, Megan Evans, Shane McGrath, Techa Noble and Spiros Panigirakis—in a round-table conversation that will look back at the project and specifically consider how each artist chose to respond to the 11,000-hectare site. The six works (from performance to sound and film installation) will ground a broader discussion about how we curate and make temporary public art that responds to highly particular cultural, environmental and technological conditions. What benefits arise from artworks popping up in the street, the park, the paddock? Can public art engage a community’s collective mind and change the way it is perceived?
What happens when you combine elements of a sewing machine and an industrial knitting machine? If you’re British-based inventor Oluwaseyi Sosanya, you develop the 3D Weaver—a loom specially designed for weaving in three dimensions. From its Honeycomb and ZigZag weaves to the compressible 0~90 pattern, the machine has potential applications in industries spanning medicine, aerospace, architecture and even sportswear.
In this special MTalks event, moderated by RMIT Design Hub curator Fleur Watson and presented by the GREAT Britain campaign, the British Council and MPavilion, Oluwaseyi will be joined by Paul Stoller, managing director of London-founded Atelier Ten’s Australian office. As design consultants and building service engineers, Atelier Ten have worked on large-scale sustainable projects both in Australia (such as the original environmental concepts for Federation Square) and overseas (including Singapore’s 101-hectare Gardens by the Bay), while Paul himself has been recognised by the US Green Building Council for his leadership in environmental design.
Listen in as Oluwaseyi discusses the 3D Weaver project before he and Paul speak more broadly about taking risks and working laterally, and collaboratively, to develop new ways of design thinking and making.
Australian cities face a range of environmental challenges. Do ever-taller concrete towers pose a threat to the sustainability of our vibrant inner cities? What can we do to protect and preserve green or culturally significant public spaces, especially on our expanding urban fringes? And how do we develop new ones?
A new generation of Aboriginal architects, designers and leaders is making significant contributions to these issues. Jefa Greenaway, director of both Greenaway Architects and Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria—and the first registered Indigenous architect in Victoria—works to connect the Indigenous community to the built environment, and vice versa. Timmah Ball is a mixture of things: an urban planner, a writer and a community arts worker. She grew up in Melbourne but her heritage, on her mother’s side, is Ballardong Noongar from Western Australia. She is a member of the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes (CAUL) Hub Steering Committee.
Hear Jefa, Timmah and moderator Dr Cathy Oke—knowledge broker at the CAUL Hub—for an inspiring discussion, and discover how Aboriginal culture and knowledge can improve our urban places and spaces.
In these times of global economic systems and the effect of the material on contemporary culture, what does it take to imagine and invent spaces where we can experience collective generating, sharing and discussing under the title of ‘art’? What if artistic practices worked on freeing themselves from the logics of commodification?
Listen to the third and final in our series of salon conversations with acclaimed French choreographer Xavier Le Roy, co-presented with Dancehouse, that aim to link dance and choreography to current issues in arts and society, highlighting the connections between the thinking and moving body and contemporary aesthetic, cultural and political issues. Xavier and a panel of local artists—led by Angela Conquet, artistic director of Dancehouse, and including French artist Mathieu Brand, choreographer Matthew Day and Joeri Mol, senior lecturer in organisation studies at the University of Melbourne—explored ways of talking about, making and experiencing art that really matters. If the idea of ‘artistic modernity’ isn’t an outdated historical program but rather a promise yet to be activated, how can we find a way to rearrange the rhetorical contradictions about ‘dialogue between cultures’ that modern-day conversations produce?
What is Melbourne’s urban frontier in the 21st century? In one of our final MTalks events for the season, former Victorian premier the Hon Jeff Kennett will present an exploration of urban planning, and kick off a discussion about our history, the city’s evolution and the issues we’re yet to face.
Hosted by Gina Levenspiel—author of the recently published Miracle Swamp: The place of Queen Victoria Gardens in the urban, horticultural and creative life of Melbourne—this lunchtime talk will begin with Mr Kennett’s presentation and be followed by a lively panel discussion featuring architects and landscape historians Michael Markham, Peter Brew and Paul Fox.
“How could we create the feeling, the experience, the sensation of a tree canopy, but in a completely abstract way, with man-made materials?” In an interview for Architectural Review, Amanda Levete talked about some of the thinking and collaboration that went into AL_A’s MPavilion design. Here's the first of three lunchtime conversations about this year’s MPavilion construction, and the unique puzzles faced along the way.
Key players from the brief-to-build team—including MPavilion’s Robert Buckingham, Jessie French and Sam Redston, Arup’s Brendon McNiven, Kane Constructions’ Tony Isaacson and landscape designer Paul Bangay (who lent his green thumbs to MPavilion’s flower beds and perennial borders)—will talk us through their material, technological and botanical decisions, offering us a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into designing, building and wiring up a high-tech, weather-responsive and modular temporary structure.
How did engineers from Arup tackle the design challenge of seamlessly incorporating sound and light into the 2015 MPavilion? Key players from the brief-to-build team Robert Buckingham of MPavilion and Arup’s Brendon McNiven talked us through their material, technological and botanical decisions, offering us a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into designing, building and wiring up a high-tech, weather-responsive and modular temporary structure.
For this discussion, our panellists delved into the idea of galleries as ‘testing spaces’ for risk, experiment, play and speculation. Following an introduction from RMIT Design Hub curator Fleur Watson, artist and landscape architect Charles Anderson and arts academic Jondi Keane exchanged ideas about their new RMIT Design Hub exhibition slash laboratory space: Technics & Touch: Body-Matter-Machine. The experimental project explores methods of producing feedback systems through perception and action cycles—and by working alongside a robot. Using their temporary lab as a springboard, Charles and Jondi will explore how gallery spaces can present exciting opportunities for autonomous intelligence systems to interact with performers and the public—meaning further interactions between arts organisations and new technology. Will this change the function of gallery spaces as we know them? And how will the artist’s role change with these developments?
“How could we create the feeling, the experience, the sensation of a tree canopy, but in a completely abstract way, with man-made materials?” In an interview for Architectural Review, Amanda Levete talked about some of the thinking and collaboration that went into AL_A’s MPavilion design. The third and final installment of MTalks in a trilogy of lunchtime conversations about this year’s MPavilion construction, and the unique puzzles faced along the way.
Key players from the brief-to-build team—included MPavilion’s Robert Buckingham, Jessie French and Sam Redston, Arup’s Brendon McNiven, Kane Constructions’ Tony Isaacson and landscape designer Paul Bangay (who lent his green thumbs to MPavilion’s flower beds and perennial borders)— talked us through their material, technological and botanical decisions, offering us a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into designing, building and wiring up a high-tech, weather-responsive and modular temporary structure.
Why did Paul choose to plant salvia around AL_A’s structure? How did engineers from Arup tackle the design challenge of seamlessly incorporating sound and light? And how do Sam and the MPavilion production team make sure our nightly Sunset Ritual plays at the exact moment of sundown each evening? Pull up a pew under the (thirteen big and thirty small) petals on the first three Tuesdays in December, and discover the ins and outs of AL_A’s enchanting and boundary-pushing digital forest canopy.
Being human is not always easy. For centuries the mind sciences have attempted to unlock the mysteries of why some people live a life of quiet despair while others flourish. Dr Jo Mitchell explored how the wisdom of key thinkers from the mind sciences might help us to live well in everyday life. How have these experts’ ideas shaped our understanding of the human mind and behaviour?
How is intelligent design redefining the workplace? Businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of investing in workplace design; sustainable designs that promote workplace wellness and respond to the needs of the contemporary office are shaping reputations of businesses and making them more attractive to job seekers. Listen to Dan Cox—Carr Design Group’s director of commercial interiors—and David Hall, Victorian chair of the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s Occupational Health Physiotherapy group, as they discuss how workplaces can best respond to the challenges facing businesses in a highly mobile, hyper-connected global market.
MTalks—Student Organised Network for Architecture summer workshop • 9 Nov 2015 by MPavilion
Launch time! In 2015, MPavilion teamed up with Art Monthly Australia and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) to create a new annual award supporting critical writing. Australian essayists were invited to submit a proposal for a piece exploring the relationship between art and design today. The inaugural recipient was Dr Julia Jones, who received $3,000 to develop her proposed essay for publication in Art Monthly Australia.
Listen back to join judge—and editor Michael Fitzgerald—for a triple-barrel event: - The 2015 award presentation - A reading by Dr Jones - The launch of Art Monthly Australia’s November issue.
Happy listening #MPavilion
Become an urban beekeeper and help out the humble honey bee! Hear Swarm Trap teammates Honey Fingers and Many Many in this MMeets workshop—presented by Hotel Hotel’s new series of workshops and talks, Fix and Make—and make a swarm trap (a safe house for honey bees). You’ll learn about swarming and how swarm traps work, as well as the best time and locations to install them, before making one to take home in the hope of bee-friending your own colony. By setting up safe bee houses in our cities, our suburbs and the bush, we can prevent the destruction of bee colonies. Long live the bee.
*The workshop did not include live bees.
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Swarm Trap is a collaboration between Honey Fingers and Many Many. The project consists of a series of programs and events designed to raise awareness of Australian bees, beekeeping and bee culture.
Melbourne artist and author Tai Snaith joined us under AL_A’s canopy reading from her all-time favourite picture books about homes. Done over three readings in November and one in January, Tai looked at the different ways people live—and reads from her own book 'Sticks and Stones, Animal Homes'. Perfect listen for the young ones in your life.
Language is all around us. We overhear people speaking on mobile phones, we read huge quantities of words online, and we see phrases and idioms on billboards, on t-shirts and in shop windows. If every word were a drop of rain, we’d drown in a flood each and every day. But what are we to do with all this language? Listen to writer, editor and printer Robert Wood in this lunchtime session exploring how key thinkers—and their ideas—have shaped the field of poetry. Through interactive exercises, we’ll put some of their ideas into practice, and explore how we might apply their wisdom in our own lives. #MPavilion
Following her curious, caterpillar-like performances as The Buddhist Bug on opening weekend of the eighth Asia Pacific Triennial (APT8) at QAGOMA in Brisbane, Cambodian artist Anida Yoeu Ali came to MPavilion for an in-depth discussion with Sarah Bond, director of visual arts at Asialink Arts. Anida discusses her interdisciplinary practice—and, specifically, illuminates us about her APT8-commissioned works as ‘the bug’, an ongoing project that embodies ideas of otherness and hybridity, and highlights the transformation and renewal Anida sees in Cambodia’s changing rural and metropolitan landscapes. So settle in as Anida and Sarah delve into the realm of contemporary art practice in Cambodia and beyond.
Got an apartment to make? Join Chris McCue, director of architecture at Carr Design Group, for a workshop that saw an apartment collaboratively take shape, from floor plan to fittings and fixtures. Sharpen your pencils and start jotting down ideas. #MPavilion
What makes us Australian in 2015, individually and collectively? And how are our diverse selves represented in art, design and stories? Listen here and find the answers—via a panel discussion courtesy of video arts festival Channels and the UK’s Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT). A satellite event of the Human Futures Forum—an international “symposium on place” hosted by FACT at their headquarters in Liverpool—this talk was all about memory, time, space and contemporary identity.
Author and academic Dr Tony Birch, Dr Sara Wills (who teaches Australian migration issues, and who holds a particular interest in migrant memory), artist Steven Rhall (whose interdisciplinary practice responds to cultural landscapes) and artist Siying Zhou (who focuses on subjects such as nomad tradition, religion and globalisation) peered through the lenses of Australian visual culture, migrant history and storytelling to explore their roles in forming our modern-day Australian psyche. Join in the global conversation, #MPavilion
“If the Anthropocene is how we label our current geologic epoch, then its cultural corollary is the Anthroposcenic, an era in which our understanding of nature and culture are re-integrated.” —William L Fox, director of the Center for Art + Environment, Reno, Nevada
Before his address at NGV International, William L Fox took a seat at MPavilion for a chat with Guy Abrahams (co-founder and CEO of CLIMARTE) in a lunchtime discussion about how art and nature are merging in this Anthroposcenic age. Is it good for art? Is it good for Earth? Can art help us through the environmental challenges we face—and have, in an extraordinarily large part, created? And should it? Listen back on the conversation, as William and Guy explored creative human interventions on the environment—and questioned if we can, or should, harness art’s power for our own benefit.
It’s time for Consortium, round two! This brought Gertrude Contemporary, West Space, RMIT Design Hub and Next Wave presenting the second in our series of conversations about the issues within (and surrounding) emerging and experimental art and design.
At our inaugural discussion, a panel of artists, writers and feminists spoke honestly and thoughtfully about art’s many invisible hands. This time around, we dived into the choppy waters of art and gentrification. Gertrude Contemporary director Emma Crimmings will chat to artists Zanny Begg, Sean Dockray and Phillip Adams about how gentrification creates a lack of affordable housing—and how this affects arts organisations.
How can galleries, studios, festivals and practices critically engage with the issues surrounding gentrification while creatively developing sustainable—and affordable—spaces for art? What will happen to art and artists if rent continues to skyrocket? #MPavilion
Between 30 November and 11 December 2015, COP21—the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference—will, after twenty years of UN negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.
While nation leaders will make the ultimate decisions at the conference, contributions (or interventions) to the negotiations can and should come from everywhere across the world, from every part of society, from every person, young and old. So what can Melburnians do to make an impact, to make a difference, to have our voices heard? What about big cities and country towns, artists and NGOs? And will any of it make any difference at all?
Presented by Oceania’s division of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI Oceania), this panel included Cathy Oke, City of Melbourne councillor; Guy Abrahams, co-founder and CEO of CLIMARTE; and Victoria McKenzie-McHarg, climate change campaign manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation. Listen in and raise your hand as the discussion asks what climate action we can take to stay under the tipping point and how we can get our leaders to take notice—because what they decide to do about climate change affects us all.
Is the spirit of multiculturalism still alive in Australia today? Is it relevant? And who decides what it means, anyway? Listen back to a lively Wednesday night panel discussion featuring voices from the arts, the social sector and academia: Nikos Papastergiadis, director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures; Moya McFadzean, senior curator of migration and cultural diversity in the humanities department at Museum Victoria; Nur Shkembi, Muslim artist and curator; Nicholas Tsoutas, independent curator and writer; Frank Panucci is executive director of grants at the Australia Council for the Arts; and Ghassan Hage, Lebanese-Australian academic.
Discussing the role of the arts in challenging subscribed conversations about multiculturalism, the panel attempts to unpack exactly who shapes our cultural diversity discourse. Hold on to your headphones once the dust settles: the hour-long conversation will wind down (or up) with the psychedelic garage-pop sounds of Empat Lima. A dreamy occasion for further healthy rumination.
The spaces we inhabit—whether built, psychological or digital—are the foundations of our health and happiness. How, then, do our ever-evolving urban environments and shared public spaces guide the way we behave? And what can we learn from both science and design about the relationship between our mental and physical environments? Listen to our panellists—scientists Julie Bernhardt and Emma Burrows from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health; behaviourologist, urbanist and designer Jonathan Daly of Studio Huss; and moderator (plus writer, editor and publisher at Uro Media) Andrew Mackenzie—get stuck into a cross-pollinated discussion of 21st-century wellbeing and space.
Today, the choreographed and performed body is not confined to the studio or a black-box theatre; instead, it occurs in spaces initially dedicated to other art forms—or even in spaces that aren’t designed for art at all. Listen in to the first in our series of three Saturday afternoon salon conversations with acclaimed French choreographer Xavier Le Roy, co-presented by Dancehouse, that aim to link dance and choreography to current issues in arts and society, highlighting the connections between the thinking and moving body and contemporary aesthetic, cultural and political issues.
Along with choreographer-turned-urban-planner Wendy Lasica, dancer and performer Becky Hilton, artist and curator Mick Douglas, and artist and professor Lyndal Jones (today’s conversation facilitator), Xavier will explore the ways dance, performance and choreography have started to inhabit and transform the public realm—and vice versa—before ruminating on the ways in which these spaces promote diverse temporal, social and spectator experiences. How is choreography and performance transforming the way we understand our contemporary body in both urban and ‘inner’ space?
Spend your evening with Tom Bloxham, founder of award-winning United Kingdom urban regeneration company Urban Splash. With just a ‘wholehearted belief in cities’ to guide them, Tom and founding partner Jonathan Falkingham began their business by filling empty buildings in the English cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Their work—which includes the revitalisation of Sheffield’s iconic Brutalist complex Park Hill—has invariably been described as groundbreaking, innovative and masterful.
The Melbourne School of Design hosted Tom in an evening of rumination about urban regeneration. Sit back and listen as Tom discusses the principles that guide Urban Splash’s designs, and how they work to combine the history of a building with a new function in the present—and let us know what you think #MPavilion
“The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.” So said William Gibson, an American-Canadian science-fiction writer (who also, incidentally, coined the term ‘cyberspace’ in his 1982 short story ‘Burning Chrome’)—and it’s this quote that has inspired the 2016 Biennale of Sydney. Helmed by artistic director Stephanie Rosenthal, the twentieth instalment of Australia’s largest contemporary arts festival will run from 18 March to 5 June 2016 across seven ‘embassies of thought’ in and around the harbour city—including, for the first time, in an old mortuary train station.
So why this William Gibson quote? What significance does it hold to Stephanie and the Biennale, and what performances, ideas and site-specific works can we expect it to generate? Listen to this intriguing MTalk as Stephanie introduces us to the 2016 Biennale of Sydney through a special illustrated lecture, presented by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA).
Thirty or so years after William Gibson first spoke his famous line, how do we view the future? Have the virtual and physical become closer, or more disparate, and how were the seventy-one-plus artists encouraged to explore these concepts? Following her address, Stephanie is joined by MUMA director Charlotte Day for further discussion and rumination on the key themes, histories and connections woven into the Biennale’s twentieth edition.
Hear a discussion about the history of women shaping the Australian city—its buildings, spaces, and social and political agendas. Led by Parlour, an advocacy organisation dedicated to expanding the spaces for women in Australian architecture, the evening’s panellists—architectural historian Dr Karen Burns, editor and researcher Justine Clark, social historian Renate Howe, urbanist Jane Jose and architect Shelley Penn—explored the powerful roles women have played as activists, architects, planners, philanthropists, policy makers, politicians and writers. Roles which have indelibly shaped the spaces, places and policies of the Australian city and, by extension, formed what it means to live in Australia today.
This event is presented by Triple R.
“In a wondrous world of riddles and hidden treasure, bumbling Jack Hare is on a race against time to deliver a message of love from the Moon to the Sun.” Pack a picnic, round up the kids and join us for a live Saturday-lunchtime reading of Kit Williams’s iconic 1979 picture book Masquerade. The magical story—which sparked a real-life treasure hunt for a golden hare necklace buried in a secret location in Britain—will be read aloud by playwright and actress Kate Mulvany, who has also adapted Kit’s book for the stage.
Six culturally and linguistically diverse spoken-word poets drop in to MPavilion in October for two Spoken Word Sessions—and this is the second. The lunchtime slams are highlights of Igniting Imagination—a collaboration between Melbourne Festival and Multicultural Arts Victoria that brings exceptional talent from Australia’s emerging, Indigenous and refugee communities to the stage. Featured in this second session: writer and storyteller Ebony MonCrief, Lebanese artist Abdul Hammoud, and MC and author Abe Nouk.
What happens when designers get together for show-and-tell? How alike—or at odds—are their approaches to similar projects? Join us as Nick Wood, founder and director of London-based How About Studio and the Australian Institute of Architect’s first Droga Architect in Residence for 2015/16, chats with Melbourne design collective Sibling (represented this evening by architects Amelia Borg, Nicholas Braun and Jane Caught) about the similarities and differences across both studios’ experiential, playful and socially engaged work.
The (informal) panel, presented by the AIA Foundation, will look at highlight projects from both practices—from Sibling’s interior design for Vice Australia’s Melbourne headquarters to How About Studio’s Flotsam installation at Selfridges Ultra-Lounge—to trace overlapping themes, and also exchange ideas.
You’ve heard it online, in magazines and in this very program, but what does the buzz term ‘placemaking’ actually mean and involve? Co-presented by Neometro and Australian quarterly Dumbo Feather, this panel—made up of Neometro’s director James Tutton (who is also co-founder and director of Smiling Mind) and Dumbo Feather’s community manager Madeline Lucas—will deconstruct the word and much more in this discussion about urban social initiatives that encourage collective ownership of inner-city communities. With thirty years’ experience in developing buildings that offer a sense of place and belonging, Neometro knows that extraordinary communities are led by groups that support personal connections and give a strong sense of inclusion and togetherness. Take a seat and lend both ears as James and Madeline discuss how a sense of family can expand out of the suburban home and into the neighbourhood.
The VCA’s Art, Social and Spatial Practice (ASSP) research cluster brings its salon-style Food for Thought series to MPavilion—and expands it. Hosted by Performing Mobilities’ James Oliver and Mick Douglas, this pop-up forum with Brooklyn-based artist Marshall Weber and Sydney-based “anarchitect” Keg de Souza will investigate the potential of both the material and social production of art as object, performance, spatial practice or relational experience. Where and how do public conversation, artistic practice and research intersect? Come along and help fill MPavilion to the petals with lively conversation—or healthy art debate.
Pack a picnic, round up the kids and join us for a lunchtime reading of John Marsden and Shaun Tan’s popular picture book The Rabbits—a partly allegorical fable about colonisation told through the eyes of the colonised, but with an unseen narrator. The fable describes the coming of ‘rabbits’—an encounter that is at first friendly and curious, but later darkens as it becomes apparent that the visitors are not who they once appeared to be.
Join London Design Festival director Ben Evans and Google Creative Lab director Tom Uglow for the launch of 25XDesign. Conceived by Ben and developed by Google’s Creative Lab, it’s an interactive digital event created to celebrate design and place.
MPavilion’s 2015 architect Amanda Levete has contributed her 25 Melbourne design inspirations—from Ugo Rondinone’s ‘Our Magic Hour’ in South Yarra to Walter Burley Griffin’s imposing Newman College façade and Napier Waller’s 1933 Newspaper House mosaic—to be displayed and experienced in 360 degrees. Whether you’re in the gardens, at your desk, winging over some far-flung ocean or wandering the city—you’re invited to jump into your browser and take the virtual tour.
Launching first at MPavilion as part of our 2015/16 season, 25XDesign uses an experimental platform called Story Spheres, developed by Google’s Creative Lab. Story Spheres takes a 360-degree image and overlays it with audio files so that, for the first time, you can experience MPavilion and other Melbourne design landmarks up, down and all around with sound. Story Spheres uses experimental browser technologies including webGL and 3js and can be viewed on desktop, mobile and through Google Cardboard—giving people a virtual-reality experience.
25XDesign will become an annual, virtual event on the MPavilion program, featuring a new Melbourne tour created by each year’s commissioned architect. The project aims to place MPavilion centrally but also expand its reach geographically. We look forward to seeing you at the launch and/or on the internet!
What goes into commissioning and designing a contemporary cultural space? How should we be thinking about innovation in this context? What are the opportunities that come intertwined with a brief to design a temporary building? Our first MTalks event traces the evolution of MPavilion in its second iteration—from brief to build. Hear from MPavilion’s patron Naomi Milgrom, whose foundation initiated the commissions; acclaimed architect Amanda Levete, whose London-based practice designed our 2015/16 MPavilion; and Victoria and Albert Museum director Martin Roth, who has been working with Amanda’s studio—AL_A—on the museum’s anticipated subterranean extension and new courtyard entrance.
This panel brings together architects a range of positions—local, national and international—to review and debate the role of the government architect. The panel includes Ian Gilzean, Scottish government architect; Jill Garner, acting Victorian government architect; John Denton, former Victorian government architect; and Helen Lochhead, assistant NSW government architect. Moderated by Andrew Mackenzie, director of the architecture competitions organiser CityLab, and director of the architecture publishing house URO Media.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/the-role-of-the-government-architect
Chris Sanderson (of The Future Laboratory) presents a lecture on ‘Designing our future selves: How life in the 21st century is re-modelling what it means to be human’. Technology doesn’t transform society; society transforms itself, using technology. This insight informs a whistle-stop 30-minute journey into the new social mores and trends that are highlighting how the tech-obsessed 21st-century citizen is redesigning expectations around ownership, sharing, a sense of self and an obligation to society in this me-focused era of selfies, photobombs, constant comment, continuous partial attention, convergence and the internet of things.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/chris-sanderson-of-london-s-the-future-laboratory-on-designing-our-future-selves
Discover the role of architecture and design in modern city life firsthand from the people who are making Melbourne vibrant. In this MTalk, Dr Flavia Marcello and Bridgette Engeler Newbury—both leading researchers at Swinburne University—discuss the evolution of brands, branding and branded environments, from the shopping arcades of nineteenth-century Paris to the spaces of today that are the interfaces between global ideas and local actions. How have brands developed from something burned on cattle’s skin into symbols of desire full of status and emotion?
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-swinburne-university-of-technology-presents-brands-in-the-environment
De Anima, by Brook Andrew, was a major new video installation on display at RMIT Design Hub from 12 December 2014 to 14 February 2015. In this MTalk, presented by RMIT Design Hub, Justin Shoulder and Mama Alto revisit their performances from De Anima in a live response to the film’s composition by Theodore Wohng. Their performance is followed by a Q&A with Brook Andrew, Theodore Wohng, Justin Shoulder, Mama Alto and RMIT Design Hub curators Fleur Watson and Kate Rhodes.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-rmit-design-hub
Melbourne School of Design (MSD) presents an MTalks session in collaboration with Tract Consulting. During October 2014, Tract’s national practice ran a design forum called ‘Rethinking the strip’ that focused on the challenges facing traditional strip-shopping precincts. Tract adopted a shop for the month of October and invited an MSD design studio—including architects, landscape architects and urban design students—to test ideas and exchange thoughts on the future of a declining retail strip. This follow-up forum at MPavilion explores issues of increased vacancy on our high streets.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-melbourne-school-of-design
Over the last twenty-five years, the increased presence of fashion in museums across the world has generated debate about curatorial modes, as well as about how fashion is understood when presented in these modes. In this MTalk, curator and fashion commentator Robyn Healy discusses non-customary exhibition practices—those that don‘t just display fashion via linear dress histories. Touching on numerous approaches, from historical imagination to design process, she considers how different arrangements of clothes let audiences explore different ideas of fashion.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-curating-fashion-from-designer-wear-to-dust-with-robyn-healy
On the eve of Chinese artist Yang Fudong’s solo exhibition at ACMI, MPavilion presented a prelude discussion about his stylised usage of architectural motifs. The discussion, moderated by MPavilion senior curator Natalie King, also investigated the proliferation and design agendas of new museums in China. Guest speakers include Li Ning, curator of the Academic & Research Department at the Shanghai Art Museum, and Claire Roberts, historian of Chinese art and senior lecturer of Art History at the University of Adelaide.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-acmi-presents-a-discussion-about-the-yang-fudong-filmscapes-exhibition-and-new-museums-in-china
Monash University Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) generates creatively provocative ideas and forms that examine social, economic and human issues in order to reshape the world. In this talk, MADA’s Callum Morton and Diego Ramírez-Lovering lead a discussion about the procurement of innovative architecture and public art in the City of Melbourne. Guest panellists include Geoffrey London—former Victorian Government Architect—and Charlotte Day, director of Monash University Museum of Art.
In 1932, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) established the world’s first curatorial department devoted to architecture and design. Director Glenn D. Lowry pioneered and presided over the museum’s 2004 renovation, designed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, and is currently overseeing the ambitious expansion and redevelopment that is set for completion in 2018. Lowry spoke at MPavilion in October 2014 about design’s role in the museum, and was joined in conversation by Edmund Capon, chair of the Australian Institute of Architects Foundation and former director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/moma-director-glenn-d-lowry-in-conversation-with-edmund-capon
Presented by DIS-cour.se, this discussion looks at the themes prevalent in the film Cathedrals of Culture—a screening collaboration between ACMI and MPavilion in November 2014—and will deliberate on the narrative that is created by our interaction with spaces we know all too well. This panel—of multidisciplinary artist Callum Morton, architects Aaron Roberts and Kristin Green, and visual artist Marnie Edmiston—focuses on how the perception of our environment is often only a thin veil of the real space.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-cathedrals-of-culture-dis-cour-se-presents-distraction-and-recognition
Who was John Truscott? The multi-talented theatre designer, festival director and Academy Award-winning film designer was instrumental in creating the vibrant, celebratory public art culture Melburnians enjoy today. He was also responsible for the much-loved Botanica event in the Queen Victoria Gardens—the site of MPavilion.
Truscott's skills, achievements and legacy are fuel for lively discussion in this Q&A panel discussion that features contributions from those who knew him well—designer Ken Cato, landscape designer Paul Bangay, Australian Galleries' Stuart Purves, artistic director of White Night Melbourne, Andrew Walsh, and Martin Carlson, Chair of the John Truscott Design Foundation.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/melbourne-festival-john-truscott-a-creative-melburnian-talk
Professor Rob Adams explores ‘design and the city’ in this special Melbourne Festival edition of MTalks. What role does design play in urban revitalisation? What challenges persist for Melbourne’s CBD? What’s next for the inner suburbs and our commuter corridors? Prof. Adams presides over an evening of talking about thinking about cities, with contributions from Bernard Salt (KPMG), Patrick Ness (Cox Architects), Eli Giannini (MGS Architects) and Simon Spain (Artplay).
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-melbourne-festival-melbourne-as-a-design-city-with-rob-adams-am
Sean Godsell, architect of the inaugural MPavilion, in conversation with Melbourne Festival creative director Josephine Ridge. Hear how Sean’s pavilion was inspired by pragmatic design responses to the Australian landscape—as well as outback sheds and verandas—and how his versatile and welcoming design echoes the way plants respond to the sun. This flair for flexibility and sustainability is a hallmark of Sean’s architectural practice, visible in previous works such as the ‘breathable’ photovoltaic skin of his RMIT Design Hub, and his award-winning Future Shack.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-melbourne-festival-sean-godsell-with-josephine-ridge
What does it take to commission an architectural pavilion and create it from scratch? This talk traces the vision behind MPavilion, from its initial concept and funding to its innovative design. Hear from MPavilion’s patron Naomi Milgrom—whose foundation helped make it a reality—alongside acclaimed architect Sean Godsell, who designed the inaugural 2014/15 pavilion, and Serpentine Galleries director Julia Peyton-Jones, who conceived a similar architectural pavilion commission program in London in 2000. They appear in conversation with MPavilion creative director Robert Buckingham and senior curator Natalie King.
http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-naomi-milgrom-sean-godsell-and-julia-peyton-jones
‘Psychogeographical: A Melbourne dérive’ is a self-guided audio exploration; a trip on which to discover the unknown stories of familiar places. Created by DIS-cour.se in collaboration with a group of Melbourne-based emerging writers, the tour is designed to flow on from ACMI’s ‘Cathedrals of Culture’ screenings. It takes the form of a narrated audio stream complemented by a psychogeographical map—offering an ‘urban dérive’ between ACMI and MPavilion. Also known as an “unplanned journey through a landscape”, this particular dérive invites you to experience a well-known stretch of Melbourne via a new, multi-dimensional narrative. Pick up a map at MPavilion or ACMI and hit play on the audio below when you’re ready to explore.