Associate Professor Gene Bawden

Associate Professor Gene Bawden

Associate Professor Gene Bawden

Head of Department (Design)

Department of Design

Monash University Research Portal

Graduate research supervisor

Gene Bawden is a communication designer and Head of Department (Design).

Gene has over twenty-five years’ experience as a communication designer and design educator, and has a unique capability as a design thinking facilitator. At Monash University, he has played central roles in design education and course development, including initiating and leading a major review of the Bachelor of Design; the development of MADA’s design thinking curriculum and the delivery of a tailored design thinking program for the Monash School of Business’ MBA.

As founding director of D-Lab, Gene has developed the design thinking process into a robust and self-reflexive process, while honouring its heritage in design practice. Leading a team of researchers and facilitators, D-Lab delivers bespoke material tools of enquiry around design thinking processes and research, including workshops and resources for internal and external clients. This is an area of investigation that is increasingly part of Gene’s expanding area of design education research.

Gene is also a founding member of the Faculty’s XYX Lab, which affords him the opportunity to combine his knowledge of gendered spatial practices and his communication design expertise within collaborative research projects aimed at mitigating gender inequity in Australia’s urban environments.

Gene’s other areas of research and design practice investigate material, visual and spatial narratives of belonging. Specifically, he interrogates the design of Australian domestic spaces as highly charged representation of cultural belonging, social alignment and gendered expectation. His book, Comfort and Judgement: Nineteenth Century Advice Manuals and the Scripting of Australian Identity, published by Monash University Publishing, is due for release in late 2019.

News & events

Recent news

Upcoming events

Best in Category wins for Monash Design at the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards and a new Chair appointment

Monash Design researchers have taken out two "Best in Category" wins and Associate Professor Leah Heiss has been announced as the incoming Chair of the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards.

Wrapping up MADA Design Week 2022

Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) has completed a successful program full of events as part of Melbourne Design Week 2022.

Research

XYX Lab – Gender + Place

Research lab
THE INSIDE STORY

The Inside Story

Re-reading the history of the Australian domestic interior.

HyperSext City

Drawing attention to the experiences of women, girls and LGBTQI+ communities by presenting data and intersectional narratives of gender.

TramLab Toolkits

Improving the safety of women and girls on public transport.

Merri Creek, Coburg Safety Audit

Women’s Safety Audits: A transformative approach to safety in the city.

Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space

Unique interdisciplinary approaches to understanding gendered spatial equity in the urban environment.

YourGround

Making recreational areas safe for women, girls and gender-diverse people.

Keep Running

Keep Running is a call to action for communities to develop an understanding of safety and risk in our city and an opportunity for audiences to consider their own lived experience and/or to develop understanding and empathy.

HyperSext City 2

Re-designed to amplify the experiences of women*, girls and LGBTQI+ communities through new mediums revealing existing data sources globally and locally to spectacular effect both inside the gallery and on the streets of Fremantle.
free-to-be

Free to Be: Design Thinking Workshop

Prioritising thinking through concepts that could have real world impacts for women and girls.
PREVENTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Preventing Sexual Harassment in Australian Public Transport Spaces

Uncovering how the safety of women and girls is challenged in public transport spaces.
PRIDE THINKING DESIGN THINKING

The Victorian Pride Centre

Celebrating, bolstering and protecting equality, diversity and inclusion.
XYX lab - reproductive health

Safe Access to Reproductive Health Care in Australia

Formulating proposals for changes in law and policy at both the federal level and State level to remove barriers to access.

Just So F***ing Beautiful

Telling a story of female harassment in a public space – a new work for the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale: European Cultural Centre.

The SHEcity Exhibition

Bringing together experts to reimagine and redesign how our city could be more inclusive for women and girls.

Moreland City Council Workshop

Using gender-sensitive design thinking to support of Moreland City’s future growth.

Yours. Mine. Ours - Melbourne Art Tram 2019

“Yours, mine, ours” is a design that celebrates the ambitions for diversity and inclusion within the city of Melbourne.

Built Upon By Design Symposium

A three-day intensive symposium to engage with issues of gendered spatial equity in the urban environment.
on-my-life

On My Life

Providing respect, engagement, and intergenerational understanding.
girl-walk

Girl Walk: Identity, Crowd-mapping and Safety in the City for Women and Girls

Creating a culturally vibrant city that is inclusive for women and girls.
Research opportunity

Gender and night-time economies

The XYX Lab is seeking proposals that examine the confluence of factors that contribute to gendered experiences of the night-time economy – both in spatial design and visual communication design – and the role they play as a cultural and social practice that can contribute to challenging power relations within cities, and consequently to women’s feelings of safety within them.

More information