Description

Join us for a series of short lectures hosted by Monash Art, Design and Architecture as part of the Festival of ‘Public’ Urbanism 2024.

5.00 – 5.50pm | Repairing Memory and Place: An Indigenous-led, practice-based approach to urban water design

The separation between cultural memories of water, urban water management processes and the material presence of water in south-east Naarm Melbourne, is the focus of this panel of Monash University researchers from an ARC Linkage Project. Using methods including On Country Learning, archival research and digital mapping, this project challenges siloed approaches through the integration of First Nations ways of knowing with interdisciplinary information. How might this approach facilitate understandings of the relationships between people, land and waterscapes, in the face of continued changes in public environments?

Speakers

N'arwee’t Carolyn Briggs is a Boon Wurrung senior elder and chairperson and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation, and Professor in the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab. Her research focuses on cultural memories of water and trees and protocols of engagement with First Nation Peoples. She has been involved in developing and supporting opportunities for Indigenous youth and Boon Wurrung culture for over 50 years.

Laura Harper is a practicing architect and leader of the Master of Architecture Program at Monash University. Laura's research is both architectural and urban, studying material and construction through their systematic connection to wider processes, structures and histories of both the built and natural worlds.

Ana Lara Heyns is a geo-anthropologist and post-doctoral research fellow at the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab. Her research considers urban waterways through the Indigenous paradigm of relationality. She is a co-founder of APR Collective that creates spaces and encounters for social change and the expansion of knowledge.

6.00 – 6.50 pm | Reshaping River Space: Bisenzio River Prato; Citarum River West Java; Goulburn River north-east Victoria; Whau River Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Rivers are ancient, dynamic systems, rich with environmental, cultural and public values. But over centuries, river territory has been squeezed, damaged and polluted in the face of anthropocentric pressures. In this session, Monash University researchers present imagery for the regeneration of four rivers in four countries, each reimagined to make space for flooding, ecological diversity and improved water quality, for the betterment of all life.

Speakers

Nigel Bertram is a director of NMBW Architecture Studio and a practice professor of Architecture at Monash University. Nigel leads research projects on design-led processes for urban regeneration and retrofits of existing environments. As well, he explores the role of water systems considering how past modifications inform future scenarios.

Tanvi Maheshwari is an urban designer and research fellow at Informal Cities Lab at Monash University. She has been conducting transdisciplinary, impact-based action research across Asian cities, through hybrid methodologies using data-driven planning support tools, future studies, and scenario-based adaptive planning approaches.

Kathy Waghorn has a background in art and architecture and is an associate professor and acting head of the Department of Architecture at Monash University. Hailing from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, she a director of HOOPLA, a social enterprise producing urban research, place advocacy, community engagement and design.

Louise Wright is a director of Baracco+Wright Architects and a practice professor of Architecture at Monash University, where she combines practice and research. She collaborates with ecologists, landscape architects and artists to find ways that architecture can extend its relationship with the natural world.

About the Festival

The annual Festival of Urbanism is an initiative of the University of Sydney’s Henry Halloran Research Trust and is hosted in partnership with universities around Australia, including Monash University. It features a series of conversations where researchers, practitioners, community advocates and industry leaders come together to debate the threats and opportunities facing our cities and regions.

Great cities are defined by the quality of their public realm. From parks to civic architecture, well designed public infrastructure supports and enables the social, cultural and economic dimensions of urban life…What new forms of urban governance, planning, design, property ownership, or environmental stewardship could emerge instead? Would foregrounding Caring for Country and Community paradigms in planning processes help the necessary transition from regulatory to restorative forms of urban and regional governance?...What is the role of public architecture and design in shaping and reshaping cities and regions? – Nicole Gurran, Festival Director, 2024