MPavilion

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.