MPavilion

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.