Designing Affordability presentation

An international exhibition and presentation on challenges and opportunities in solving housing affordability will be presented at this year’s annual prefabAUS 2016 Conference, at University of Sydney’s Department of Architecture, Planning and Design.

Professor Marc Norman from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design is Director of UPSTATE, a Centre for Design Research and Real Estate at Syracuse University School of Architecture.

An affordable housing advocate, he supports mechanisms that reduce the cost of housing and has dedicated his career to finding remedies to inequality.

“We are experiencing a crisis in housing as the totality of these construction and operating costs far exceed the incomes of a growing number of families in our cities,” Marc explains. “There is no one solution, but a suite of techniques the prefab industry can deploy to lower costs or create efficiencies in the service of greater affordability.”

Mr Norman curated the Designing Affordability: Quicker, Smarter, More Efficient Housing Now exhibition that was held at the Centre for Architecture in New York. The exhibition will feature at prefabAUS 2016 and he will discuss the philosophy behind his exhibition.

Marc’s presentation will examine ways in which architects, engineers, planners, policy makers and ordinary citizens are creating innovative ways to reduce the cost of housing, increase opportunity, rethink the way we live and show new ways to build and maintain structures.

“Developers, individuals, governments and architects are designing affordable solutions and creating models for addressing the crisis and creating new opportunities for us all,” Marc says.

“Modular construction holds the promise of quicker construction timeframes, consistency and better construction quality management. While originally confined to low rise structures, this method is now bringing innovative design to mid-rise and high-rise housing.”

Also joining the conference’s international speaker line up is author and researcher, Associate Professor Ryan Smith from The University of Utah’s Integrated Technology in Architecture Centre, and author and expert in Industrial Technologies – Timber, former CEO of Italian Timber Design Bureau Dr Paolo Lavisci.

The international guest speakers will be joined by Australian and New Zealand industry experts, focused on the theme of Delivering Next Generation Buildings. They will showcase the best in prefabricated and offsite technology and design, and explore the future of the built environment.

Location:

Seymour Centre at The University of Sydney, Architecture Design and Planning

Dates:

Monday 10 October
(optional) site tour conference event, 10am-5pm

Tuesday 11 October
8am – registrations
8:30am – 5:00pm Conference
7:00pm cocktail party at The Ivy ‘Sunroom’

Wednesday 12 October
8:00 – 8:45am – provisionally prefabAUS AGM TBC (prefabAUS members only)
9am – 4pm Conference

For more information and to book: prefabaus.org.au/conference