Living Cities Forum 2019 expands to Sydney

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation today announced the first four international speakers for LIVING CITIES FORUM 2019, which this year, after its unprecedented success in Melbourne, has expanded to Sydney. The third annual gathering of leading global architects and urban design thinkers will be held on 23 May 2019 in Melbourne and 28 May 2019 in Sydney, and will interrogate the theme Future Needs, exploring how present-day actions impact current Australians, future Australians and the living systems with which they will cohabit.

Speakers include Pritzker Prize-winning architect Glenn Murcutt AO, a national treasure renowned for his unfailing architectural integrity; New York-based cultural historian and designer Professor Mabel O. Wilson; former Los Angeles Times architecture critic and newly-appointed Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles, Christopher Hawthorne; and co-founder of innovative Bangkok-based architecture and design studio all (zone) ltd, Rachaporn Choochuey.

Naomi Milgrom AO said:“We are privileged that the world’s leading minds will be joining us for the 2019 Living Cities Forum to investigate how we can thoughtfully build our cities for the changes and challenges ahead.”

Minister for Creative Industries, Martin Foley said: “The Living Cities Forum is an opportunity to reflect on the way design has shaped our past, hear about current best practice and explore the possibilities of the future.

“Victoria is the creative state and the Victorian Government is proud to support this home-grown event which this year will foster a dialogue across two states about the way design and planning impacts on all of our lives.”

Living Cities Forum 2019 Future Needs looks ahead to the key challenges of the next decades including foresight, planning, education and action needed to help ensure that our next generations inherit a fair, vital and peaceful urban realm. Providing an invigorating exchange of accumulated wisdom, unique perspectives and radical ideas, speakers include:

• Glenn Murcutt AO, Australia: Australia’s only recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2002), a globally influential practitioner who pursues thoughtful and site-specific architecture with singular commitment.
• Professor Mabel O. Wilson, New York City: Professor of Architecture and co-director of Global Africa Lab at Columbia University; cultural historian and author whose work exposes the visible and invisible power structures at work in our cities.
• Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles: Former architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times; in 2018 appointed as the first Chief Design Officer of the City of Los Angeles.
• Rachaporn Choochuey, Bangkok: Co-founder and design director of architecture and design studio all(zone) ltd, creating permeable and adaptable buildings in one of our region’s largest metropolises.

Living Cities Forum in Melbourne is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria and is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation in partnership with Open House Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design, Monash University, RMIT University, Australian Institute of Architects and Planning Institute of Australia.

Living Cities Forum in Sydney is presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation in partnership with Create NSW, Carriageworks, University of Technology Sydney, Australian Institute of Architects and Planning Institute of Australia.

Living Cities Forum will take place on Thursday 23 May 2019 at Deakin Edge Federation Square in Melbourne, and on Tuesday 28 May 2019 at Carriageworks in Sydney.

For further details please visit livingcitiesforum.org

The program is eligible for CPD points; attendees will need to check with their professional association.