New speaker announced for Student Architecture Congress

The creative team behind the Australasian Student Architecture Congress – PEOPLE has announced an exciting addition to the speaker line up and the details for the hotly anticipated workshops.

Takaharu Tezuka from Japan will join the already impressive list of international and local speakers presenting at the Congress in Melbourne, 2 – 4 July.

 Takaharu Tezuka is the director of Tezuka Architects and a tenured professor at Tokyo City University. He worked for Richard Rogers Partnership before returning to Tokyo to establish Tezuka Architects with his wife, Yui Tezuka, in 1994. They have gone on to receive numerous national and international awards, including the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize for Fuji Kindergarten (2008), and their work has also been showcased at prestigious exhibits including the 2004 Venice Biennale of Architecture and the 2013 Carnegie International.

Breaking away from traditional Congress programs, the 2015 Creative Directors have incorporated a series of intimate workshops into the three-day event for congress delegates to learn from some of Melbourne’s best and brightest including Jeremy McLeod, Clare Cousins, Peter McIntyre and Kerstin Thompson.

The workshop component will encourage participants to consider how expanding communities, such as refugees, can be successfully integrated within an existing urban context.

‘Engaging with a political hot potato presents the opportunity to generate poignant ideas and discussions, however first and foremost these workshops are a fantastic chance to work with some of Melbourne’s leading practitioners at a more intimate level.

‘These workshops will showcase the diversity of architectural practice in Melbourne, and offer delegates the opportunity to understand the method behind the madness that is contemporary practice,’ the Creative Directors, Tim Randall, Mercedes Mambort and Darcy Zelenko, said.