Adelaide set to welcome International Urban Design Conference

With Adelaide recently the fifth in the recently released World’s Most Liveable City 2014 poll, the city is hosting the 7th International Urban Design Conference next week.

With the theme of Designing Productive Cities, the Conference will explore the framework required for creating contemporary cities, the process of designing and shaping our cities to make them more functional, attractive and sustainable. Not content to rest on theoretical merits alone, the conference program also includes optional walking tours.

Maintaining that the ‘Gen Y’ market needs more compact design models, the conference will examine affordable housing and diversity for this generation. For the rapidly growing ageing population sector, they will discuss isolation, location, ease of transport, mobility and affordability.

Open to a range of professions including policy makers, social planner, town planner and architects, Designing Productive Cities lists social equity, inclusion, developing meaningful relationships and interconnectivity between cities and regional areas as among its key concerns.

The conference has attracted a range of local and international speakers. Keynote speakers include Ludo Campbell-Reid, Design Champion, Manager Environmental Strategy & Policy, Auckland Council, New Zealand; Rachel Davey, Professor of Health Research, University of Canberra; Ben Hewett, South Australian Government Architect and Executive Director of the Office for Design and Architecture SA (ODASA); and Caroline Stalker, Director, Architectus, Adjunct Professor, School of Design, Creative Industries, QUT.

Highlights include Sasha Ivanovich, Director of SIA Architects and AURA Urban & Regional Alliance speaking on ‘The Australian City in the 21st Century’; Roberts Day’s urban planner; Stephen Moore, on ‘Parking Pleasure: How do you use parking to transform towns into places people love?’ which provides a practical framework for understanding how ‘park-in-place’ city strategies can benefit towns and cities; and Caroline Stalker, Director of Architectus and Adjunct Professor, School of Design, Creative Industries at QUT, on ‘The 21st Century City in Nature; Prospects for a new High Rise Urbanism.’

The 7th International Urban Design Conference is being held at the InterContinental, Adelaide from Monday 1st to Wednesday 3rd September.

The recently release World’s Most Liveable City 2014 poll included four Australian cities in its top ten, with Melbourne coming in first, followed by Adelaide in fifth place, Sydney in seventh place and Perth in ninth place.

Click here to view the full program for the 7th International Urban Design Conference.

For more information on the Conference contact AST Management Pty Ltd on 07 5502 2068, E: conference@urbandesignaustralia.com.au, www.urbandesignaustralia.com.au