Fremantle Design Week Designing Cities Symposium: Ross Harding | A New Normal

TICKETS

$60 +booking fee

Multi-ticket discount offer for a great day of professional learning

A 15% discount is available when you also book to attend the morning event East Village at Knutsford, a climate-positive development tour. When you purchase a Symposium ticket, you will receive a code to purchase the Knutsford Tour ticket for $25 instead of $40, giving you the two events for a combined cost of $85 instead of $100.  

Concession tickets available:

Students and concession card holders can use code FDWCONCESSION for 10% off tickets.

THE EVENT

Cities around the world are rapidly transitioning the built environment to conserve finite resources and decarbonise. What does that look like, locally and nationally?

Our 2024 Designing Cities Symposium welcomes special guest Ross Harding, founder of Finding Infinity. Ross’s project A New Normal is a radical vision to shift cities from energy users to energy producers. He’s working with architects, developers, businesses, governments and communities to make it happen.

A New Normal now has over $200 million worth of live projects across Melbourne and has launched in Sydney. Each project delivers profitable examples with the private sector, engages with the general public in a colourful way, and is specifically designed to inform much needed policy

Join us for an insightful afternoon that will explore A New Normal. See case studies that demonstrate design, creativity and technology coming together, here and now, to create the healthy, sustainable cities of the future.

The event will preview ‘A New Normal Perth’ and feature a lively panel discussion exploring the barriers and levers to creating a new normal in our cities and towns. Panel members include State Government Architect Emma Williamson and Sirona Urban founder and managing director Matthew McNeilly.

This event will earn 2 informal CPD points.

EVENT PROGRAM

1.00 pm – Registration

Registration / viewing of exhibition ‘Liam Young: Planetary Transition’

1.30pm – 2.15pm (45 minutes)
Session 1 / Ross Harding / Introducing A New Normal
What
is the vision for A New Normal? Ross Harding will introduce the
thinking and science behind Finding Infinity’s ambitious plans and
showcase pilot projects being delivered in Melbourne and Sydney.

2.15pm – 2.30pm (15 minutes)
Break

2.30pm – 3.30pm (60 minutes)
Session 2 / Preview: A New Normal Perth
A New Normal asked leading Western Australian architects to come up with pilot projects to be delivered locally. Each architect will make a short presentation pitching their idea, showing what’s possible as we transition our State towards a carbon-positive future.

Presenting 'A New Normal Perth' concepts will be:
With_Architecture Studio
Philip Stejskal Architecture
MDC Architects
MJA Studio
Officer Woods
spaceagency
Foolscap Studio
Whispering Smith  
Brunsdon Studio

3.30 – 3.45pm (15 minutes)
Break

3.45pm – 4.30pm
Session 4 / Making it Happen – Panel discussion
What
has to happen for A New Normal to become reality? What are the barriers
and levers? Ross Harding facilitates a conversation between key local
decision-makers and stakeholders from within government and the private
sector, with time for audience questions. This will be a lively
conversation and we welcome audience members from all sectors to bring
their thoughts, questions and opinions! Panel members include State
Government Architect Emma Williamson and Sirona Urban founder and
managing director Matthew McNeilly – more to be announced soon.

The bar will be open for networking after the event.

Participants are encouraged to attend the morning tour of East Village at Knutsford, which will explore one of WA’s most sustainable infill developments. This event will earn 2 CPD points. A discount is available to those attending both events, which together make a valuable day of professional learning and development.

ABOUT ROSS HARDING / FINDING INFINITY

Equal parts troublemaker, technical mind and artist, Ross Harding is one of the most enthusiastic, optimistic and cheeky engineers you’ve ever met.

A rare combination of dreamer and schemer, he thinks big picture about transforming cities around the world to become completely self-sufficient, and works tirelessly with his team at Finding Infinity to make it happen.

Finding Infinity – short for finding a future based on infinite resources – is a creative and technical environmental consultancy. Its team of unique characters based in Melbourne consists of architects, engineers, artists, urban agriculture specialists and more.

Operating across a range of scales from city-wide master planning to precincts, building design, and even temporary events, Finding Infinity is doing its best to turn dreams into reality.

Harding is best known for ‘A New Normal’: a $100 billion strategy to transform Melbourne into a self-sufficient city together with 15 architecture firms. Conceptualised and initiated in his living room in Fitzroy, A New Normal now has over $200 million worth of live projects spread across Melbourne and has also launched in Sydney.