The annual Festival of Urbanism is a series of conversations where researchers, practitioners, community advocates and industry leaders come together to debate the threats and opportunities facing our cities.

About

A range of actors, from elites to the excluded, get things done by working around the laws and codes that are meant to govern urban life. This panel will bring together research that explores the way that a range of urban outcomes are delivered through informal practices across Sydney – in housing, employment, care, policing and culture.

Speakers

Dr Sophia Maalsen, University of Sydney (Chair)

Dr Kurt Iveson, Ass Professor Urban Geography, University of Sydney

Dr Pranita Shrestha, Research Associate School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney

Prof Gaby Ramia, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

Dr Amelia Thorpe, Assoc Professor in Law, University of New South Wales

Dr Kurt Iveson is an associate professor of urban geography and research lead, Sydney Policy Lab, University of Sydney. He is primarily interested in the question of how social justice can be achieved in cities. Kurt's current research is focused on the governance of the outdoor media landscape and on the spatial politics of urban informatics systems.

Dr Pranita Shrestha is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney and a research associate at The Urban Housing Lab led by Professor Nicole Gurran. Her key research interest focuses on housing affordability, informal housing markets, local rights-based heritage conservation, sustainable development and climate change, resilience and disaster risk management.

Dr Gaby Ramia is Professor Policy and Society in the Public Policy Program, Department of Government and International Relations, School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. Gaby’s research is in public and social policy and administration. He is Co-Leader of the ‘Work, Education and Welfare’ Theme in the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies.

Dr Amelia Thorpe is Associate Professor in Law at the University of NSW. Her work centres on frameworks for decision-making in cities and the ways in which those frameworks might advance social and environmental justice. Her approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on degrees in Architecture and City Policy as well as Law, and professional experience in public interest environmental law and in planning and urban development.

Dr Sophia Maalsen is an ARC DECRA Fellow and senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. She is currently researching how the translation of computational logics and technologies is being applied to ‘hack housing’ and address issues of housing affordability and innovation. She is interested with the way digital technologies mediate and reconfigure housing, the urban and the everyday.

How to join the conversation

This virtual event is free and open to all. Register to get the details for how you can tune in on the day via Zoom webinar.

Have a question for the panel?

There will be an option at registration to submit your question.

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