Sustainable Housing Futures

The Sustainable Housing Futures panel brings together designers, researchers, and housing experts from across RMIT University to explore one of today’s most pressing issues: how we can create better housing for everyone?

We have secured an exciting panel of the next generation of experts that will answer the question: What does sustainable housing look like for you? Under the energetic guidance of Anna Cumming, Managing Editor of Sanctuary magazine published by the not-for-profit Renew, experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and property will discuss the ideas they are working on to create sustainable homes.

Panel Chair:

Anna Cumming – Managing Editor of Sanctuary Magazine

Anna Cumming is Managing Editor of Sanctuary: modern green homes, Australia's premier magazine dedicated to sustainable house design, published by Renew - Australia's leading not-for-profit organisation for sustainable living. She has a longstanding interest in the built environment, and loves being part of the mission to inspire and educate people about the design strategies, materials and systems available to achieve truly sustainable, energy efficient and comfortable homes that tread lightly on the earth.

Panellists:

Dr Maud Cassaignau – Senior Lecturer, Landscape Architecture, RMIT University

Maud Cassaignau is an urban and landscape designer with experience across Europe, USA and Asia Pacific. As RMIT Landscape Architecture academic and founder of XPACE.cc, she explores how to combine dense city living with generous public space, using biodiversity to improve climate, wellbeing and create vibrant community experiences. Her book and projects have received local and international Urban Design awards, and informed urban policy.

Dr Konstantina Vasilakopoulou – Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University

Konstantina Vasilakopoulou is an architect and environmental engineering researcher specialising in urban heat, housing equity, and climate resilient design. As an RMIT Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow, she leads interdisciplinary work on cooling poverty and built environment wellbeing, shaping policy and practice across government, industry, and community sectors.

Lauren Garner – Lecturer, Architecture & Urban Design, RMIT University

Lauren Garner is a Melbourne-based architect, lecturer, and PhD candidate at RMIT University, and director of Garner Architecture Practice. Her work focuses on adaptive reuse, retrofit, and the transformation of existing buildings, with an emphasis on sustainability, carbon reduction, and long-term urban resilience. Alongside practice and research, she teaches at RMIT, exploring how design can operate across scales, from detail to city, to support more sustainable ways of living.

Dr Louise Dorignon – Senior Research Fellow, School of School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University

Dr Louise Dorignon is an urban geographer at RMIT University whose research examines how housing shapes everyday life in cities, from design and production processes to lived experience. Her current work focuses on offsite construction, analysing how these approaches reconfigure residents’ everyday lives and industry practices, and their implications for sustainable urban living.

Claire Scorpo – Lecturer, Architecture & Urban Design, RMIT University

Claire Scorpo is a Lecturer at RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design, Director at Agius Scorpo Architects, and a recipient of the 2023 Victorian Institute of Architects Emerging Architect Award. She is also a PhD candidate whose research investigates how housing quality can be strengthened through policy reform and design-led innovation, with a particular focus on redefining comfort within suburban contexts.

Shuan Tompkins – Zero Carbon Buildings Lead (Acting), Climate Change and City Resilience, City of Melbourne

Shaun Tompkins is an experienced sustainability professional focused on decarbonising Australia’s built environment. In his role within the Zero Carbon Buildings team at the City of Melbourne, he helps shape and deliver initiatives that support building owners, investors and the broader community to reduce emissions and accelerate the transition to net zero buildings. Alongside driving operational carbon reductions, Shaun is passionate about addressing embodied carbon and advancing circular economy outcomes within the property sector. Extending this philosophy to his personal life, Shaun has retrofitted his own 1960s apartment to improve its thermal performance and indoor amenity.

Welcome by:

Professor Karien Dekker – Housing Cluster Co-lead, Post-Carbon Research Centre, RMIT University

Professor Karien Dekker works at RMIT University in the School of Property, Construction and Project Management. She currently works on retrofit options for affordable and social housing, C- and D-grade office buildings, as well as homelessness policy. Karien's life revolves around a greater desire to create inclusive communities in which everyone has an affordable home.

This event is organised by RMIT University's Post-Carbon Research Centre in collaboration with Sustainable House Day by Renew Australia.