Associate Professor Damian Madigan is an architect and urban infill housing researcher who coined the term ‘Bluefield Housing’ to describe the established suburbs.

A registered architect and practice-based housing researcher at the University of South Australia, Associate Professor Damian Madigan is the creator of ‘Bluefield Housing’: a low-rise suburban infill model that uses adaptive reuse to balance new housing supply with the retention of neighbourhood character and landscape. Individually and collaboratively, Damian’s design research has received shortlisting’s, citations or awards in five international design competitions, and he is a recipient of the 2025 Australian Institute of Architects (SA) Sir James Irwin President’s Medal for his significant contribution to architecture

Damian book ‘Bluefield Housing as Alternative Infill for the Suburbs’ has been described as “design research at its best” and “a grand vision for a future of housing and practical guide for how to achieve it.” In May this year, following a four-year partnership with the South Australian State Government and a group of local councils, Damian’s ‘Bluefield’ Co-located Housing model became a new Land Use Definition and permitted form of infill development in South Australia. This is the first time in Australia a new housing form has been legislated through a bottom-up process of design research.

Damian will present this new housing model and discuss the often-contentious issue of how to increase housing supply and diversity while retaining the low-rise housing and landscape character that we love in our suburbs. Along the way, he’ll demonstrate that density increases, and the retention of neighbourhood character can co-exist in an increasingly complex housing crisis