Event Description
EVENT POSTPONED UNTIL 3RD MARCH 2027
With a busy end-of-year industry calendar and changes in speaker availability, we've decided to move Who Killed the Ground Floor? from 11th November 2026 to 3rd March 2027, giving this important conversation the time and attention it deserves.
Existing tickets will remain valid, with full refunds available upon request at hello@theplacenetwork.com.au.
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Who Killed The Ground Floor?
You've walked past them. The empty shopfront with the faded leasing sign. The café that lasted eighteen months. The glossy render that promised a buzzing street and delivered a windswept forecourt.
The ground floor is where a building meets the city, and too often, that's exactly where it falls over. So who's to blame? The planners? The designers? The developers? The leasing agents? The owners? Or the way all of us work together, usually years before the doors open?
We've pulled together the people who touch every part of the ground floor, from City Hall to the leasing desk, the owner's spreadsheet to the architect's drawing board, from large scale precincts down to the single venue. No finger pointing for the sake of it, just an honest look at why some ground floors thrive while others never get going, and what we'd actually need to change.
The conversation will cover:
Is the ground floor actually broken? Where is it working, where isn't it, and what does the data really say?
Who killed the ground floor? Planning, design, feasibility, finance, leasing, ownership, timing, or the gaps between them? Or is it or the way these disciplines work together?
What makes a ground floor work? The real projects that got it right, and what they did differently.
Are we building the wrong kind of places? Do every developments need more retail, or should we be making room for hospitality, services, culture, community and work?
What happens next? How do we build ground floors that can adapt as the way we shop, work and live keeps shifting?
Hosted by The Place Network, a community for people shaping urban places across Australia. We bring together practitioners across architecture, development, planning, property, strategy, leasing, placemaking and more who care about creating places that are better socially, economically and environmentally.
This time, we’re partnering with Krost Business Furniture, who will host us at their Melbourne showroom at 617 Spencer Street, West Melbourne, providing the setting for an evening of honest conversation, new perspectives and connection.
The event will kick off at 6pm, followed by food and drinks.
We proudly partner with Humanitix, where booking fees support social impact projects.
The Speakers
Lord Mayor, Nick Reece
Nick Reece was sworn in as Lord Mayor of Melbourne in July 2024 and re-elected in November 2024. He was first elected as a councillor at the City of Melbourne in 2016 and was elected as Deputy Lord Mayor in 2020. Nick serves as portfolio head of the City Infrastructure portfolio and deputy for the Finance, Governance and Risk portfolio, these cover a range of responsibilities and activities which are core to council business. As Deputy Lord Mayor, Nick helped steer the city through some of its darkest days during the Covid lockdowns and the subsequent recovery. With a long history of public service and experience in business, law and journalism, Nick brings a deep understanding of Melbourne life to the role of Lord Mayor.
Tania Wallace Smith, Senior Development Manager, The GPT Group
Tania Wallace-Smith is a Senior Development Manager at The GPT Group, where she led delivery of the recently completed 51 Flinders Lane office and precinct development in Melbourne’s East End and is now leading the joint lobby and precinct integration project at GPT’s neighbouring workplace, 8 Exhibition Street. With more than 20 years’ experience across Australia, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, Tania has delivered complex mixed-use, commercial, retail and major infrastructure projects. Known for leading high-profile developments with clarity and confidence, she brings a strong combination of strategic insight, commercial acumen and delivery expertise, with a track record of guiding complex projects from vision through to completion.
Hayden Djakic, Architect and Hospitality Sector Lead, Buchan
Hayden Djakic is a Senior Associate and Hospitality Sector Lead at architecture and design studio, Buchan. He has over a decade of international experience across hospitality, commercial and mixed-use developments. His expertise spans concept through to delivery, adaptive reuse and sustainable design within complex urban environments. Hayden's approach to design is shaped by a fascination with the psychology of architecture and how the built environment engages the senses to influence the way people feel in a space. Most recently, Hayden led the Melbourne Walk redevelopment on Bourke Street Mall, reinstating one of Melbourne's most prominent public thoroughfares.
Tom Larwill, Director of Retail Leasing Victoria, Colliers
Tom Larwill is Director in the Victorian Retail Leasing team at Colliers, working with landlords, developers and retailers to shape some of Melbourne’s most significant retail and mixed-use destinations. With experience across CBD precincts, activity centres and major urban renewal projects, Tom provides frontline insight into how occupiers make location decisions and what drives successful ground-floor activation. His work spans leasing strategy, tenant mix curation and repositioning assets to meet evolving consumer expectations. Drawing on daily conversations with retailers and hospitality operators, Tom brings a practical market perspective on what creates commercially viable, engaging and enduring places.
Eid Goh, Director, Air Design Studio
Eid Goh has spent his career designing the places where streets either come alive or go quiet. He started his first practice, Architects EAT, at 24 with a few university mates, and over more than 20 years built it into one of the go to firms for retail, hospitality and leisure work around Australia, earning recognition from the AIA Victorian Chapter, the IDA Awards and the IDEA Awards. He's also worked on the landlord's side as Retail Design Manager for AMP Capital and Walker Corporation, so he understands the ground floor from the leasing deal through to the last coat of paint. These days he leads Air Design Studio, working across hospitality, retail and commercial projects that cover everything from venue fitouts for hospitality and retail brands, to tenancy carve ups that reshape how a building meets the street, often giving existing buildings a second life along the way. For Eid, a space stands or falls on the story it tells the people who walk into it, and whether that story works for the business inside. It's a question that sits right at the heart of who killed the ground floor.
Major Partners
Krost Business Furniture
Krost has been designing and making furniture for Australian workplaces since 1989, carrying on a family manufacturing story that began in South Africa in the 1920s. Like The Place Network, they care about spaces that genuinely work for the people who use them. We're thrilled to be hosted at their West Melbourne showroom for an evening of honest conversation.
DLX Photography
DLX Photography is the photography arm of DLX Creative, a Melbourne based branding studio working across architecture, property and hospitality. They deliver images that serve the brand, with the technical range to capture anything a project requires, from a fleeting moment to a streetscape from hundreds of metres above.
No Offence Wines
Quality wine from independent winemakers. Served fresh on tap from kegs. We are passionate about wine and the planet. We want to rewrite the rules on how wine is made, moved and enjoyed, pioneering innovative, lower-impact solutions to create real commercial value for our partners while reducing wine’s carbon footprint.
Restaurant II II VI
Restaurant 226 is our catering partner for the night, a subterranean Flinders Lane restaurant built around a flame first philosophy, where every dish is shaped by wood, charcoal and embers. Set beneath the historic Invicta House, the space pairs steel, stone and the low glow of embers with a menu built on fire from start to finish.
The Place Network Founders
Rosie Wilkinson
Rosie is an independent brand strategist and brand designer with eighteen years of experience working across property, mixed-use precincts and hospitality. Her background spans leading brand and placemaking agencies and more recently an in-house development role, where she worked with architects, developers, consultants and stakeholders to bring property developments and precincts to life from vision right through to execution, across placemaking, branding and marketing. Rosie brings a rare combination of strategic clarity, creative direction and real-world development understanding. She founded The Place Network to create space for innovation to deliver projects that are better for people, planet and profit.
Janine Kariyawasam
Janine is an interior architect and designer with over thirteen years of experience spanning Melbourne, London, and New York. She specialises in crafting hospitality and public realm experiences that prioritise the connection between people and place. Her background integrates creative vision with strategic foresight, a skill set shes sharpened as Head of Design at Air Design Studio. Currently completing an MBA, Janine bridges the gap between design thinking and business strategy to ensure projects are as commercially viable as they are inclusive. Driven by the belief that meaningful change requires cross-sector collaboration, Janine co-founded The Place Network. She is dedicated to activating the public realm through design that delivers measurable social impact and lasting cultural value.
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