Image courtesy of City of Melbourne

Designing for Inclusion Past Event

Presented by City of Melbourne

Date

Thu 30 May 3:00pm - 5:00pm

Tickets

Free, Booking Required

Venue

Melbourne Town Hall Commons
90-130 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

Access

Accessible bathroom, All gender bathroom, Seating available, Wheelchair accessible

How can Melbourne’s public spaces be reimagined to foster a sense of belonging to all? How can practitioners engage with groups that have been historically excluded in the process of designing our cities? How can we address often competing needs to ensure everyone has a safe space in our city?

Designing for Inclusion explores what it means to create an ‘inclusive city’ by inviting participants to share their experiences of public space, to help inform the development of an Inclusive Design Guide for the City of Melbourne. This event will help frame the challenges and benefits of fostering a more inclusive Melbourne. Participants are encouraged to share ideas in a workshop that integrates empathy, sound, visuals, and narrative expression. Together, participants will investigate how current City of Melbourne projects can authentically engage with often excluded groups.

Designed for diverse participants to freely contribute and interact through a range of activities, this event welcomes people of all ages, genders, cultures, abilities and walks of life. Please let us know if you have any access requirements to participate.

Participants

Jocelyn Chiew, Director City Design at City of Melbourne

Jocelyn Chiew is an architect, landscape architect and urban designer. As the Director City Design, at the City of Melbourne, she plays a key role in creating inclusive and enduring public spaces. Jocelyn leads the city’s Design Excellence Program and is Deputy Chair of the Melbourne Design Review Panel. Her practice, City Design, is a multidisciplinary studio which develops and delivers urban design strategies, design standards and public works. City Design also provides design review for city shaping development proposals. Jocelyn continues to be a long-standing participant of design competitions, university design critiques, awards and conference programs.

Bronwen Hamilton, Design Manager and Principal Urban Designer at City of Melbourne

Bronwen is Principal Urban Designer and Design Manager at the City of Melbourne leading city shaping projects and programs.  Over 25+ years as aa practitioner and expert client working for all levels of Government and in private practice; Bron has had strategic insight into the life cycle of civic projects that achieve design impact. This includes design and delivery of civic projects, urban strategy and policy development in precinct renewal areas, and program oversight of effective design guidance and critique to shape good outcomes, including leading the Melbourne Design Review Panel and as Manager of the Victorian Design Review Panel for the Office of the Victorian Government Architect. 

Carlos Reyes, Senior Urban Designer at City of Melbourne

Carlos Reyes is an urban designer at the City of Melbourne. He has a multidisciplinary background in architecture, urban planning and sociology. With nine years of experience, he has contributed to projects of various scales across South America, London, and Australia. Carlos is passionate about understanding and improving the relationship between city design and social dynamics, participating in industry research focused on the impact of design in racial equity, health, and equity in access to community spaces.

Brooke Barker, Urban Designer at City of Melbourne

Brooke is an urban designer working at the City of Melbourne and RMIT University. Brooke has worked in Melbourne and regional Victoria across on a number of urban strategy, architecture and design projects. Brooke has been involved in installations for Melbourne Knowledge Week and Open Jazdow (Poland) that embed her interest in accessible design communication and meaningful engagement practices.

Joshua ‘Shu’ Ezackial

Joshua ‘Shu’ Ezackial is a science communicator focused on connecting people, ideas, and knowledge. From radio to hands-on workshops, installations to communications training, their aim is to make complex ideas accessible. As a non-binary person, Shu is passionate about empowering young queer people, and serves as a board member for Speak, a LGBTIQA+ not-for-profit focused on creating safer spaces. 

Illiana Ginnis, Monash University

Ilianna Ginnis is an access consultant at Architecture & Access and a current PhD Candidate within the Design Health Collab at Monash University. Ilianna has a personal connection to the field of accessibility as her younger sister, Michelle, is a non-verbal communicator with an intellectual disability, which has fuelled Ilianna’s dedication to making the built environment more inclusive. Her PhD research speculates on how design processes begin to consider persons with severe and profound intellectual disability and non-verbal communication, allowing designers to integrate users into complex processes as narrators of their own experiences.

Anastasia Le

Anastasia (She/her) is a proud woman of trans, forcibly displaced and of colour experience. She is currently working in Employment Services (both Workforce Australia and Disability employment services). Her professional career started as a Call agent for VIC COVID Hotline, a casual Receptionist to a National LGBTIQA+/ Intersectional Portfolio holder for a national NFP organisation. 

Her personal and professional experiences have provided her significant insights into gap to be mended within social systems, helped her identifying systemic barriers that affect health and wellbeing, livelihood of people. Anastasia’s mission is to shed light on “invisible”/ “hidden” figures and provide them platforms to thrive and grow. A society can only be as strong as its weakest link, she believes. You can see Anastasia on different programs around Naarm and Victoria such as a personality and content advisor on Joy 94.9, cooking and culinary instructor at various community centres in Vic Western Metro Regions, A Public Judge of Victorian Pride Award; her participation in various spaces, especially when it concerns LGBTIQA+ people, which extends to all people as a person can sit anywhere on the sexuality and gender spectrum respectively