The cities of the future have already been built. Are they built to last?
Cities face complex challenges from climate change and housing affordability to social inequality and uneven access to nature. Solutions to these challenges require radical improvements to buildings, neighbourhoods and infrastructures that already exist.
This exhibition explores how to upgrade and future-proof cities. Learn how to make homes healthy and climate-ready, save existing buildings, convert offices into housing and make streets radically greener. Enter a climate safe room to consider the realities of climate adaptation, explore models of buildings with many lives, and walk around a life-sized streetscape that shows how carparks, roadways and footpaths can be transformed to build resilience.
Showcasing creative projects and initiatives across Melbourne, Retrofit is a call to action to transform cities to become thriving places now and in the coming century. The exhibition asks: what will it take to retrofit our homes, buildings and streets for a viable, vibrant future?
Public programs
Related reports
Retrofitting Cities - Briefing Paper
This project outlines a comprehensive, systems approach to retrofitting, stressing that integrated urban retrofits can provide effective development of sustainable and resilient cities. Retrofitting is the process of upgrading existing physical systems to improve their performance.
Digital Estates for Zero Carbon Building Portfolios Report
This report advances a method to determine the gap between an estate's existing digital information and its data needs towards a zero-carbon building portfolio. Using the University of Melbourne Parkville campus as a case study, we present a methodology for determining data gaps in a building portfolio to support a net-zero estate and retrofit decision-making.
Retrofitting Cities - Issues Paper
This project outlines a comprehensive, systems approach to retrofitting, stressing that integrated urban retrofits can provide effective development of sustainable and resilient cities. Retrofitting is the process of upgrading existing physical systems to improve their performance.
Public Housing Renewal Victoria - Briefing Paper
The renewal of public housing estates to meet the needs of current and future generations is a high priority for housing policy in Victoria and around the world.
Public Housing Renewal Victoria - Evidence Review
The renewal of public housing estates to meet the needs of current and future generations is a high priority for housing policy in Victoria and around the world.
Re-Imaging Breese Street- A Community Co-Design Project
This is a re-imagining of what a street can be. It explores streets as public greenspaces that improve the liveability, climate resilience, and social cohesion of urban environments.