2 October 2026
This is the central paradox of the contemporary Australian suburb: its social life has become more inventive, more culturally layered, and more economically dynamic, while its built form remains stubbornly generic, repetitive, and under-serviced.
The Future Suburb symposium seeks to approach these questions from first principles, by exploring six interconnected aspects of the suburbs: the Life of the suburbs, the Image of the suburbs, the suburbs as a System, the Modes of Practice required to operate in the suburbs, new Designs for the suburbs, and a series of speculative design Provocations for the future of the suburbs.
Together, this will form a vision of the future suburb that is inclusive, exciting, and better reflects the real needs and ambitions of its residents.
Session recordings
Symposium convenors
- Ash Alam, Senior Lecturer in Social Planning
- Rory Hyde, Associate Professor in Architecture
- Alan Pert, Interim Dean, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
- Delia Teschendorff, Creative Practitioner (Education Fellow)
Partners
- Naarm Architecture Foundation (NAF)
- Melbourne Analytics Data Platform (MDAP)
- The participation of Pier Vittorio Aureli and Martino Tattara (Dogma) was made possible by the Robert Garland Treseder Fellowship.