PUBLIC TALK: SELF MADE CITY: New Urban Development Strategies and Housing Typologies

The Annual Dean’s Lecture, (Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts) by Kristien Ring, architect, curator and author.

With more and more people moving to urban centres worldwide, new solutions for growth are needed: strategies for densification that actually improve and bring benefits to the surrounding neighborhood and enhance the walkability and livability of our cities. All too often, our city development is determined by profit-driven investments that lack quality.

Using international examples, mainly from Berlin, Kristien Ring introduces the idea of the "Self Made City".

Our cities are starting to be more defined by the people living there who are developing projects through self-initiative such as baugruppen, co-housing and co-working groups, co-op associations, and other project forms.

This talk and the associated exhibition will demonstrate: new models for project development; how cost can be greatly reduced but building quality increased; diverse architectural and ecological building solutions; how projects consider social issues that enhance urban vitality; hybrid and mixed-use typologies that fuel urban interaction; and strategies that allow participants to collaborate in order to create their own personal solutions.

The success of our cities in the future will depend upon how we use the built developments of today to improve the quality of life in the city and to strengthen its unique diversity.

This event is presented by the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts with the Institute of Advanced Studies. Kristien is a 2016 UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

Kristien Ring’s exhibition 'Self Made City' will be on display at the Cullity Gallery, located in the UWA Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, Nedlands Campus, from 18 August - 9 September.

Those attending the SELF MADE CITY lecture are invited to the official opening of the exhibition, immediately after the lecture, in the Cullity Gallery on the UWA Nedlands Campus.