Join us for the third instalment of the Foundation Dialogues series, where we turn our attention to “System” as practice, as discourse, as responsibility.
This dialogue focuses on “systems” - what this can mean in landscape architectural practice and wider spatial and cultural discourse; current matters of urgency and / or concern relating to “systems”; and the various techniques and practices of understanding, engaging with, and designing “systems”. In conversation with A/Prof Charles Anderson
Date: Tuesday 19 May
Time: 18:00 – 19:00
Location: RMIT Design Hub, Room 100.04.004
Speakers:
Hanny Paing (McGregor Coxall)
Jasmine Ong (GLAS)
Steve Mintern (OFFICE)
Dr Maj Plemenitas (RMIT University)
In conversation with: A/Prof Charles Anderson
Come for the ideas.
Stay for the dialogue.
Leave with new ways of seeing the habitats we inhabit—and those we are yet to imagine.
Lower Pool Studio 2025: Feral Oceans
Feral Oceans explores the ocean as a planetary commons, focusing on relationships between Melbourne’s urban edge and the South Pacific Ocean. Students investigate interactions like kelp forests with sea urchin barrens or migrating whales with oil infrastructure, identifying agents thriving in disturbed environments. Using GIS-based mapping and inspired by the Feral Atlas, they will create a Compendium Atlas narrating these agents and conditions. Through mappings, students develop design responses to engage with or change these ecologies, guided by positions like radical action or slow change. A speculative design approach aids in testing futures through iterative drawings. The studio asks: how can landscape architectural design reveal, reimagine, and intervene in the feral processes shaping our oceans?
Studio Leader: Bonnie Lester
Bonnie is a researcher, writer and educator whose work explores the intersections of technological and ecological systems, currently focusing on the emerging concept of the planetary. She holds a Master’s in Synthetic Landscapes from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and a research fellowship on AI and Philosophy. She currently works on Planetary Pedagogies and Regenerative Futures at RMIT.
Contact: [email protected]
The winners will be announced for the DESIGN THE WORLD YOU WANT International Student Ideas Competition. The exhibition will showcase the shortlisted designs from landscape architecture students around the globe to reimagine Melbourne’s iconic Victoria Harbour.
Tickets - $20 General Admin; $10 Students;
The competition site is on the traditional lands and waterways of the Kulin Nation, specifically the Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) and Boonwurrung people. This Melbourne city area is overlapping the boundary of the territories of both these Traditional Owners groups.
As the ideas competition submissions should respond to the Melbourne Design Week theme of Design The World You Want. The basis of your design should reflect the following:
Design futures: Explore design as a restorative force: enabling biodiversity, healing communities, replenishing resources, and rebalancing human-nature relations.
Circularity: Reflect the current shift taking place from linear, extractive, non-renewable design production to circular, non-extractive, or bio-design.
Jury
Nelson Gomes - Studio Lead – Melbourne, Arcadia Landscape Architecture (Melbourne, Australia)
Farinoosh Hadian Jazy – Landscape Project Consultant, LDA Design (London, UK)
James A. Lord – Founder and Owner of Surfacedesign, Inc (San Francisco, USA)
Claire Martin – Associate Director, Oculus (Melbourne, Australia)
Dr Alessio Russo, PhD – Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture, Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia)
More information at /dtwyw-competition/
Competition Organiser - World Landscape Architecture
Venue Supporter – RMIT University
Competition is supported by Arcadia Landscape Architecture, ASPECT Studios, Hassell, and Hansen Partnership.
Join us for the second instalment of the Foundation Dialogues series, where we turn our attention to “Habitat” as practice, as discourse, as responsibility.
This dialogue focuses on “Habitat” - what this can mean in landscape architectural practice and wider spatial and cultural discourse; current matters of urgency and / or concern relating to “habitat”; and the various techniques and practices of understanding, engaging with, and designing “habitat”. In conversation with A/Prof Charles Anderson
Date: Tuesday 21 April
Time: 18:00 – 19:00
Location: RMIT Design Hub, Room 100.04.004
Speakers:
Jasmine Hocking (University of Melbourne)
Jac Semmler (Super Bloom)
Cassandra Chilton (Aspect Studios)
Jen Lynch (RMIT University)
In conversation with: A/Prof Charles Anderson
Come for the ideas.
Stay for the dialogue.
Leave with new ways of seeing the habitats we inhabit—and those we are yet to imagine.
Upper Pool Studio 2025: Sites of Belonging
Sites of Belonging explored the impacts of urban intensification on the NGV Urban Garden and tested inclusive design methodologies for working with diverse communities. Students engaged with macro and micro spatial concepts through research spanning the site’s pre-colonial condition and contemporary sociocultural context including community profiles and preferences, and future possibilities. Students developed personas, and crafted project briefs and design proposals using evidence-based, intersectional approaches. The studio focused on design for inclusion and belonging in public space as one potential antidote to the polycrisis. While not aiming to represent whole communities, students tested methods of engagement that connected them to varied perspectives and approaches, strengthening their professional practice.
Studio Leader: Jocelyn Chiew
Jocelyn Chiew is an award winning landscape architect and expert in place planning and design. Her 20-year career spans government, university, consultancy and professional institute roles, working in partnership with diverse communities. She founded Jocelyn Chiew Strategic Design in 2025. Prior to this, she held high profile leadership positions, most notably as the Director City Design at the City of Melbourne and Manager Campus Design, Quality and Planning at Monash University. Jocelyn’s leadership has produced innovative teams and projects, as recognised through publications, awards and appointments.
Jocelyn is a Fellow of both the Australian Institute of Architects and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. She has championed design for the public good at major global forums including the International Congress of Architects in Copenhagen and Association of University Architects conference in St Louis. Jocelyn has advised state-significant proposals, design competitions and university boards, and taught and critiqued architecture, landscape architecture and urban design at universities across Melbourne. Jocelyn is committed to the advancement of design excellence and inclusive design in Australian cities.
Contact: [email protected]
RANKED #1 IN AUSTRALIA AND #15 IN THE WORLD IN THE LATEST QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS BY SUBJECT – RMIT ARCHITECTURE / BUILT ENVIRONMENT.
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We are absolutely delighted that RMIT Architecture / Built Environment disciplines have been ranked #1 in Australia and #15 in the world in the latest QS World University Rankings by subject 2026 released last night.
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Professor Vivian Mitsogianni, Dean, School of Architecture & Urban Design said “this incredible result reflects the strength of our students, staff, collaborators, and the broader RMIT community across the Built Environment disciplines. It is a testament to the ambition, creativity, and critical engagement that defines our School”.
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“It is wonderful to be acknowledged internationally in this way” Professor Mitsogianni said “but what we are most proud of is the ideas-rich and supportive environment that has been developed in our school, which functions as a local and global community of practice with a critical mass of design innovators as alumni and continuing and industry staff”.
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At RMIT School of Architecture & Urban Design, students are immersed in the complexities of contemporary architectural and urban design. They engage directly with the challenges shaping our built environment, experimenting through design to test ideas, confront uncertainty, and explore new possibilities. Designing is demanding—it involves navigating uncertainty, embracing risk, and pushing beyond the familiar. It is through this rigorous, iterative process that innovation and novelty emerge in our discipline.
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Well done RMIT School of Architecture & Urban Design students and staff and thank you to all our collaborators, supporters and friends. Congratulations also to our colleagues across RMIT in the Built Environment disciplines!
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Image 1: RMIT @rmitarchitecture , @interiordesign.rmit@interiordesign.rmit.masters , @rmit_la , @tectonicformationlab
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#RMIT #RMITArchitecture #RMITUniversity #Architecture #ArchitectureSchool #AustraliaArchitecture #QSranking #student #architect @rmituniversity@rmitglobal
RMIT LA invites you to join sessional academic Jocelyn Chiew for a panel discussion and workshop to launch the Atlas of Belonging presented by MPavilion next Thursday 19 March. The Atlas of Belonging Project builds on themes emerging from the 2025 RMIT LA upper pool design research studio 'Sites of Belonging'.
Date: Thursday 19 March 2026
Time: 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location: Queen Victoria Gardens
Drawing on insights from luminaries across plant practice, retail, sport and manufacturing, the event combines a panel discussion and workshop. Through storytelling, mapping and co-design, participants will identify patterns of inclusion and contribute to a living Atlas of design strategies and indicators.
Visit our Linktree (link in bio) for more info
Image by RMIT student Rümeysa Kul
Lower Pool Studio 2025: Camberwell Civic Triangle
As Camberwell Junction becomes an Activity Centre, the studio explored how urban densification reshapes the pressure and value of public spaces and amenities within such a growth context, common across Melbourne . The studio focused on the central civic precinct, a triangle which contains a public school , the library and council buildings, a garden, tennis club and churches and collaborated with the local CPS school and Boorondara Council. It investigated the improvement of the precinct's disconnected open spaces. It proposes a vibrant network of urban spaces serving surrounding buildings and communities. It further reenvisions spaces as urban ecosystems, adressing climate and biodiversity, diverse human needs and demographies, and more -than-human perspectives.
Studio Leader: Dr. Maud Cassaignau
Dr Maud Cassaignau’s research, teaching and practice focus on the adaptation of metropolitan areas to challenges of climate, biodiversity loss, growth, and economic change. She uses optimistic, multi-scalar propositions to engage with stakeholders and communities through multiple modes, including teaching, research, exhibition-making, report-writing, and publishing, to achieve discussion, altered attitudes and real change. Dr Brent Greene’s teaching and research focus on urban ecological design that engages with spontaneous plants, queer ecology, marginalised landscapes, and post-industrial urban renewal. His design research methods investigate the impact of cultural values on urban ecological design and aim to expand perceptions and design approaches/values of spontaneous urban plants in the metropolis.
Contact: [email protected]
Join us for the next event in the RMIT Landscape Architecture Dialogue Series:
Foundation Dialogue: Ground Works
led by A/Prof Charles Anderson
Tuesday 17 March 2026
6:00pm – 7:00pm
RMIT Design Hub, Level 4, Room 4
This dialogue focuses on “Place” — what this can mean in landscape architectural practice and wider spatial discourse; the current matters of urgency and concern relating to place; and the various techniques and practices of conceptualising, engaging with, and designing place.
A/Prof Charles Anderson will be joined by Lisa Howard (Director of TCL), Bob Earl (Director of Oculus), Professor Paul Carter, and Dr Jock Gilbert from RMIT Landscape Architecture.
The RMIT Landscape Architecture Dialogue Series creates space for engaging with the wider ideas and conversations shaping landscape architecture today. It extends learning beyond the studio and invites you into wider conversations shaping contemporary landscape architectural practice, research, and discourse.
Congratulations Professor Quentin Stevens! Last month he launched his new book, How Good Are Parklets?, at Readings’ bookshop at the State Library Victoria.
Parklets are innovative, dynamic public spaces installed onto an on-street car-parking spaces to transform them for wider public use. These very small spaces have led to a major transformation of city streets and public life, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. How Good Are Parklets? is the first book to critically examine the parklet's purposes, formats and impacts across varying urban contexts.
Dr Elizabeth Taylor from the Urban Planning and Design program at Monash University provided commentary on the book and the wider significance of parklets for city streets and planning.
Join us for the first RMIT Landscape Architecture Public Dialogue event of 2026:
Hiroki Hasegawa
Tuesday, 3 March 2026
12:00pm – 1:00pm
Design Hub, Pavilion 1 (100.10.003)
Hiroki Hasegawa will reflect on his practice called 'studio on site' and the broader spatial and material narratives shaping contemporary Japanese landscape architecture. The conversation will explore craft, material sensitivity, and how landscape practice operates between past and present in Asia-Pacific contexts.
Hasegawa will be joined in conversation by Dr Heike Rahmann (RMIT University) and A/Professor Jillian Walliss (University of Melbourne).
Upper Pool Studio 2025: Unsettling Colonial Systems
Landscape architecture has an unsettling history - used as a vital tool in the ongoing displacement and dispossession of Traditional Custodians and violence on Country. Drawing upon an expanded and interdisciplinary practice involving art and architecture, UNSETTLING Colonial Systems explores landscape architecture’s responsibility and agency to highlight and critique these problematic histories. Trapped at the centre of the Austral Bricks clay pit in Wollert, a series of partially ruined settler basalt structures prevents the expansion of the quarry, due to their heritage listing. Meanwhile, the surrounding landscape along the Merri Merri is flattened, cleared and dug up for the growing city, reflecting the conflicted attitudes toward the conservation and preservation of cultural heritage. In this studio students have been exploring how interventions into the structures might at once unsettle the colonial systems that perpetuate violence onto Country, grapple with landscape architecture’s own complicity in these systems, while reflecting new attitudes and respectful practices to working on Country.
Studio Leader: Collective Territories (Led by Joseph Gauci-Seddon)
Joseph Gauci-Seddon is a registered architect (ARBV) and founder of Collective Territories. He is also a Design Studio Leader across Melbourne design universities. Joseph’s experience includes architecture (Bloxas and UCA), furniture design and public art consultancy (Broached Commissions), landscape architecture (Mala Studio), and cultural events (DEFF and Process @ Loop) as a curator and designer. His practice challenges the boundaries of these disciplines exploring an expanded architectural practice in which landscape and ecology, furniture, and art play a critical role. Joseph’s practice involves listening closely; to the diverse voices of clients and collaborators, and to questions the site and project pose.
Contact: [email protected]
