Katherine Sundermann

Before precincts get built, they get planned. And the gap between what gets planned and what gets built is where most of Melbourne's missed opportunities live. Katherine Sundermann is joining our panel on Tuesday 19th May. Katherine is an architect, urbanist, and research lead at Monash University. Her work spans award-winning planning frameworks across Victoria, including the City of Ballarat Creative Precinct and the Fitzroy Gasworks, and sits at the intersection of policy, design, and genuine urban regeneration. She brings something rare to this conversation: rigorous academic thinking grounded in real delivery. She's worked across the full arc from planning framework to built outcome, and she knows exactly where collaboration breaks down and what it costs when it does. We'll be asking her the important questions. We hope you'll be in the room. See link in bio for tickets. Sculptform, 50 Queen St · Tuesday 19th May · 6-8:30pm #ThePlaceNetwork #MDW2026 #KatherineSundermann #UrbanDesign #Melbourne #Architecture

We're proud to be part of Melbourne Design Week 2026. This year's theme"Design the world you want" feels like it was written for the conversation we've been building towards. Because that's exactly what The Place Network is about: bringing together the people shaping Melbourne's future and creating the conditions for them to do it better. We're hosting a panel discussion on Tuesday 19 May, as part of the official MDW program, at Sculptform's design studio at 50 Queen Street. The topic: What does effective collaboration look like when designing precincts in our city? We're tackling the real tension between good design, regulatory frameworks, and commercial viabilit, with speakers who have lived every side of it. Panel to be announced next week. Tickets are live now, link in bio. Book: /effective-collaboration-when-designing-precincts-in-our-city theplacenetwork.com.au #MelbourneDesignWeek #MDW2026 #DesignTheWorldYouWant #ThePlaceNetwork #Melbourne #BuiltEnvironment @ngvmelbourne and @melbournedesignweek .

How important is it to experience best-practice neighbourhoods in person? As students begin the compact city studio, engaging with smarter density examples and hearing directly from residents helps them better understand how these places function. Grateful to our guests for sharing their time, stories, and insights to enrich student learning. Locations: 📍 Balam Balam Place, @kennedy_nolan , @merri_bekcitycouncil 📍Nightingale Village, @clarecousins & @nightingale.housing 📍9 Wilson Avenue, @ma_co.au & @neometro Guests: Joonmo Ai Millie Catlin Brighid Sammon

Copenhagen in 2025: Lessons from 20 years of transformation Did you know the City of Copenhagen has entirely funded their metro network through high-quality urban regeneration projects? This world leading city hasn’t just relied on its urban heritage, but actively transformed the way it builds new neighbourhoods to make one of the most creative, inclusive and resilient cities on the planet. Come listen to Katherine Sundermann share her findings from her current research, and hear more about what Copenhagen has planned next. Katherine Sundermann As an architect and urbanist with extensive experience working in Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, Katherine is passionate about supporting the public interest in terms of how our cities are designed and governed and in creating the right governance and spatial frameworks for inclusive, resilient neighbourhoods. She is Joint-President at Urban Design Forum Australia, Senior Lecturer at Monash University and Principal at MGS Architects. 📍 Place: Glou Wine Bar (310 Smith St, Collingwood VIC 3066) 🕖 Time: 6:00 to 7:30 pm 📅 When: Monday, 11th of August, 2025 Images: Katherine Sundermann, Nordhavn, Carlsberg Byen 📸 Credits: Monash University, Katherine Sundermann Click on the link in our bio to buy the tickets 🔗

When I had seen photos of Carlsberg Byen, I was quite shocked at its tall towers, given the consistent 5-6 storey height of most of central Copenhagen. But visiting it in person, I was happy to see how well the redevelopment of the former brewery integrates with the rest of the city. And great care has been made that the towers are well spaced apart, offset from major streets, have a 21.5m x 21.5m floor plate, and have been carefully designed to appear slender. The masterplan competition was won by Entasis, then a fledgling architecture company who started their business with this project. The genius stroke for this project, was that the streets follow the original underground tunnels that were used for brewery workers to get from building to building. This creates a medieval pattern of lanes and squares, making a pedestrianised environment and slowing wind. From every square you can always see one of the architecturally significant heritage brewery buildings, making it feel like a place built over time with its own identity. The neighbourhood has a decent mix of uses - a university campus, school, kindergarten, (beer) museum, event spaces, bookable spaces for community members, 25% social housing and parks. But also a lot of market housing, and very fancy shops. This project has been led by Carlsberg Byen, a development corporation owned by the global beer company Carlsberg, who have kept their headquarters here. One thing I found strange - is that Carlsberg retains the ownership and maintenance of the public realm, with residents paying an allowance to them. No one I spoke to (including residents and journalists) were too concerned with this, probably because of Carlsberg’s longstanding trusted philanthropic role in the city. What can we learn from this? For me, it is mostly about the need for a long term custodian (in the form of a development corporation), the functional mix, and the role masterplan design competitions can play. Imagine if emerging urban design practices in Australia could win a competition for a project like this!

Did you know that the City of Copenhagen (well, their development corporation By&Havn) has entirely funded their metro network through high-quality urban regeneration projects? Nordhavn, is one of their most recent, and I think most successful (well the 50 ha completed of the total 200 ha). While some may call it a “ghetto for wealthy people”, there is a significant network of public spaces, including parks and the quays, which are entirely overrun with people swimming and sun-baking at any hint of sun. And the project will deliver 25% social housing, alongside workplaces and schools. The first phase Århusgade district borrows from the narrow winding lanes and varied buildings of Danish island villages to create intimate spaces and defend against the wind. @cobearchitects won the competition for the Masterplan back in 2008, and have collaborated with By&Havn since then, on feasibility studies, architectural guidelines and even designing some of the public realm. The design review / development approval is deeply collaborative process with By&Havn and City of Copenhagen (the process may take up to 15 meetings, but the developer I spoke to loves the incremental certainty!) The funding environment is very interesting, with By&Havn receiving no government grants or investment, but government guarantees for loans to forward fund the metro and other infrastructure. Danish pension funds provide long-term low-interest funding to local developers (having made their higher interest investments abroad). Nordhavn still has much more development to go, ultimately connecting to Lynetteholmen on the other side of the city, to create a self funded storm surge barrier. Now how’s that for value capture!

Back when I lived in Amsterdam, about 10 years ago, I went to bar called Roest on the then industrial and creative area of Oostenberg Eiland. Today, Roest is still there, but now surrounded by one of the densest residential areas in Amsterdam! Housing association Stadgenoot purchased the entire island back in 2011, and called on @urhahn_urbandesign and @studioninedots to create a framework for its transformation. They drew on principles of a ‘spontaneous city’, aiming to create a neighbourhood that had a true mix of living and working, could adapt over time, and involve many developers, architects, and community members in the transition. The variety of housing types and tenures is impressive, with 30% social and affordable housing, and the rest self-build, co-living, work/live spaces, rental housing and owner-occupier housing, with 3000 residents over all. The project aims to achieve a 1:1 ratio of residential to non residential functions, with large industrial buildings soon to be transformed into maker spaces, indoor market, food hall, sports and cultural events spaces. It’s pretty much car free, with 700 spaces in a shared car park, and is a bit of a testing ground for sustainable buildings. This definitely still feels like a place in transition - the quays were still windswept and empty, the public realm isn’t complete, and some of the major adaptive reuse projects haven’t happened yet. Hospitality venues spoke of struggling with low footfall without the critical mass of population. But when you enter the inner courtyards the playful and ‘spontaneous’ elements are a bit more clear. The facades change every 20-25 metres, making a dense neighbourhood feel more intimate. And wild planting brings life to the courtyards. Can’t wait to see this neighbourhood evolve through its next phase of employment and cultural uses!

I was ready to be disappointed - but King’s Cross Central in London is wonderful. It has all the ingredients that make a real piece of city: clear urban structure, hierarchy of streets and open spaces, people everywhere, cars hardly seen, reuse and adaption of heritage buildings and structures, beautiful, award-winning contemporary architecture, and all close to public transport (King’s Cross Station, no less). It offers a true mix of uses: Central St Martins, two schools, community spaces, office space, 50% affordable housing and private housing. There are high end shops and a supermarket, but also three markets. And it isn’t all about buying things - there are fountains for kids to play in, pleached trees to sit under, steps to sit on down to the canal. Creating something like this comes down to having long-term project custodians who are open to collaboration. Kings Cross Central Limited Partnership led the delivery of the project as a public-private partnership. Private developer Agent joined the partnership in 2000, not with a design, or the highest bid, but with ’10 Principles for a Human City’. Robert Evans, CEO of Kings Cross Central for 23 years, credits the “abundance of talent and tenacity” of the team for the success of the project. The masterplan was led by Allies and Morrison with historicist architect Demetri Porphyrios, developed a traditional approach for the urban structure, streets and parks, with heterogenous, contemporary architecture. The masterplan was always meant to be a flexible framework and evolve, but with high quality design outcomes elicited from urban design guidelines. Creating a new neighbourhood like this is complex, involves many collaborators over time and requires a vision beyond land sales. Imagine if we took an approach like this for Arden?

Central Somers Town Community Investment Program, led @wemakecamden , has transformed this part of Somers Town and won 7 architectural awards but isn’t without controversy. It’s a self funded project, with 68 private apartments in a 25 storey tower contributing to a new school, kindergarten, theatre charity, community hall, 44 social homes (with 35 to come), and upgrades to parks. It’s transformed unsafe open spaces into richly programmed high quality spaces, a collaboration between different architects and landscape architects brought together through a masterplan by @dsdha_architecture and in collaboration with the community. The only critiques are that this project is built on former open space, and that some residents in this disadvantaged neighbourhood are fatigued by construction and feel cornered in by private development. This is one of 23 CIP projects led by Camden - if we could bring this level of design quality, mix of uses, focus on social housing, community involvement to the redevelopment of our public housing towers in Melbourne, I’d be pretty happy!

First day of adventures in London! I forgot how much joy there is visiting neighbourhoods you haven’t been to before, trying to make sense of how things work. And I got to have dinner with @dah_nee_yelle 😍

As part of Planning Project 1: Compact City, Master of Urban Planning and Design students set up their studio at the new Footscray Town Hall, where they spent three weeks focusing on the Victorian government’s newly announced activity centres in the west of Melbourne. These centres are seen as being pivotal to the region’s future growth, and students explored how they can be developed to support urban intensification while fostering sustainable, and liveable places. Through place-based learning, grounded in site analysis, design strategies, and planning frameworks, students developed proposals that responded directly to the unique challenges and opportunities of these emerging activity centres. Engaging with the local context and informed by insights from planners at the City of Maribyrnong, the studio encouraged students to think critically and creatively about local planning challenges. This immersive approach provided a platform for generating innovative, context-sensitive solutions that contribute to the long-term development and liveability of Melbourne’s western suburbs. A huge thank you to City of Maribyrnong for hosting us and sharing your knowledge of Footscray, and to studio leaders Katherine Sundermann @sundermann and Suzanne Barker. And of course, there’s always time for lunch! The final photo captures a well-earned break shared with new friends and future colleagues- a memorable start to their journey as future planners in their first year at Monash. #MonashUPD #CompactCity #ActivityCentres #UrbanDesign #WestMelbourne #PlanningEducation #FootscrayStudio #CityofMaribyrnong