Shifting Climate / Shifting Places

Have you ever wondered how just 2 degrees of warming will change our cities and regions? How we will cope with more frequent extreme weather events, such as flooding, cyclones or heat stress? What does this mean for future placemaking? And how will planners, environmental designers, architects, and other professionals need to upscale their practice?

Explore these issues with The University of Queensland at the ‘Shifting Climate / Shifting Places’ summit on Wednesday 20 November 2019.

Engage with a diverse mix of leaders in climate adaptive planning and design and gain actionable insights on how we can adjust our practice for future climate impacts and create more resilient cities and regions in Queensland.

Start the day with a morning of provocative keynote and expert talks. Our keynote speaker, Halvard Dalheim, is one of Australia's pre-eminent strategic planners, having led major city strategies and teams in both Melbourne and Sydney. He is a creative futurist, anticipating the dramatic change processes facing Australian cities and regions.

In the afternoon, you will be invited to participate in collaborative workshops featuring two leading experts of placemaking and climate change adaptation, John Mongard (John Mongard Landscape Architects), and James Davidson (James Davidson Architect), who will teach new climate adaptation frameworks, processes and techniques that can be applied across many places.

Climate adaptation perspectives

Aunty Ruby Sims

is a Mununjali and Wangerriburra Elder who lives in the Scenic Rim region of South East Queensland. Aunty Ruby is the South East Region Elder of the Year 2017. Aunty Ruby is a Cultural Ambassador for the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects in support of their RAP and is the Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Tamborine Mt. State School.
“My passion is growing connections between people and place within a cultural framework so that our children and our childrens’ children may have a future of shared tomorrows.”

Halvard Dalheim

is one of Australia's pre-eminent strategic planners, having led major city strategies and teams in both Melbourne and Sydney. He is a creative futurist, anticipating the dramatic change processes facing Australian cities and regions. How we effect change has been central to his philosophy for long term plans, and is the focus of his current work at the University of Sydney. 

Pam Bourke

is a renowned social planner and community development practitioner who works internationally around Company-Community relations. Pam managed Community Development and Community Planning in Brisbane City and Auckland City prior to teaching and training extensively around building strong and resilient communities to address the impacts of change. Pam is interested in how community led climate change adaptation can be enabled.

Dr James Davidson

is one of Australia’s leading designers on climate change adaptation and flooding. Through his architectural practice and related Churchill Fellowship work, he has created building systems and Government guidelines to enable large numbers of flood prone homes to become flood resilient in Brisbane and other parts of Queensland more broadly. James is also the author of Water Futures, a collaborative process and publication that has altered the collective knowledge and processes for managing flood events in South East Queensland.

John Mongard

has undertaken award winning placemaking projects across Australia in a career spanning thirty years. His recent large scale projects focus on ecovillages and settlements which aim for low carbon futures. The Brolga lakes and The Ecovillage at Currumbin are examples of climate resilient projects in Queensland by John Mongard Landscape Architects. John’s current focus is on how we can adapt and plan for much more dramatic changes and impacts to our places created by the climate crisis. John is developing climate strategies which can focus on grassroots action within the commons of every community. He teaches, writes and campaigns on climate change actions.

Bob Speirs

has devoted much of his career to addressing risks to communities from environmental change and impacts. Bob is a leader in crafting policy and action around climate change and adaptation planning through his work with both government and The University of Queensland.

Read about our other contributors

Program

The program is subject to change. Last updated: 17/09/2019

Key event details

Resources from the 2018 summit

Download the 2018 Post-event report - Summit findings (PDF, 820KB)

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