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Future challenges such as increasing urbanisation, transportation systems, housing, work, energy and food sustainability are complex issues that can’t be solved by one set of expertise. They call for transdisciplinary design thinking in communication, technology, built environment, art, engineering and industrial design to collaborate with industry, government, business and the community.

The Design Research Institute has invited a moderated panel of experts: RMIT architect|academic Melanie Dodd; Richard Slaughter, writer and Director of Foresight International; philosopher|commentator Damon Young and Jane-Frances Kelly, Program Director, Cities, Grattan Institute to discuss tomorrow's big challenges, how these might be approached and what are the barriers to people including designers acting.

Assoc. Prof. Melanie Dodd is a Melbourne-based architect and academic, at RMIT University.  Her practice and teaching is grounded in community engagement - in the design of ‘live’ projects in a studio environment. She is a member of the international art and architecture collaborative, MUF, and the founder member of muf_aus, a multi-disciplinary and research based practice operating across socially-engaged art practice, landscape architecture, urban design and architecture.

Dr. Richard Slaughter is Director of Foresight International, Brisbane and a writer, practitioner and innovator in Future Studies and Applied Foresight. From 1999 to 2004 he was the Foundation Professor of Foresight at the Swinburne University Australian Foresight Institute. He is the author or editor of over 20 books including the key publications, Futures Thinking for Social Foresight (2007) and The Biggest Wake Wakeup Call in History (2010).

Dr. Damon Young is an Honorary Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne.  He is the author of Distraction, described by London's Financial Times as 'lucid and optimistic'. Damon's wide-ranging opinion and features have been published in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Herald-Sun, New York's Daily News, BBC and ABC.  He comments regularly on radio, is a monthly guest on 'Sunday Mornings' with Alan Brough on ABC Melbourne 774. 

Jane-Frances Kelly is the Program Director, Cities, at the Grattan Institute, Melbourne. She has a significant reputation as a policy strategist, leading cabinet-level strategy work for the UK, Queensland, Victorian and Commonwealth governments. She has worked for the Vice-Chancellor at the University of Melbourne, the Chief Commissioner for the Victorian Police and Noel Pearson at the Cape York Institute. Prior to coming to Australia Jane-Frances led a team in the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit to produce the first Strategic Audit for the government.

This forum will take place inside the Do Design Space, an engaging pop-up State of Design Festival hub for collective experiences. The space is activated through exhibitions, workshops, installations, a reading room, micro-kitchen and discussion area. Warm winter bowls of soup and hot coffee are available.

This event is part of the 2011 State of Design Festival 'Design That Moves'

 Please book online at the State of Design website