IAAC is glad to announce its partnership with the city of Melbourne as the new partner-city for the 2018/19-20 edition of the Master in City & Technology.

Every year the programme focuses on a specific city around the globe presenting an interest in collaborating with IAAC in its future development of strategies and projects, allowing to develop real solutions in real contexts.

As one of the first step in this partnership, IAAC Academic Director Areti Markopoulou and IAAC Head of Studies Mathilde Marengo will be soon visiting Melbourne, taking part to the fourth edition of the MPavilion design event.

On November 23rd, Areti Markopoulou will take part to “Beyond the Buzzwords: Responsive, Regenerative Cities”, a talk curated by Swinburne University of Technology, that will focus on the concept of a Responsive City, looking at the role of technology in empowering citizens to participate in the regeneration of smart, liveable and sustainable urban environments.

Together, a panel of experts will discuss responsive urban environments as well as the digital infrastructure supporting citizen participation in urban design, planning and regeneration, using examples from Barcelona, London and Melbourne.

On the very same day, the public forum “Augmenting People With Emerging Technologies” will explore a citizen-centric view of smart cities, looking at how interaction designers, architects, software engineers and interactive media specialists can create opportunities and shape practices specifically for citizens to embrace.

Mathilde Marengo will take part to this forum chaired by Yvonne Rogers, who will ask to its panel of experts and audience the what, where and how of augmenting people with emerging technologies.

Founded in 2014, MPavilion is Australia’s leading architecture commission and design event. MPavilion is an initiative of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, which every year commissions an outstanding architect to design a temporary pavilion for the Queen Victoria Gardens, in the centre of Melbourne’s Southbank Arts Precinct.

A new civic space, a cultural laboratory and an event hub, each MPavilion brings creative collaborators together to present a free, four-month-long program of talks, workshops, performances and installations, and more, from October to February. The fourth MPavilion has been designed by Netherlands–based architects Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of OMA.