Eco-Innovation SeminarsEcoInnovation Seminars
The Eco-Innovation Seminars are lectures given by a diverse group of experts aimed at informing academic design staff from Victorian universities of the challenges and opportunities of eco-innovation. The seminar sessions are open to all design academics (so that the events remain intimate, we ask that students do not attend).
The open seminar series aims to encourage all design academics to pursue eco-innovation studies and projects, and to expand climate change knowledge within design faculties.
Seminar presenters include international and local experts from a diverse range of disciplines. Themes include: foundations of climate change, modeling the impacts for Victoria, socio-economic pressures, policy implication, changing consumption patterns and behaviours, power of social networks, action, resource modeling and use, systems thinking and solutions, resilience, and urban (transport, food energy water) demands.
The recorded seminars are available from the Videos section. At the completion of the project they will form a valuable tool, delivering a broad picture of Victoria’s sustainability challenges, and arming Victoria’s design academics with a comprehensive platform of information on climate change.
Peter Harper (UK) Director of Research and Innovation Center of Alternative Technologies (CAT). Peter was the originator of the term ‘alternative technology’ and has been a prominent theorist of the movement since the early 70s. He is also a biologist, horticulturist and landscape designer. Peter will be talking about the data and projections from his “LifeStyle Lab” investigates the worldwide aspirations for “bourgeois” standards of living and asks what aspects of these aspirations can be delivered in a sustainable world. The “lifestyle lab” investigates both ‘high tech’ and low tech’ lifestyles.
Mick Pearce Designer of CH2 in Melbourne and many other innovative sustainable buildings and residential developments around the world). Mick will be talking about his current approach to models of residential housing which emphasise the social opportunities for low carbon living as well as his design strategies for physical and technological innovation.
Sheridan Blunt from the Melbourne City Council who is coordinating a large research project on water usage called “Melbourne as Catchment” tracking all the flows of Water in, around and out of the City as the basis for a new distributed water system for Melbourne.
Jeremy Reynolds, Manager of Demographic Research, Department of Planning and Community development Victoria he will talk about the history of demographic change in Melbourne and the social/economic/demographic dilemmas facing Melbourne’s future growth.
Eco-Innovation Seminar 2:
Ursula Tischner (eConcept, Germany) Ursula carries out research and consulting projects with small and large companies and other organizations. She runs several training and educational courses and programs, including a Masters program in Sustainable Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands. She is widely published and is a lead organiser for a number of networks around Eco- and Sustainable Design, product service systems, sustainable consumption and service design. She is a member of design juries and standardization bodies such as ISO, and evaluator in European research programs.
Dr Peter Newton (Institute for Social Research and Center for Regional Development, Swinburne University). As a Chief Research Scientist, for CSIRO Dr Newton directed the program of research related to sustainable built environments. A key expert in sustainable urban development, Peter’s latest book ‘Transistions’ identifies key challenges facing Australia’s cities and regions and offers potential solutions. Peter will discuss Australian solutions that address inrastructure, institutions, as well as changes needed in lifestyle activities and consumption patterns.
