Description

In 2025, Open House Melbourne is excited to partner with the City of Melbourne to produce selected Melbourne Conversations. 

Who owns public space? How can we best engage with it? And how should it be shaped for the future?

Public space is more than just somewhere to sit or wander through - it is an invaluable resource for connection, learning, entertainment, protest, commemoration and celebration. It is a place where community comes together. But as Melbourne transforms, so too should the way we define and use these spaces.

Through a partnership between City of Melbourne, Open House Melbourne and Fed Square, the inaugural Melbourne Conversations event for 2025 - This Is Public... Space - will unpack the ever-evolving role of public space in our city. 

From landmark projects like the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation Project to grassroots urban interventions and our footpaths and plazas, an expert panel will explore how these dynamic constants can foster everything from democracy, social inclusion to climate resilience.

Moderated by Walkley award-winning journalist Dr Jeff Sparrow, join Associate Director at OCULUS, Claire Martin; Director and CEO of Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation, Katrina Sedgwick OAM; Chair of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne, Dr Kim Dovey; and Associate Principal at Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Sarah Lynn Rees, as they challenge conventional thinking on what makes a space truly public.

Melburnians, this is your city — This Is Public... Space.

Light refreshments provided.

This is Public… Space is presented by City of Melbourne in partnership with program curators Open House Melbourne and event partner Fed Square.

In Collaboration With:

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  Dr Jeff Sparrow, Moderator

  Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor and broadcaster. He works at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. His most recent book is Twelve Rules for Strife, a collaboration with artist Sam Wallman.

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  Sarah Lynn Rees | Claire Martin

  Sarah Lynn Rees is a Palawa woman descending from the Plangermaireener and Trawlwoolway people of North East Tasmania, Based in Birrarung-ga, Rees is an architectural practitioner, academic and writer. She is a prominent advocate and advisor with a firm commitment to Indigenising the built environment.
  
  Claire Martin is an Associate Director at landscape architecture firm Oculus. Through her work with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and the International Federation of Landscape Architects, Claire has championed climate positive design – where design projects produce net positive climate outcomes.

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  Kim Dovey | Katrina Sedgwick OAM

  Professor Kim Dovey is the Chair of Architecture and Urban Design and Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub at University of Melbourne. He is also the author of Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form, Fluid City, Becoming Places and Urban Design Thinking.
  
  Katrina Sedgwick OAM is the inaugural Director and CEO of Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation, overseeing the delivery of the $1.7 billion Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation – the country’s largest ever cultural infrastructure project.