This month has continued the themes of the last couple of months with regard to developing a closer relationship with government and demonstrating the value of what we do as professionals.

The series of talks that we hosted in late October as part of Open State were well attended and tackled some big topics. Chapter Councillor Dino Vrynios curated the Future Forum again this year, presenting the topic of Modular Construction, and moderating a panel on the Future of Transport and how it will influence our cities. There were some great discussions, and the outcomes have already been used in some of our advocacy work on the 30 Year Plan.

The highlight was a talk by UK architect Indy Johar on the future of the profession. He implored us to move beyond what we traditionally do as architects, and become the ‘medics of our cities’ – in other words, develop a much deeper understanding of how we influence our built environment, together with developing an evidence base that is well beyond anything that we have in place today – the equivalent of the medical profession’s understanding of the human body.

There was also a healthy discussion on using our skills to tackle the big issues of society rather than being preoccupied with ‘ceiling details’, form and beauty – they are important and should just happen as a matter of course, but should not the main game.

A video of Indy’s talk can be found via this link https://openstate.com.au/on-demand/indy-johar-harnessing-architecture-for-future-cities/ . There are several other discussions from the transport Future Forum including Lord Mayor Martin Haese, Rita Excell from Australian Driverless Vehicles Initiative, Penny Gale from the RAA and Tom White from Uber at this link https://openstate.com.au/on-demand/

We have provided feedback on the update of the 30 Year Plan, and thanks to the members of the expanded Planning Reform Task Group for their efforts in preparing this document. We’ve put forward policy recommendations in the areas of Design Quality, Smarter Travel, and Housing Mix and Affordability.

In our submission, we have also advocated for a much more robust interrelationship between the planning system and performance in other areas of government policy such as our health system for example – in that instance, cycling infrastructure would pay for itself if the health outcomes were considered a planning matter.

There is a lot happening in this space at present, all of which has a direct effect on the work that each of you do, and it’s important to get as many members engaged in this area as possible. I reiterate that the changes to the planning system are some of the most fundamental that we’ve seen in a generation, and have a direct impact on our relevance as a profession.

I met with the Chief Executive of DPTI (Michael Deegan) and the Government Architect (Kirsteen Mackay) late last month, and we discussed the value of design and architecture in delivering State Government objectives. They were receptive to the idea that we can deliver much greater value if we are engaged up front in the formative stages of projects. We will now work with ODASA in developing a plan to implement this – it’s an extremely important step in using our skills to their full capacity.

We also held a second meeting with the members who have been involved in delivering the schools STEM program and representatives from DPTI and the Education Department (DECD) to investigate how we can co-operate on getting best value from this program. Some great initiatives came out of that discussion, including a more open sharing of knowledge among the practices (including common elements such as furniture and joinery design), collective feedback from DPTI and DECD so that each practice hear and share lessons learned, and potentially measuring outcomes from the program so that we can understand better what elements of design have been effective in delivering the educational outcomes – in other words creating an evidence base for future work.

Finally congratulations to the SA practices that received National Awards earlier this month. They were well deserved. Both projects were at Tonsley, a precinct that is rapidly gaining a reputation as a leading innovation district. And good design, both at the strategic and physical level has been a key to its success. Something we can be proud of as a profession.