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Self-Made City

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In 1961, autodidact urbanologist Jane Jacobs forever changed how we understood our cities. ‘Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody,’ she wrote in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, ‘only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.’

More than half a century later, her then-contentious argument – that the real life of a city emerges from the ground up – is a widely accepted wisdom.

Even so, in Melbourne and elsewhere, top-heavy developments are struggling to address urban planning problems like long-term homelessness, under-utilisation of public space and the socioeconomic fracturing of inner-city communities.

However, there are citizens, architects, artists and planners are working to change that. Whether it’s ‘tiny houses’, radically accessible public art spaces or ‘tactical urbanism’, there’s a growing movement devoted to exploring how low-cost, playful, and often impermanent forms of living can improve the lives of city-dwellers in meaningful ways.

RRR broadcaster and former editor of small footprint living bible Assemble Papers Sara Savage will be joined by a panel of guests, including Mimi Zeiger, Millie Cattlin and Jessica Christiansen-Franks, for a discussion of engaged, practical city-making with a sense of play. Self-Made City is part of the Open House Melbourne program: What Would Jane Do?

Presented in partnership with Open House Melbourne.

Featuring

Sara Savage

Sara Savage is a writer, editor and broadcaster based in Melbourne, where she hosts the weekly radio show Parallel Lines on Triple R, covering arts, culture, design and science. She is the former editor of Assemble Papers, a biannual print and weekly online publication exploring small... Read more

Millie Cattlin

Millie Cattlin, Melbourne-based architect, is co-director of These Are The Projects We Do Together, a practice she runs with her partner, Joseph Norster.  The practice is committed to developing experimental ideas in the fields of art, architecture and education through the design and ongoing opera... Read more

Mimi Zeiger

Mimi Zeiger is a Los Angeles-based critic, editor, and curator. Her work is situated at the intersection architecture and media cultures. She has covered art, architecture, urbanism, and design for a number of publications including the New York Times, Domus, Architectural Review, and ... Read more

Jessica Christiansen-Franks

Jessica Christiansen-Franks is an urban designer and social entrepreneur who has dedicated her career to understanding the social dynamics of urbanisation. With experience across Australia, as well as the UK, Canada, India, Vietnam and the Philippines, Jessica has been fortunate enough to advise the... Read more

Location

The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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The Wheeler Centre acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Centre stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their Elders, past and present, as the custodians of the world’s oldest continuous living culture.