Market Street Park by OCULUS in collaboration with City of Melbourne. Image credit: Peter Bennetts.

Photo of Southbank playspace featuring children playing on and amongst large bluestone boulders

Southbank playspace featuring artwork 'Rocks on Wheels' by Mike Hewson Landscape architecture: City of Melbourne Artwork: Mike Hewson Photo by: Dianna Snape

Photo of child walking toward Lincoln Square Playspace

Lincoln Square Playspace Landscape architecture by City of Melbourne Photo by Andrew Lloyd

Photo of playground with slide and grass

Boyd Park Landscape architecture by City of Melbourne Photo by Andrew Lloyd

Past Event

The Excellent City Series – City of Play

Presented by City of Melbourne

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Tickets

Free, booking required

Date

Thu 25 May 10:00am - 12:00pm

Venue

Melbourne Town Hall

90-130 Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC, Australia

Access

Accessible bathroom All gender bathroom Seating available Wheelchair accessible

Contact Organiser

Our streets aren’t just for walking or for dining. They’re for play!

The City of Melbourne is on a journey, delivering the next play evolution by integrating play into the skeleton of our city – our streets – because play at all ages has demonstrable wide-ranging benefits. Play fosters social and physical interactions, and learning – valuable elements of progressive societies. So how do we build it into our future?

Join the City of Melbourne for an interactive workshop and panel discussion, exploring how play can be integrated into the city and how it may be harnessed to create a more inclusive and enduring city. The panel will:

Share the importance of play for people of all ages, cultures, and abilities

Generate ideas of how play can manifest and be integrated into the city

Explore how it may be harnessed to create a more inclusive and enduring city.

Speakers include an artist and academic, an urban play scholar and artist game-maker, a public health researcher and healthcare leader. The discussion is chaired by the Director City Design at the City of Melbourne.

Participants

Jocelyn Chiew (Chair)

Jocelyn Chiew is an Architect, Landscape Architect, and Urban Designer. As the Director of City Design, at the City of Melbourne, she plays a key role in creating inclusive and enduring public spaces. Jocelyn leads the city’s Design Excellence Program and is Deputy Chair of the Melbourne Design Review Panel. Jocelyn’s industry appointments include member of the Office of the Victorian Government Architect’s Victorian Design Review Panel and a Fellow at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

https://www.instagram.com/thecityarchitect/?hl=en

Dr Sanne Mestrom, Senior lecturer, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney

Imagine the city through the eyes of a child. How might a climbable sculpture in the middle of a public square encourage a child to experience the public realm differently? Through her ARC Funded project Art/Play/Risk, Mestrom’s practice investigates how public art can help create critically integrated, inclusive and interactive spaces. Mestrom’s sculptural works have been collected by key institutions across Australia and the world. Most recently, her sculpture The Offering was acquired by the Art Gallery of NSW for the launch of the new Sydney Modern Museum.

Instagram @sanne_mestrom

Dr Troy Innocent

Dr. Innocent connects people and place through urban play. Working with the city as a material, his work traverses the analog and digital spaces we live in. He calls his approach to speculative design ‘reworlding’ as it reimagines the creative, linguistic, cultural, and social diversity of our world/s. Innocent is the creator of 64 Ways of Being, an innovative augmented reality platform for listening, playing, and exploring cities through new eyes, and leads a three-year study on post-pandemic impacts of creative placemaking.

Instragram @troy_innocent

David Lloyd

David Lloyd’s career has focused on strategic leadership in healthcare, medical research, and higher education, with over 25 years’ experience as a COO/CEO in Australian not-for-profit and academic institution. David is concurrently Chair of the East Timor Hearts Fund, an Australian charity providing support to reduce the rates of rheumatic heart disease in Timor Leste. David was founding Chairman of Artolution Inc, a New York based charity supporting refugee communities globally to cope with trauma through collaborative public art projects.

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