Sydney OpenSymposium
Home Truths23–24 May 2026
Speakers
ILUMINA, 1 Elizabeth Street Sydney
Saturday 23 May 2026, 10am–3pm
Tim Ross is a celebrated comedian and a passionate advocate for architecture and design, promoting its value in multiple forums.
He is a recipient of the National Trust Heritage Award for Advocacy regarding Australia’s legacy of modernist architecture and the Australian Institute of Architects National President’s Prize for activism and outstanding contribution to the profession. He was a jury member for the Institute of Architect’s National Architecture Awards and was awarded as an honorary Institute member.
Tim has performed his live Man about the house show in significant buildings throughout the world, such as the Venice Biennale and London Festival of Architecture. Through his ABC TV series Streets of your town and Designing a legacy, exhibitions including Design Nation and Motel, prolific publications, guest speaker engagements and role as a provocative design commentator, he has made design accessible to a wide, diverse and appreciative audience.
Adam Haddow is the National President of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and a partner at the multidisciplinary design firm SJB. He is a champion of good design and a strong advocate for the value architecture brings to communities throughout Australia and the world. Adam firmly believes that the future will be better when architecture and design thinking are prioritised, and that good design can deliver both economic benefits and improved health and wellbeing outcomes.
With over 30 years’ experience across diverse scales and typologies, Adam’s contributions to architecture are recognised both nationally and internationally. His work reflects the belief that architecture should provide an armature for community life and that the activities buildings facilitate are just as important as the physicality of the buildings themselves. He remains curious about and is driven by a passion for creating cities and spaces that serve the community and shaping a profession that supports its contributors.
Aleesha Callahan is a design journalist, and the Editor and founder of About Futures, an independent magazine documenting the homes and ideas shaping a new era of sustainable design. With over a decade editing Australia’s leading architecture and design publications, including Habitus and Australian Design Review, she now writes, speaks and advises on regenerative design and sustainable living. She has a forthcoming book with Hardie Grant, to be published in April 2027.
Amy Seo is co-founder of Second Edition, an emerging architectural practice which was established in reaction to the large quantity of construction and demolition waste found in our landfills. The practice is centred around onsite, hands-on research and experimentation to work towards a more resource-efficient building process. Second Edition advocates for practical, local and feasible techniques for waste minimisation with real-world applications.
Caroline Pidcock
Director, PIDCOCK
Talks
Caroline Pidcock is a highly regarded architect, board director and changemaker working at the intersection of design, climate action and regenerative practice. With over 30 years of leadership experience across professional, not-for-profit, government and advocacy boards, she brings deep expertise in sustainability, governance, and community engagement to ideas that restore and regenerate people, place and planet.
Craig Kerslake
Wiradjuri Architect and Managing Director, Nguluway DesignInc
Talks
The world is realising that the original Custodians of our lands hold many answers as to how we view ourselves within the landscape and with each other. This most definitely informs the making of our built environment and, most of all, our identity.
As a Wiradjuri Architect, Craig Kerslake draws upon his cultural heritage, community and knowledge of what Aboriginal people refer to as ‘Country’. Within a team setting, he brings this forth with spirited innovation to inform spatial design and architectural form with unique expression that finds resonance with all Australians. His cultural overlays often draw design thinking to the unexpected and provide positive outcomes focused on Aboriginal-centred qualities, spatial unity and scales of social engagement.
Often this is achieved through a uniquely enriching process Craig refers to as ‘Designing From Country’, where design narratives come from the Aboriginal understanding of Country. With cultural engagement with Aboriginal community members and Elders, clients are taken ‘Back to Country’ on an experiential journey. By following traditional cultural practices, overlaid with architectural thinking, clients feel welcomed to the landscape, and often find their understanding and perspectives transformed. The experience is grounding, and many say they find strong bonds and a sense of connection to ‘place’ and identity in the process. Beyond this, an often restructured brief is gained, informed by ideas of ‘Belonging to Country’.
Dr Elizabeth Farrelly is a writer, critic, award-winning columnist and author and former City of Sydney Councillor trained in architecture and philosophy. A regular columnist for The Saturday Paper and ArchitectureAU, she is host of The Sydneyist on Eastside Radio and founder and CEO of The Better Cities Initiative, a not-for-profit organisation established to transform the culture of city-making around citizen-led planning. She is the inaugural chair of the Australia Award for Urban Design, former Director of the National Trust (NSW), former independent political candidate and former Associate Professor (Practice) at UNSW Sydney . Her published books include Glenn Murcutt: three houses (Phaidon, 1993), Blubberland; the dangers of happiness (UNSW Press, 2007) and Killing Sydney: the fight for a city’s soul (Picador, 2021).
Dr Michael Zanardo
Director, Studio Zanardo and Associate Professor Architecture and Housing, UNSW
Talks
Dr Michael Zanardo is an architect, urban designer and the Director of Studio Zanardo, an independent and collaborative design consultancy working at the intersection of policy and built form and specialising in the design of housing, particularly social and affordable housing.
Michael is a member of several design review panels, has chaired and been a juror for a number of design excellence competitions, and regularly acts as an urban design expert witness in the Land and Environment Court of NSW.
Combining practice with a dedication to research and teaching, Michael is also Associate Professor in Architecture and Housing at UNSW Sydney, where he leads the housing stream and lectures and teaches in the master program. His PhD thesis investigated the history and design of early state workers’ housing in Sydney.
Indu Balachandran
Councillor, Ku-ring-gai Council
Talks
Councillor Indu Balachandran has led housing, employment and sustainability programs in the social and government sectors for decades. With a background in finance and economics, Indu is interested in the development of generative economic models that are centred in place.
Indu was elected Councillor for Ku-ring-gai Council in Sydney in 2024. She is Co-Chair of the Board of Community Resources Limited, which delivers waste, recycling and community services nationally. Indu is also Chair of the Advisory Board at Western Sydney University’s Institute for Culture and Society, and Strategic Adviser for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Nature-based Economies program. Previously, she held executive roles at the Aboriginal Housing Office (NSW Government), the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, and Social Ventures Australia. Indu teaches and plays the veena in the Indian Carnatic tradition. She is a recipient of the UTS Human Rights Award for Reconciliation and is an Atlantic Fellow in Social Equity at Oxford University.
Indu is a first-term, independent councillor. Her term began with the development and gazettal of Ku-ring-gai Council’s community-led Transport-Oriented Development (TOD) alternative to the NSW Government’s plan, and navigating impacts on heritage, the natural environment and changing demographics in her community.
Karine Shellshear
Social researcher and writer
Talks
Karine Shellshear is a highly experienced social researcher, policy worker and housing practitioner with several decades of professional work in community development, strategic planning, and community and cooperative housing. She has held senior roles across state and local government and has made a significant contribution to the development of the community and cooperative housing sector in NSW.
Karine has served on numerous state and ministerial advisory committees, including those focused on strategic planning and the development of community housing accreditation standards. From 1989 to 2009, she was executive director of the Association to Resource Cooperative Housing (ARCH), supporting the establishment of housing cooperatives throughout NSW, developing skills-based training programs and contributing to the formation of Common Equity NSW.
She was a board member of Community Housing Limited (2008–22), the largest housing association in Australia, including serving as chair of governance, and sat on subsidiary boards in Timor-Leste, India and Chile.
Karine holds a Master of Housing and a Bachelor of Social Studies (First Class Honours) from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts (French). Her master’s thesis examined social capital and the meaning of home within a Tongan housing cooperative. In semiretirement, she taught community development, planning and research at TAFE Sydney Institute. She has been an accredited yoga teacher and yoga therapist since 2014, and pursues an interest in Vedantic studies, yoga and Sāṃkhya philosophy. She is currently writing a social history on the work and influence of her late husband Colin James AM, an influential architect/planner in the late 20th century.
As a registered architect and Studio Lead at AJC, Michael Jones is committed to design solutions that are pragmatic, joyful and meaningful. Over 18 years at AJC, he has contributed to and led the design of award-winning projects across a range of sectors and at a variety of scales, including sports centres, education facilities, community centres and public buildings.
Michael is deeply passionate about creating buildings and environments that make a positive contribution to human and natural systems. Sustainable and regenerative design is central to his design process. He promotes evidence-based design solutions that respond to global and local issues. His work demonstrates a robust consideration for material life cycles, upfront embodied carbon and energy performance.
Michael was a 2025 recipient of the Byera Hadley Traveling Scholarship for his research project which seeks to accelerate the use of bio-based materials in Australia, especially prefabricated straw panels.
A humanitarian who only knows how to live life in the fast lane, Nick Holden gives back to his community, thrives on mentoring young entrepreneurs and has a passion for raising money for charity. Nick’s long-term goal is to reduce homelessness and make housing more accessible through the automation of construction. As a passionate entrepreneur from early on in life, Nick has followed several career paths. Founded by Nick, Contour3D focuses on advancing and automating the construction industry using 3D construction printing.
Nicole Gurran
Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney
Talks
Nicole Gurran is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Sydney, where she directs the Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative. Over two decades her research and publications have focused on housing affordability, urban planning and climate change. She is committed to informing public policy and debate through her research, media commentary and advice to governments, and most recently served as Co-Commissioner on the People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis.
Paulo Macchia
Director of Design Governance, Government Architect NSW
Talks
Paulo Macchia is a registered architect, holds a Master of Sustainable Built Environment and is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA). At the office of the Government Architect NSW, he is the director responsible for the NSW Housing Pattern Book, State Significant Design Excellence Competitions and the Sustainable Building SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy). He regularly chairs design advisory groups, such as the City of Gosford Design Advisory Panel, and state significant design competitions. In 2024, he was the recipient of the RAIA National Leadership in Sustainability Prize.
Philip Vivian is an architect and urban designer who specialises in city transformation. He is the Managing Director of Bates Smart, having led the Sydney studio since 1998, and has continuously studied city design at the London School of Economics and Columbia University, New York.
As a specialist in large-scale architecture and urbanism, Philip has helped shape Sydney’s architecture, transport and public domain – with a particular focus on integrated Metro developments connecting density, housing and suburban infrastructure. As President of the Council on Vertical Urbanism (CVU) in Australia, he speaks regularly on architecture, cities, density, tall buildings and sustainable urban development, helping position Australia as a leader in this field.
Rebecca Hawcroft
Head of Heritage Places, GML Heritage
Talks
Rebecca Hawcroft is Head of Heritage Places at GML Heritage, in Sydney. She has over 20 years’ experience providing high-level, strategic heritage planning and advice. She has published widely on heritage and architectural history. She has a deep interest in modernism and is the current president of DOCOMOMO Australia. In 2017, Rebecca curated the National Trust (NSW) award-winning exhibition The Moderns: European Designers in Sydney for Museums of History NSW and edited the book The other moderns. She is also co-host of the occasional podcast Two point perspective, produced by Museums of History NSW.
Timothy Alouani-Roby
Editor, Indesignlive and Habitusliving
Talks
Timothy Alouani-Roby is a writer and the Editor of Indesignlive and Habitusliving. Having worked in elite professional sport for over a decade, he retrained in architecture at the University of Sydney, adding to previous degrees in philosophy, politics and English literature. Timothy is also a student of Moroccan Arabic. Originally from Northern England, he divides his time between Sydney on Gadigal Country and Marrakech.
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