June 12, 2026
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In January this year, Water Sensitive Cities Australia joined Monash University’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (MADA). It was part of the university’s drive to embed sustainability, climate-resilience expertise within all faculties.
We’re now a key part of the faculty’s Transforming Cities Hub, a new strategic initiative that aims to deliver scalable, context-responsive urban and architectural interventions across the Indo-Pacific region. Operating across regional nodes, the Hub focuses on 3 inter-related, action-oriented areas of work:
- 1. Settlement Upgrading: Co-creating architectural and architectural interventions alongside local residents to transform vulnerable informal settlements into resilient, safe neighbourhoods.
- 2. River Communities: Designing climate-adaptive spatial strategies for populations living along volatile waterways, balancing critical ecological restoration with community protection.
- 3. Water Sensitive Cities: Integrating nature-based solutions into municipal infrastructure to manage stormwater, secure clean water and protect cities from devastating flash floods.
The Hub’s official launch event (4 June) centred around an international panel of cross-sector leaders interrogating a central provocation:
If Indo-Pacific cities face escalating climate,
social and infrastructure stress, are our
universities and institutions
acting with the urgency required?Panel members included Cheryl Batagol PSM (Alluvium), Professor Shelley Penn AM (MADA), Alexei Trundle (Melbourne Centre for Cities) and moderator Kieran Wong (The Fulcrum Agency). Other presenters and speakers included Professor Diego Lovering-Ramirez (Hub Director, MADA), Alex Flood (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water), Teng Chye Khoo (National University of Singapore), Associate Professor Dr Chow Ming Fai (Monash Malaysia), Dr Stephen Cairns (Monash Indonesia) and Professor Tony Wong (MADA).
As part of the Hub, we will continue to work with communities, governments, researchers, civil society, development agencies and the private sector to co-design solutions that create more inclusive and climate-resilient communities.
Find out more about the hub
Visit the transforming cities hub website
