City Space Architecture meets QUT in Brisbane
Entrance of QUT Campus Gardens Point, Brisbane, Australia. Picture by Luisa Bravo.
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We are extremely glad to announce that our President Luisa Bravo is the recipient of the 2018 Australia Award Endeavor Executive Fellowship, a prestigious grant fully funded by the Australian Government, Department of Education and Training. She is the only Italian among 93 awarded candidates from 25 countries. She will be working for the next four months at QUT (Queensland University of Technology) in Brisbane, developing a research-based professional development on 'public space, social entrepreneurship and smart communities' at the Urban Informatics Research Group, which is a pioneer institution on transdisciplinary research and practice, placed at the intersection of people, place and technology; she will explore how the digital dimension is facilitating people networks, and how it can effectively promote an human-centred approach in the design of public spaces.
The Urban Informatics Research Group is part of the QUT Design Lab, which supports transdisciplinary collaborations that result in tangible impact and engagement, acting as a hub and home for a diverse team of academics, research students, and industry professionals, transferring knowledge and technology into beneficial applications for industry and society.
Our President received a congratulation letter from the Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training, Senator for South Australia, for being selected. In this letter the Senator wrote: "The Australia Award Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowsips is a prestigious program offered by the Australian government to support high-achieving individuals to undertake study, research and professional development overseas and gain international experience. Your selection for an Endeavour Fellowship recognises your commitment to outstanding achievement and role as an education ambassador for Australia. Congratulation on joining a selected group of exceptional individuals".
For us at City Space Architecture this Australia Award is a very important recognition of our efforts throughout the past 5 years of activities, in networking events, creative projects, academic conferences, research workshops and seminars, aimed at expanding the discussion on public space from academia to industry, professional practice and civil society, through a transdiciplinary approach involving art and architecture.
The program our President will undertake at QUT is aimed at achieving a comprehensive knowledge in the use of digital tools able to combine top-down policies and programs of public administrations with bottom-up needs and aspirations of communities, in order to define a space of interaction and sharing for the co-creation of more liveable and equitable urban futures.
City Space Architecture is already collaborating with QUT on The Journal of Public Space, which is the first, interdisciplinary, academic, open access journal entirely dedicated to public space, that we established in partnership with UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. The program at QUT is intended to strengthen this collaboration and set up a strong, mutual cooperation on common issues related to the future of cities, engaging QUT and Australian scholars in UN-Habitat expert groups and high level panels.
