Last week was so full we missed our deadline! Our academics were creative directors of an international landscape architecture conference, presented their research to industry, won awards and transitioned to education focused roles. Our students won scholarships and competitions, plus we have new opportunities to share. 
At, last week's AILA Conference, The 3RD City, our UNSW Built Environment Creative Directorate asked: What is necessary and what is possible for future cities they’re ecologies, places, people? Over 2 days we heard through critical, conscious and considered discourse, speakers questioning -  imperialist and neo-liberalist paradigms, the absence of Indigenous narrative and urban transformation dislocated from natural systems. BE contributions included: James Weirick’s compelling introduction to the geography of Sydney, Rob Freestone, who cautioned us against adopting imported urban paradigms, such as the aerotroplis and accepted orthodoxies with a clear end state in mind; and Libby Gallagher presented the energy benefits of her street tree research and approach to collaborative consultation.

Finally, I would like to thank my fellow creative directorate team, Mark Tyrell, Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard, Mike Harris, Catherine Evans and Saneia Norton who put in an extraordinary amount of work curating this event to ensure it was both provocative and engaging. 

More BE Awards: At the Smart City Awards, presented by the Committee for Sydney on Thursday. For the best industry-led initiative, where partners come together to tackle a problem unable to be solved by one entity alone, a BE team were the outright winners for their rapid analytics interactive scenario explorer (RAISE) demonstrated at our Faculty Showcase won this category. Congratulations to Prof. Chris Pettit and his colleagues A/Prof. Hoon Han, Ryan van den Nouwelant, Dr. Simone Zarpelon Leao, Vivien Ye Shi, Carmela Ticzon, and Prof. Bill Randolph.

Dr Mohammad Mojtahedi from our Construction Management and Property Program, was one of 5 UNSW early career researchers in the U21 Workshop on “Interculturality and Multiculturalism: the challenges for changing societies” held at the Pontificia Universidad de Católica de Chile. Universitas 21 aims to inspire a global perspective in those at an early stage of their academic career by actively promoting and facilitating skills development and networking and creating leaders of the future”. Mohammad presented research proposals on post-disaster reconstruction to shape his career development plan in addressing one of the global grand challenges of refugees and displaced populations.

A/Prof. Hank Haesuler gave a keynote at the Autodesk University 2017 Summit last Tuesday. The Autodesk University is a research and software design forum with 500 attendees from all parts of the architecture engineering and construction industry. Hank talked about how the second machine age with IoT, Big Data, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will influence architecture and what changes we might expect in the years to come. 

At Wednesday night's Town and Gown, the UNSW Futures initiative was introduced. Scientia Fellow A/Professor Hazel Easthope spoke on the contentious issue of high density housing and the need for apartments to be conceived as more than mere speculative development but as homes for people. She also posited feasible approaches to achieve higher quality housing to a receptive audience. 

BE people at the Education Focused Planning Retreat: The UNSW Education Focused Academic community met for a 3-day planning retreat in the Hunter Valley recently. The retreat shaped extensive opportunities for education focused academics to connect and share teaching and learning initiatives across UNSW. These included UNSW wide opportunities for education focused career development and projects that will foster educational excellence through innovation and the connectedness of the education focused academic community.
At the planning retreat, Professor Merlin Crossley, DVC-Education, announced that foundation funding for Education Focussed Academics will be made available to support the success of the first Education Focused cohort. Each Education Focused academic from the first cohort can apply for up to $10,000. These funds will support the design and delivery of projects that enhance educational excellence across the university.

We are pleased to announce that the following BE Academics are part of the first cohort to take up Education Focused roles: Stephen Ward, Lisa Zamberlan, John Carrick, Dr. John Gamble, Bruce Watson, Dr. Sing D’Arcy, Prof. James Weirick, Dr. Sarath Mataraarachchi and Dr. John Blair. Congratulations to you all.

BE Student Awards: 1st and 2nd places went to UNSW Architecture students in SuperStudio 2017 NSW & ACT. SuperStudio is an annual design competition open to architecture students from NSW & ACT Universities offering the opportunity to demonstrate their ability in developing architectural design concepts in response to a brief.

The Architectural Registration Board’s 2017 Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarships were awarded to current M Arch students: Hayden Co’burn, for his proposal, A new mental health approach in the urban environment. He will be visiting Northern Europe/Scandinavia. Jamie Masman, also was awarded for his proposition, Tokyo infill: lessons from small scale infill housing. BE Alumni Hugo Chan and Ryan Wazir were also winners. Find out more. 
Congratulations all round. 

 
Finally, I am keen to hear from our BE Community. It could be opportunities, initiatives or concerns related to the Faculty. What are preferred formats for communication? A suggestion box, emails, faculty meetings with no agenda or a long table lunch. Please let me know your thoughts.

Until next week,
All the best,
Helen