Urbanism conference draws large international audience

19 March 2003

The Urbanism Downunder 2003 conference being held at Sky City, Auckland 20-22 March is exceeding expectations, and will be attended by over 400 professionals, politicians, academics and governmental officials from Australia and New Zealand.

The conference will discuss how to transform Australasian cities into places that are walkable, attractive, have urban forms that encourage strong communities, high quality urban design, architectural innovation, and a range of choices of housing and transport.

The conference has a number of international keynote speakers including:

- Barbara Hall, former Mayor of Toronto and mayoral candidate

- Alan Simpson (Head of Urban Renaissance at Yorkshire Forward)

- Prof. William Lim (author and lecturer on architecture and urbanism in Asia; Singapore)

- Paul Wygers (Director of Urban Solutions, Johannesburg)

- Steve Thorne (Director of Urban Design, State of Victoria)

- Rob Adams (Director City Projects, City of Melbourne)

- Charles Kibert (Director and Professor of ME Rinker Sr. School of Building Construction, US)

- Wendy Sarkissian (Director of Sarkissian Associates Planners Pty Ltd, Brisbane)

- Vivien Twyford (founder of Twyford Consulting, NSW)

Among other things, the conference will discuss how to implement one of the major outcomes of the recent Knowledge Wave conference – creating cities people want to live in (Auckland, March 2003).

A free public lecture will be given by Barbara Hall, former Mayor of Toronto and Toronto mayoral candidate, on Thursday 7pm in the Hauraki Ballroom, Sky City. Barbara Hall will speak from personal experience on Toronto’s urban transformation.

Media passes will be available at the registration desk for media wishing to attend all or part of the conference. For a media pack (hard copy or electronic) including a conference timetable, abstracts and speaker profiles contact the Conference Media Liaison Officer (contact below).

For more information please contact:

Website: http://www.cce.auckland.ac.nz/urbanismdownunder

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