9 November 2020

Two Minutes to Midnight: This Is Suburbia

| Sharon Kelley
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Two Minutes to Midnight is a new DESIGN Canberra event series. Image: Supplied

Two Minutes to Midnight is a new DESIGN Canberra event series that invites designers and thought-leaders to engage in deeper conversations with the community about the spaces, places, and values we need in order to survive and thrive.

This edition of the series explores our suburban environment and coincides with our 2020 festival theme: care. We hope that this year’s DESIGN Canberra festival will be a clarion call to our community, to planners and developers, and to the design sector, to care.

Amidst the uncertainty and opportunity of 2020’s rapid changes, we are met with an extraordinary volume of questions, is good design an unaffordable luxury or the best possible use of public money? And, if our public spaces are a reflection of the society that creates them, what will we communicate to future generations from this time? How will the decisions we make today about our suburban environments express our concerns and hopes for our community, our city, and our world? Has the global pandemic illuminated contemporary planning shortcomings? Could the response to the coronavirus, and the lessons being learned, point to better solutions in the future? Is it possible or desirable to meaningfully integrate ideas of care into future suburban development?

Join our panel of thought leaders to explore and identify future solutions, Shelley Penn, architect and urbanist
Catherine Simpson, Green The Street founder, urban designer and placemaker.

DESIGN Canberra’s new Two Minutes to Midnight series invites designers and thought-leaders to engage in deeper conversations with the community about the spaces, places and values we need in order to survive and thrive.

With artists excluded from income support, our built heritage needing investment, and suburbs transforming into places of work, study and leisure, this is an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild and reimagine a sustainable and more caring way of living.

Each event is hosted by a provocateur to encourage honest debate beyond the hyperbole. The provocateur frames the debate, the topic for discussion and identifies two high-impact proposals to help build a future that is as yet unwritten.

The Details:

What: Two Minutes to Midnight: This is Suburbia
When: Monday, 16 November, 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Where: Midnight Hotel, Eloura Street, Braddon
Cost: $25, bookings through TryBooking

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