In PX121 our guest is Calvin Po (https://www.calvinpo.com). Calvin Po is a strategic designer at Dark Matter Labs, co-leading the Radicle Civics portfolio, where he explores institutional and governance systems as sites of design. He has led projects with the Scottish Government’s Land Commission on land governance reform, the Taiwanese Government …

In PX120 our guest is Assistant Professor Akane Bessho, Ph.D of the Housing and Urban Analysis Laboratory, Department of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. Information about Akane’s work is at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Akane-Bessho-2 and her website is: https://www.akanebessho.com Akane has a wide range of research projects and in the…

In PX119 our guests is Kylie Legge of Place Score (https://www.placescore.org/about-place-score/). Kylie is a leading voice in placemaking, an architecture graduate, planner, place maker, author, facilitator, curator and entrepreneur. She is founding Director of Place Partners, a multidisciplinary placemaking consultancy based in Sydney, Australia …

In PX118 our guests are Jonathan O’Brien and Jonathan Nolan of YIMBY Melbourne. Details of YIMBY Melbourne are at https://www.yimby.melbourne YIMBY Melbourne seeks a ‘People-led’ ‘Grassroots’ ‘For Housing Abundance.’ The YIMBY website states: ‘A better Melbourne is possible. A Melbourne that is affordable, liveable, and sustainable. A city that is …

In PX117 our guest is Rob Parker, President of Trilith Development, LLC. Rob oversees with a development team the continued growth of the Trilith Township and Film Studios. Trilith is located on the edge of Altana in Fayette County, Georgia. Trilith is in the advance guard of new urbanism practices. Details at https://www.trilith.com Trilith is a l…

In PX116 our guest is Stephen Rowley. Stephen is the author of two books, ‘Movie Towns and Sitcom Suburbs: Building Hollywood’s Ideal Communities’ and ‘The Victorian Planning System: Practice, Problems and Prospects’. In February 2022 he was made of a Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia, the citation included: ‘Over the first 20 years of …

In PX115 our guest is Liz Mackevicius. Liz is an urban planner who has taken a new role as an organisational coach for those in the built environment industry. She will be leading the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) program ‘Pathway to Lead’. Information about the program, and the link to register for the session is: https://www.planning.org.…

In PX114, our interview guest is Anna Lowder, a co-founder and director of Hampstead, a New Urbanist community in Montgomery, Alabama, inspired by her experiences while living in London before returning to Montgomery. Established in 2008, the 416-acre master-planned residential and mixed-use development features homes, townhomes, condos, apartments…

Episode PX113 is all about Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM) aircraft, these are typically electric or hybrid powered, air taxis and the like. They have appeared in various science fiction films such as Blade Runner 2019 and Blade Runner 2049 (nicknamed ‘spinners’). They will soon be appearing above our cities and towns. Clem Newton-Brown our guest is…

In PX112, our interview guest is Jessica Lee, a principal architect at Fender Katsalidis Architects (https://fkaustralia.com). Jessica discusses the ‘Alba’ project, the conversion of a 1970’s former office building into 150 rooms of age appropriate housing (retirement accommodation and aged care). The site is located within South Melbourne, an inne…

In PX111, our interview guest is Jesse Suskin, Head of Government Relations & Public Policy at Wing Aviation (https://wing.com). We talk all things drone delivery particularly the experience learnt in Logan in Queensland, Australia where there has been extensive delivery operations over a lengthy time period. Wing Aviation is an offshoot of Google’…

In PX110, our interview guest is Professor Tim Parkin, we talk all things Roman particularly their city life. Tim Parkin joined the Classics and Archaeology department at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Before this he had spent over 11 years as Professor of Ancient History at the …

In PX109, our interview guest is Professor Douglas (Doug) Tallamy, the author of many nature books and co - founder along with Michelle Alfandari of Homegrown National Park (https://homegrownnationalpark.org). Homegrown National Parks is a grassroots call - to - action to regenerate biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and …

In PX108, our interview guest is Dr Stefan Gruenert, the CEO of Odyssey House Victoria. Odyssey House Victoria is a state-wide, specialist treatment organisation dedicated to improving the lives of individuals who experience significant or long-term problems from alcohol and other drug use. Stefan describes the work of Odyssey House and the clients…

In PX107, our interview guest is Kate Hardwick an exceptional planning professional originally from Australia who now works in South East Asia. Kate takes the listener on a fascinating journey describing her professional career. Along the way she offers tips to those starting out and also to those seeking a new direction after a number of years in …

In PX106, our interview guest is James Vincent who is the CTO at NCS NEXT Australia, a global digital, data and cloud services consultancy (https://www.ncs.co/en-au/next/). James is a senior people leader with 25 years’ commercial IT experience and an established authority in large-scale strategic transformation in enterprise environments and deliv…

In PX105, our interview guest is Torie Brown, Executive Director of the Student Accommodation Council. The Council was formed in 2022 by the Property Council to give a voice to the critically important purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) sector which provides homes for over 76,500 students per year, a figure that continues to grow. https://w…

In PX104, our interview guest is Vanessa Schernickau, the Chief Executive Officer of the Geelong Regional Library Corporation (GRLC). The GRLC provides library and information services to residents and visitors across the Geelong region on behalf of five local government councils. The network consists of a central library, 18 community libraries, t…

In PX103, our interview subject is Tim Jackson, a +40 year veteran of local government. Tim recently retired for a second time from the paid workforce after completing his four year role as the State Government appointed Administrator at the District of Council of Coober Pedy in South Australia in February. This was the first time an Administrator …

In this episode, PlanningxChange delves into the history of heritage conservation in Australia. James Lesh is an urban historian specialising in heritage conservation. He is interested in the potential for history and heritage to enhance cities, places and society. His latest book is Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth-Century Australia (…

In PX101 our guests are Natalia Weglarz and Peter Johns. Natalia is a planner at the Canberra office of WSP (www.wsp.com). She has been in Canberra for eight years, prior to that she was in Sydney and the UK. Peter Johns has lived in Canberra since the mid 1960's and has worked as a planner in Canberra over several decades. They describe the histor…

To celebrate our 100th episode we re-interview four of our previous guests. We ask them about their experiences with the podcast and what has happened in their professional sphere since their earlier interview. To begin with, Jess has a brief introduction where she explains the origins of PX and the subsequent journey over the past eight years. Our…

In PlanningxChange episode 99 our guest is Alex Fenech, a landscape architect based in Florida. At the time we recorded the interview Alex was a Vice President at EDSA (https://www.edsaplan.com) one of America’s leading landscape and urban design firms. Alex is the past President of ALSA Florida (American Society of Landscape architects) - https://…

In PlanningxChange episode 98 our guest is Tim Ellis one of the world’s leading magicians. Details about Tim are found at https://www.timellismagic.com and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Ellis_(magician) What do magic and city planning have in common? The connection to this episode is Tim organising the Melbourne Magic Festival - MMF (https:/…

In PlanningxChange episode 97 our guest is David Beaumont one of Australia's leading landscape and portrait painters. David is based in the historic seaside town of Queenscliff. From there he embarks on various solitary sojourns to the outback to immerse himself in the breadth and depth of the Australian landscape. He is also a frequent observer of…

In PlanningxChange episode 96 our guest is Simon Kuestenmacher, one of Australia’s leading demographers. Simon is a Director and Co-founder of The Demographics Group based in Melbourne, Australia. Simon holds degrees in geography from leading universities in Berlin and Melbourne and worked for several years as a business consultant with KPMG Austra…

In PlanningxChange episode 95 our guest is Lucinda Hartley. Her bio reads as follows: ‘Urban designer turned entrepreneur, Lucinda Hartley uses big data to measure the quality of life and wellbeing of neighbourhoods. She is a co-founder of Neighbourlytics, a social analytics platform which has created data for more than 500 neighbourhoods in over 1…

In PlanningxChange episode 94 our guest is Laura Gannon an Associate Director at Meridan Urban with almost 20 years of experience in strategic land use planning, bushfire risk and community resilience across both the public and private sectors. Laura specialises in management consulting approaches to the integration of natural hazard risk managemen…

In PlanningxChange 93 the tables are turned and we are interviewed. PX was a guest at the Ratio Consultants breakfast speaker series. Colleen Peterson (PX23), the CEO of Ratio presented and asked questions. The interview reveals the formation of PX, the mechanics of how we put interviews together, what we have learnt and how we work together. A bit…

In PlanningxChange episode 92 the subject is Phil Priest, Group Manager City Development at the Moreland City Council. The following is an extract from VPELA's Journal 'Revue' of October 2021 which described Phil’s career and his recent awarding of the Paul Jerome Award for contributions to the public sector. “When planners think of Moreland Counci…

In PlanningxChange episode 91 we interview Matt Roberts about Ian Nairn, an architectural and planning critic in the UK during the 1950s - 1970s. Matt is an architectural historian and a member of the podcast team that produces About Buildings and Cities. Details are at https://aboutbuildingsandcities.org. The About Buildings and Cities podcast pro…

In PlanningxChange episode 90 we interview Scott LaMont the CEO of EDSA, an international planning and landscape architecture consultancy. Scott joined EDSA in 1996 and has been a driving force in the firm’s practice and strategic growth since. Before being named CEO, he was a Studio Leader and Principal for 12 years, instilling the firm’s ethos wi…

PlanningxChange Episode 89, features Peter Malley. Peter is a traffic and transport engineer with over 17 years' experience consulting to numerous private and government clients in Victoria and NSW. Peter has a passion for master planning and large-scale developments where he applies a holistic transport planning approach. He has contributed expert…

PlanningxChange Episode 88, features Catherine Heggen, a town planner with UK and Australian experience over a 35 year career. Catherine’s 35-year career has been devoted to the provision of project based consulting advice to a wide range of private sector and government clients. Her professional capabilities and experience lie at the intersection …

PlanningxChange Episode 87, features Steve Oates, the Chief Executive of the Heritage Railway Association (HRA). Formerly a property professional who then spent 20 years in commercial radio, Steve has had an active lifelong interest in heritage and steam railways. From his teenage years, and for more than 40 years, Steve has worked with the award-w…

PlanningxChange Episode 86, features Deb Ganderton CEO of The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) and James Reid, the Chief Future Built Environment Officer of GMCT. GMCT is a self-funding, not for profit organisation that runs 19 cemeteries and memorial parks and three crematoria across Melbourne, Australia. It is also responsible for two…

In PlanningxChange Episode 85, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Stone Librande, the lead designer for SimCity 2013. Stone is currently a Lead Designer in the R&D group at Riot Games, and has worked in the video game industry for 20 years on games such as SimCity 2013, Spore, and Diablo 3. In addition to his full-time job designing video games…

In PlanningxChange Episode 84, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Gerard McHugh; this interview is all about mountain bike trail development and what it can achieve for participants, towns and regions. Gerard is the General Manager of World Trails. The company provides trail designs for all types of recreational trails, from the earliest concep…

In PlanningxChange Episode 83, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Adam Cohen. Adam is a transportation mobility futures researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Since joining the group in 2004, his research has focused on innovative mobility strategies, including urban/advanced air mobilit…

In PlanningxChange Episode 82, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Russell (‘Russ’) Dickson a licenced land surveyor. Russ gives listeners an excellent introduction to the world of land surveying, through its culture, vocabulary, exacting requirements and the feared ‘land surveying cops’. He talks of the incredible technological changes he has e…

In PlanningxChange Episode 81, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Marshall Sullivan a private planning consultant based in regional Victoria. Marshall came up ‘through the ranks’ of local government starting as an enforcer officer and ending as a senior manager. Now he runs his own very prosperous planning consultancy based in Geelong and the S…

In PlanningxChange Episode 80, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Nicole Gelinas an author, columnist and podcast regular based in New York. Nicole is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a columnist at the New York Post. She writes on urban economics and finance. Gelinas is a CFA charterholder …

In PlanningxChange Episode 79 Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Sebastian Gurciullo. Sebastian is a professional archivist, editor, curator and writer. He has worked at the National Archives of Australia, Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) and University of Melbourne Archives. He has been the editor of the Australian Society of Archivists jo…

In PlanningxChange Episode 78 Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview John Myers (UK) and Michael Hendrix (USA) about the hyper local zoning initiative. John has developed a ‘bottom up’ approach to fixing chronically underperforming housing markets that occur throughout the western world. This consists of citizens within a block or similar smaller a…

In PlanningxChange Episode 77, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Loudon Luka, a planner with experience in both Australia and Malawi. Loudon went to Australia from his homeland Malawi in the mid 1990's to undertake post graduate study. He gained a Post Graduate in Urban Planning and a Masters in Planning both from Melbourne University. He then…

In PlanningxChange Episode 76, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Brian (‘Harry’) Haratsis and Max Shifman about the many consequences of Covid on how we work, where we live and on our economic and social circumstances. Brian Haratsis is highly regarded as one of Australia’s foremost strategic advisors – with a particular focus on private secto…

In PlanningxChange Episode 75, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Dr John Stone. John is a Lecturer in Transport Planning and Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture, Building at Planning; Melbourne University. His research seeks to improve public transport performance in Australian cities through a greater understanding of the profession…

In PlanningxChange Episode 74, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Elle Davidson, a Director of Zion Engagement and Planning. Elle is a qualified Aboriginal town planner who not only runs Zion but also lectures at university. The Zion website sets out that the company “aims to work alongside communities to empower their voice and vision for the …

In PlanningxChange Episode 73, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Elizabeth (Liz) Hui, an acoustic engineer with over 25 years experience. Liz started working in the acoustic engineering field in the pre internet age, spending over 20 years as a consultant at Marshall Day Acoustics before retiring early in 2013. During that time, Liz regularly …

In PlanningxChange Episode 72, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Peta Charles the principal of Brisbane Town Planning (BTP). Peta has introduced many innovative features into her practice. She has produced and appeared in 100's of YouTube videos explaining different planning and design issues. A major information resource for the general publi…