Just, Creative and Cooperative – Our Shared Infrastructural Future

Our infrastructural networks, including electricity, water and sewage, telecommunications, and transportation, shape and enable our lives as we know them. They are collective systems that provide us with our individual agency to act in the world. The majority of our energy use is mediated by these networks, and they are embedded in the landscapes around us, landscapes which are no longer stable. There are no paths to addressing the multifaceted impacts of climate change that aren’t rooted in the collective work of transforming these systems. The infrastructural networks that we benefit from today are the physical embodiment of the values of those who came before us. Today, with new possibilities of renewable energy generation at scale, we have the opportunity to transform these systems so that they are reliable and sustainable, resilient and equitable. Opening Keynote Presenter: Prof Deb Chachra (Professor of Engineering, Olin College of Engineering) This symposium was partially funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (project DP200101378). Presented by the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne.