MTalks
Designing for ‘average’ is average design
Free!
All visitors over the age of 12 must show their COVID-19 vaccination certificate as a condition of entry.
For full details on staying COVIDsafe at MPavilion 2021, read our Covid-19 Safe Plan
This event is now complete. If you want to revisit the talk, visit our Library, or subscribe to the MPavilion podcast via iTunes, Pocketcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Too often, through expediency, ignorance or habit, the design profession shapes environments to suit the needs and experience of an ‘average’ human being. However, designing for ‘average’ results in average design that meets the needs of some, while a diversity of people can be made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in a place.
To create the space for different approaches to how we plan and design our cities, we must start by making the time to understand the lived experience of the city from multiple perspectives.
Facilitated by Cities People Love, this panel session brings together design practitioners whose work is informed by a diversity of lived experiences. This informal conversation brings to light the lived experiences and personal stories of people of diverse backgrounds and identities to understand how the design of our cities affects them, acknowledging that they are the experts in their own lives.
The audience will be invited to learn and empathise from others whose lives may be very different to theirs—the starting point for making more compassionate cities that we can all love.
This event creates a civic and public conversation that builds on a collection of research articles published by Cities People Love. The event will also be used to launch an interactive community engagement activity that will run until Melbourne Knowledge Week in May 2022.
