Liam Young is a designer, director and BAFTA nominated producer who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. Described by the BBC as “the man designing our futures”, his visionary films and speculative worlds are both extraordinary images of tomorrow and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today. As a worldbuilder he visualizes the cities, spaces and props of our imaginary futures for the film and television industry and with his own films he has premiered with platforms ranging from Channel 4, Apple+, SxSW, Tribeca, the New York Metropolitan Museum, The Royal Academy, Venice Biennale, the BBC and the Guardian. His films have been collected internationally by museums such as the New York Met, Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria and M Plus Hong Kong, and has been acclaimed in both mainstream and design media including features with TED, Wired, New Scientist, Arte, Canal+, Time magazine and many more.

Ann is one of the design directors at Hayball, working collectively with her design colleagues, leading the practice’s vision, ethos, and building a culture of design for the national practice. She is an interdisciplinary practitioner working across design, architecture, and urbanism. Her passion is to work in synergy with the project team and client in thinking and listening through a research-led approach, bringing unbiased scrutiny to define and clarify a project’s vision. With two and a half decades of working experience in Australia, Europe, China, Southeast Asia, and a career history of working with practices in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands. Design education and critique have played an essential role in her practice. She believes that teaching enriches and complements architectural practice and hones the architect’s sense of empathy, the ability to listen, communicate, and collaborate, which are crucial in bridging designers with the end-users to develop a meaningful project legacy that endures and benefits society.

Nicola Cortese is an architect, Marketing and Communications Manager at Neometro, educator and co-founder of Caliper Journal. Her interest lies in architecture’s potential to function more broadly as an interdisciplinary tool that can facilitate research and produce shared knowledge. She explores this cross-disciplinary approach by questioning the intersection of spatial design practices and other means of communication such as publishing and curating.

Christine Phillips is a Melbourne-based architect, writer and senior lecturer at RMIT University’s School of Architecture and Urban Design.  She is a member of the Heritage Council of Victoria and co-director of OoPLA and is passionate about the cultural heritage of our cities.

Louis Nuccitelli is a Melbourne-based Master Of Architecture Graduate. Louis’ 2018 RMIT Architecture thesis titled “Beyond The Selfie” questions and embraces the implications social media has on architecture. This thesis won both the AIA Victorian Graduate Prize in 2019 and the RMIT Antonia Brunz Medal in 2018. As part of Melbourne Design Week, Louis will be continuing this exploration by way of a panel discussion. Passionate and driven by all that falls within the realm of design and creativity; art, music, fashion, architecture, media, pop culture, marketing, communications, and everything in between, Louis has worked across multiple industries over the last three years, primarily in relationship management, becoming a small business owner, and launching a card game into the Australian market.