DETAILS
Free, booking required
The Green Brain, Building 16 (Storey Hall), RMIT University Building
336/348 Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC, Australia
The construction industry is responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions. Traditional building methods generate 75% material waste on every project. And yet we keep building the same way. This panel asks the question that matters most for Australian design right now: what if the factory is the most creative place in the room?
Forget everything you think you know about prefabricated buildings. The session opens with a visual showcase—no words, just stunning imagery of Australian Smart Building projects. Bespoke architectural homes. Award-winning commercial buildings. Passivhaus-certified residences with near-zero energy bills. These aren’t compromises. They’re proof that environmental responsibility and design excellence are not in competition.
Join a conversation with three practitioners at the forefront of this shift.
Elena Cazacu (Director, Evissa) designs Passivhaus-certified buildings using factory-manufactured SIPs panels—achieving airtight, thermally superior homes with exceptional indoor air quality and virtually zero operational carbon.
David Fantini (Senior Architect, Modscape + Modbotics) leads design across one of Australia’s most established modular construction companies, demonstrating how precision manufacturing unlocks rather than limits architectural ambition.
Damien Crough (Executive Chair, prefabAUS) provides the industry-wide perspective—from Australia’s first Smart Building Industry Roadmap to a landmark shift in bank financing that now recognises factory-built homes as lower risk than traditional construction.
Together, they’ll explore how designing for fabrication changes the creative process, what climate resilience actually feels like to live in, and why the buildings we design today are the legacy we leave tomorrow.
Moderated by Alicia Brown, Editor of the prefabAUS Smart Building Review.
For architects, designers, developers, students—and anyone who believes design must be part of the climate solution.
75–90 minute panel with audience Q&A.