Can Artificial Intelligence Make Architectural Homes More Accessible to More People?

Kirby Roper has been an architect for over 25 years and has recently founded @home to raise the quality of affordable Australian housing by radically simplifying the pathway to an architect-designed home. Kirby wants to both give more people the opportunity to come home and feel @home and elevate the role architects play in the design and construction process of homes and help them reach more people. Kirby is the secretary for the Association of Architects where she hopes to encourage the profession to share more, mentor the next generation and assist practices to approach new methods to meet the ongoing and evolving challenges that are ahead. The creation of @home captures this by offering higher quality, more sustainable, more adaptable, and healthier homes to a larger portion of society. As a co-chair of the Sustainable Architects Forum (SAF), Kirby is also very passionate about environmental sustainability and has been involved in Rewilding Stonnington reintroducing indigenous and endemic plants back to Stonnington.

Practice at the Melbourne School of Design University of Melbourne. Since 2006 he has been at Melbourne University teaching Architectural Design and Practice, Design Activism, and Contemporary Architectural Archives. He has published around 80 book chapters, journals, and conference papers. His work and research outputs broadly span the architectural profession, its history, professional politics, and future prospects. He has an abiding interest in the reception and development of information technologies in architecture. His book, Architecture as a System: Scavengers, Tribes, Warlords and Megafirms, published in 2019 is a major contribution to the understanding of the convergence between global finance architectural design and practice. His book, Architects, Sustainability and the Climate Emergency: A Political Ecology was published in 2022.

Evan Harridge is a technologist, inventor, investor, and builder of technology-driven start-up companies. Evan has been working in Australia with both start-up companies and large global enterprises to build new technology-driven products. Evan has been working with @home to help develop and scale their existing architectural platform.