“After the Crisis: a new Australian Dream”

Professor Anthony Burke FRAIA
Professor of Architecture
University of Technology Sydney

Date: Tuesday, 21 October 2025, 12.15 for 12.30 – 2.00 pm AEDT
Venue: Union University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney (corner of Bent and Philip Streets)
Enquiries: by email to RSNSW Events 
Registration: Registration is required before 2.00 pm AEDT on Thursday, 16 October 2025
Cost: $75 (RSNSW or UUSC members); $85 (non-members/guests). A warm meal and wine will be served.
Dress: Smart business casual (jacket preferred); No denim.
Flyer: Downloadable from this link

Click here to register before
2.00 pm AEDT on Thursday, 16 October

After the Crisis: a new Australian Dream

The housing crisis in Australia has been well-reported.  The impact of cost-of-living increases, interest rates, and mortgage stress, the growing wage-to-home price disparity, and, ultimately, homelessness are being felt across all demographics of an increasingly agitated electorate.  Yet, while we all feel the growing instability and anxiety surrounding our most sacred of institutions, the family home, the implications of the crisis for Australia remain spectacularly unclear, almost too difficult to consider.

While government and economists have distilled the issue down to simple and politically palatable issues of supply and demand, the cultural implications of our rapidly disappearing ‘Australian Dream’ and what might replace it, are much bigger than a balanced ledger and subsidised cheap builds on the green field peripheries of our major cities can fix.

Knowing that the solutions we implement today will have lasting implications for generations to come, this complex problem of how we will create homes for future generations of Australians and, indeed, what we will come to think of as a home in 2050 demands both careful and creative thinking.  Arguably, this critical moment is nothing less than the biggest reshaping of our way of life in Australia since the Second World War.

So, a crisis, yes, but could this be an opportunity to rebalance our way of life with our Australian values? Join Professor Anthony Burke for this thought-provoking analysis of where we are, and where we’re heading as Australia grapples with a reimagining of the Australian dream.

Professor Anthony Burke is an internationally recognised academic and television presenter who bridges contemporary architectural practice, education and public media.  Currently Professor of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, Burke brings infectious enthusiasm to exploring how architecture and design shape our daily lives.

Burke is widely known as the host of Grand Designs Australia and Restoration Australia, and co-host of Grand Designs Transformations on ABC.  In 2025, he was part of producing Culture by Design with ABC Asia and now hosts The Home Front on ABC Radio National.  His engaging presentation style has made architectural design accessible to mainstream Australian audiences, with Grand Designs Australia receiving an ACTAA award in 2025 and Logie nominations.

A graduate of Columbia University and UNSW (first-class honours), Burke served as Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley from 2002 to 2007 before returning to Australia.  At UTS, he held leadership roles including Head of Architecture and Associate Dean (International), and has held visiting professor positions at Beijing Institute of Technology and Institut Teknologi Bandung.

In 2012, Burke served as co-creative director for the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale and directed the architecture symposium celebrating the Sydney Opera House’s 40th anniversary.

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