IFLA 2025 World Congress

Our Global Design Director, Kirsten Bauer, is preparing to present at IFLA 2025 World Congress in Nantes, France on a critical topic: how we can do better by our urban waterways.

Kirsten’s long-term, intimate experience in designing and advocating for the Birrarung (Yarra River) in Melbourne has left her keenly familiar with the challenges facing urban rivers.

Her session will share insights into how rivers can be understood and designed as living entities. She will highlight the role of governance in reshaping our relationship with waterways, and the importance of urban revitalisation projects that connect people, culture and ecology. A central focus will be the speculative design work conducted as part of Reimagining Birrarung: Design Concepts for 2070, an National Gallery of Victoria exhibition that asked what it means to design with the river as an integrated and living natural system.

Through these perspectives, Kirsten will explore how First Nations collaboration, legislation and design practice can create healthier rivers and more resilient cities.