Events

Melbourne Connect Innovation Week returns from 7–11 September for five days of ideas, collaboration and discovery. 

The University of Melbourne’s annual innovation festival brings together researchers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, students and creatives across 40 events spanning health, sustainability, AI, entrepreneurship and immersive technology.

Through panels, workshops, demonstrations and networking, discover how collaboration across universities, industry, government and startups is turning research into real-world impact. Whether you’re an innovator, founder, researcher, student or simply curious about what’s next – this is your chance to connect, learn and be inspired.

Please join us as we host internationally renowned architect and educator, Marina Tabassum presenting a public lecture for the first time at the University of Melbourne.

A research project in 2019 brought Marina Tabassum Architects’ focus to the displacement of people within Bangladesh and cross-border from Myanmar. The displacement of people is posing a major crisis induced by climate change, disparity in human conditions, war and conflict, to name a few. People are living in transition for an indefinite period of time, while ‘life is being lived’. As Architects, what can we offer as dignified living and how?

Questions such as the above prompted Marina and her team to take on their part of the responsibility through research, education, and practice.

For the last six years, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA) and their Foundation for Architecture and Community Equity (FACE) have built mobile housing and community spaces for marginalised communities, while working with women from these communities to strengthen livelihood opportunities.

These works and projects received local and international attention including receiving the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2025.

In this lecture, Marina will primarily focus on these works that define her design thinking, and the development of her ‘language of architecture’.