Fast Forward lecture series

A well-known and respected event in the community, Fast Forward is generously sponsored by GIB® . NZRAB CPD points are available at each lecture. Attendance at each talk is free. All are welcome.

Systems Change - Finance, Planning, and Community in the
Climate Era.

How do we fundamentally transform the systems that shape our built environment?

Fast Forward 2025 brings together perspectives on disrupting finance, master planning, and community development to address New Zealand's most pressing challenges: housing affordability, climate adaptation, and sustainable urban growth.

As communities seek new approaches for the future, these speakers demonstrate how rethinking fundamental systems—from investment models to planning frameworks to community governance—can create pathways to genuinely sustainable and equitable futures.

Leading the innovative Whirinaki Papakāinga Managed Retreat project, Zoë demonstrates how climate challenges can become opportunities for cultural strengthening and economic empowerment through innovative governance and tikanga-guided design.

Zoë is an urbanist passionate about creating spaces that serve both people and the planet. As Director of The Urbanist and Associate Director of Design (Urban Planning) at Te Pare, University of Auckland, she focuses on regenerative design, climate adaptation, and nature-based solutions.

Her work stems from understanding that our entire economy depends on nature, from the food we eat to the air we breathe, while recognising the 70% decline in wildlife populations during her lifetime.

Currently leading the innovative Whirinaki Papakāinga Managed Retreat project, Zoë demonstrates how climate challenges can become opportunities for cultural strengthening and economic empowerment. This initiative is aiming to relocate 80+ homes from flood-prone land to create a resilient, self-sustaining community guided by tikanga Māori principles.

Her work shows how innovative governance structures, cultural values, and sustainable design can transform climate adaptation from displacement into community strengthening.

Zoë's recent achievements include New Zealand's first Living Roof Guide, which won the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects Publication Award. She believes in the generosity of knowledge, transforming how urban planning is taught to equip the next generation for the challenges facing our cities.

CJ Lim has served as Vice-Dean and Pro-Provost of UCL. He is the founder of CJ Lim Imaginarium, a creative academy fostering idiosyncratic imagination, and Studio 8 Architects, a UK-based multidisciplinary and international practice. He is a recipient of the Royal Academy of Arts London's ‘Grand Architecture Prize’, and has authored 12 books. 

In this moment of climate upheaval, housing crises, a greying population, and food prices flirting with absurdism, the traditional notion of home – as a single house or discrete housing unit – feels increasingly inadequate.

Enter a new breed of domestic typologies: homes that adapt, grow, and occasionally cry; a retrofitted Trump Wall reimagined as a work-from-home social condenser; cooperative housing schemes with a spring garden for winter; an intergenerational green-finger club; or heroic amphibious dwellings that float gently with rising tides, WiFi provided.

These polemic reimaginings call for a shift in both design practice and policy – from housing as commodity to housing as a resilient, adaptive system of adaptation, production, and resilience. By embedding climate awareness and food security into the very fabric of domestic architecture, we cultivate active agents of ecological practice and socio-political intent.

This is not simply a technical adjustment – it is an ethical repositioning of architecture’s role. His works explore how narratives from science fiction, history, socio-politics and humanity can inform architecture and the innovation of resilient cities

Dr. Natalie Allen is a leading voice in urbanism and a passionate advocate for creating healthier, more equitable homes and communities across Aotearoa. As a founder of The Urban Advisory, she spearheads a team of multidisciplinary urban advisors dedicated to ensuring New Zealand's neighbourhoods, towns, and cities are places where people truly thrive.

Join us for an insightful lecture that delves into the intricate workings of New Zealand's housing system. This engaging session will unpack the true beneficiaries of the current landscape, examining the ease (or difficulty) of navigating the housing ladder and identifying the key players in housing delivery across the nation.

Drawing on emerging findings from The Urban Advisory's comprehensive New Zealand Housing Survey, the presentation will challenge prevailing myths and conventional wisdom, offering fresh perspectives designed to spark vital conversations.

Finally, we'll look ahead to the future of New Zealand's housing, pinpointing critical gaps in national and local policy and exploring the compelling potential for a formal, cohesive national housing strategy. Prepare to rethink what you know about housing in Aotearoa.

With a background in architecture, urban design, and urban governance, Natalie possesses extensive research experience spanning critical urban topics, including urban growth, precinct delivery strategy, and housing preferences. She is a trusted advisor on diversifying the housing system and designing people-centric projects that enhance wellbeing. Natalie's insights focus on how we can all be part of delivering a sustainable, equitable future for New Zealand.

From self-build origins to co-housing innovations, Spacecraft demonstrates how thoughtful design and alternative development models can create affordable density that strengthens rather than fragments communities.

Spacecraft Architects was formed in 2012 by Caro Robertson and Tim Gittos following their self-build house in Whanganui. Their practice embodies an economy of means - creating spaces with limited resources that are a delight to experience, underpinned by environmental responsibility and cultural context.

From their origins as hands-on builders, Spacecraft has evolved to tackle one of New Zealand's most pressing challenges: creating affordable, sustainable density that people actually want to live in. Their work demonstrates that thoughtful, small-footprint housing can lead to increasingly dense projects, culminating in recent co-housing developments at multi-residential and apartment scales.

Currently part of the team creating Pattern Books for NSW - design frameworks that make quality, climate-responsive housing replicable across different contexts - their work extends beyond individual buildings to systemic change. They advocate for alternative ways of living and development, supporting owner-development models where groups pool resources to build together, often incorporating multi-generational housing with shared social spaces at the heart.

Their approach challenges the assumption that density means compromising on quality or community. Instead, they show how clear design thinking, environmental consideration, and community-centred approaches can create housing that is simultaneously affordable, sustainable, and socially enriching.
 

Sarah is an architect, urban designer and project manager with over 25 years’ experience helping public and private sector clients deliver residential projects from master plans to individual homes.

Sarah started her career as an architect working for eight years in private practice. As a former member of the radical FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) and now the Head of Architecture and Urban Design within the Chief Planner’s Directorate of the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, Sarah Allan is, effectively, the United Kingdom’s Chief Government Architect.

For over seven years at CABE, Sarah was head of urban design and homes, where she helped to embed design quality tools and processes in large-scale government programmes such as the Thames Gateway and housing growth areas.

She brings creative thinking and a collaborative approach across the policy, planning and delivery spectrum by deploying a broad skillset that includes engaging communities meaningfully in the design process. By advising on design policy at both local and national levels, she seeks to deliver residential and cultural projects ranging from housing to art projects to master planning.

This session, Sarah will tease out the relations between architecture and
government, so we can speculate what the value of a government architect, or
Bouwmeester might hold for Aotearoa New Zealand.

From delivering 700 apartments $30 million under valuation to first home buyers, Shane demonstrates how removing profit extraction can make quality housing genuinely affordable at scale.

Shane brings a unique perspective to housing delivery, combining deep construction expertise with innovative financing models that prioritise community over profit.

Training as a Civil Engineer before moving into project management and development, he spent 15 years in senior positions with major Australian corporates, including Lend Lease, Mirvac, and Multiplex.

After founding and running NZ Strong Construction for 10 years, Shane established NZ Living, which delivered 700 apartments that collectively sold $30 million under valuation, predominantly to first home buyers. This demonstrated that quality housing could be genuinely affordable when development margins were redirected to buyers rather than extracted as profit.

In 2022, NZ Living was gifted to the KiwiSaver and investor members of Simplicity, enabling a larger-scale rollout of this alternative model. Now heading Simplicity Living, Shane leads a team delivering 10,000 high-quality, secure-tenure Build-to-Rent homes. By the end of 2025, 982 apartments will be under construction using innovative techniques that deliver faster, more cost-effective, and more durable buildings.

Shane's work shows that affordable housing isn't about compromising on quality - it's about fundamentally rethinking who benefits from the development process and designing for 100-year ownership rather than quick returns.
 

Pete Bossley is one of the defining figures in New Zealand’s recent architectural history. He is well known for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (designed whilst at Jasmax) while his oeuvre also includes the Sir Peter Blake extension to the National Maritime Museum in Auckland, among his civic and museum projects.

While producing some of the nation’s most admired and adventurous houses, he has also delivered apartment buildings, social housing projects, and bridges. He has taught architectural design for over two decades, serving as an adjunct professor of Architecture at Unitec Architecture and Landscape School. He has exhibited and lectured extensively on his work here and internationally.

In 2012 Pete was recognised with the Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medal, the highest individual award an architect can receive in New Zealand. Pete will discuss the importance of ideas to underline good architecture, identifying themes that have run through 40 years of architecture, using projects from his practice as examples.

This ‘double feature’ session will present the work of two exciting practices.

Ana Heremaia and Jo Walsh, ĀKAU (Kaikohe):
ĀKAU are committed to collaboration and community engagement from their Te Tai Tokerau, Kaikohe office. Their work seeks to transform the lives of tamariki and whānau through a workshop process that connects people with their tūpuna stories and provides hands-on learning through architecture and design. Across 10 years, the company has moved from furniture design to contributing toward the new sports hub Papa Hawaiki and the new ongoing library project for Kaikohe.

Nick Officer and Ben Jagersma, First Light Studio (Wellington):
Nick and Ben will present two transformative projects, each addressing community needs at different scales and stages of development: a small Wellington church that used seismic strengthening as an opportunity to redefine its role and relevance to a portfolio of public housing solutions for Te Āhuru Mōwai, New Zealand’s largest Māori-owned community housing provider.

These projects demonstrate how thoughtful design can foster stronger, more connected communities. Supported by the Italian Embassy in Wellington, this lecture forms part of the celebration of International Italian Design Day, the theme being ‘community design'.

Supported by the Italian Embassy in Wellington, this lecture forms part of the celebration of international Italian Design Day, the theme being ‘community design’.

After graduating at the top of his class from the School of Architecture & Planning of Auckland in 2008, Sarosh Mulla completed a PhD in Architecture by Practice at The University of Auckland, where he is now a Senior Lecturer. Alongside his academic endeavours, he is a director at PAC Studio, a practice building a reputation across a wide spectrum of architecture-related fields: residential projects, commercial buildings, heritage conservation, as well as innovative exhibition, installation and research work.

These projects have been the recipients of NZIA National Awards, Heremagazine’s Best House Award, and a Best Awards Purple Pin. Sarosh will talk through PAC Studio’s recurrent design motifs as illustrated by recent projects, focusing on the way fun and levity pervade the way they practice. He will cover what characterises their work, the way the studio operates, and how that differs from other practices.

Founded in 1988, Isthmus has staked a position among the nation’s leading urban design firms. They have expanded their field of operation well beyond traditional planning, urban design, and master planning disciplines to include architecture, landscape architecture, infrastructure and graphic design. This work strives to generate positive social and environmental outcomes through a “kaupapa of regenerating Aotearoa by connectingland, people and culture.” Andre and Helen, both Principals at the firm, will share their design kaupapa for regenerating communities, with examples of their urban design tools and Mahi up and down the motu.

The talk will use project examples to compare growth challenges in changing environments, including adaptation master planning in regional towns with declining populations and measures of urban well-being in rapidly growing city neighbourhoods. It will challenge perceptions around what design interventions can make a difference and how to navigate uncertainty.

Recently retired from Monash University in Melbourne, Dr Gill Matthewson is a graduate of the University of Auckland. After a decade in practice and decades of teaching, Gill completed a PhD at the University of Queensland on women's careers in the architecture profession. Dr Matthewson was a co-founder of Parlour: women, equity, architecture, a world-leading organisation devoted to studying and supporting gender equity in architecture. Her research extended into demographic studies of the Australian architecture profession as a whole.

Dr Matthewson also contributes regular commentary and analysis on contemporary issues in architecture to Parlour and other professional publications. As an activist, researcher, and writer, Matthewson has long advocated for women in architecture; Dr Matthewson has been described as 'the most persistentcommentator to date' on women in New Zealand architecture. She will be presenting the story of her path and an update on her recent research and advocacy work.

Many of our Fast Forward lectures are recorded and available to watch online following the event. Watch a selection of previous Fast Forward lectures on YouTube.

If you have any queries about our events, please get in touch.

Email: foed-events@auckland.ac.nz