Share

cover art for CITIES OF PURPOSE

THE GRIMSHAW PODCAST

CITIES OF PURPOSE

Season 1, Ep. 5
•

Episode 5 of The Grimshaw Podcast ‘The City Series’ features Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, Jess Scully. Hosted by Grimshaw’s Cities Initiative Lead, Dr. Tim Williams, Episode 5 explores Jess’s motivation to move Australia from an extraction economy to a knowledge and creative economy, and her senior leadership role in Australia’s largest city during a time of crisis.

Prior to entering politics, Jess was a curator of Sydney’s VIVID Festival which rapidly became the most important event in the winter calendar with its associated program of cultural and thought leadership talks which explored the context of Sydney’s urban situation. So, who better to be elected in 2019 as Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney?

Having changed the face of civic politics by advocating for and empowering those who were previously not involved, encouraging them to have a say and to participate in the life of their city, Jess is connecting people with creativity, and preparing communities to take advantage of opportunities. Jess focuses on several key issues in the community including the revitalisation and growth of Sydney’s night-time economy, exploring new models to address the housing crisis, nurturing a transition to the workforces and workplaces of the future, and protecting our digital rights in the public realm.

Committed to opening up local politics to younger and diverse individuals to expand who plays a role in shaping the life of the city, Jess is also an author of Glimpses of Utopia which dissects how society is rising up to confront our challenges in the world with creativity, resilience and compassion and how harnessing technology and imagination can reshape our world to be fair and sustainable.

Join Tim and Jess for a critical conversation on the future of Sydney’s creative industries and what this means for Sydney’s CBD in the context of a pandemic. 

More episodes

View all episodes

  • 12. HOUSING: PLACE MATTERS

    38:33||Season 5, Ep. 12
    The international drive to increase housing supply is an opportunity to improve existing communities but also to design and deliver new high-amenity, higher density, low carbon, mixed use settlements. In this episode Tim Williams talks with Sara Waller – title, of Sovereign Network Group/SNG and Kirsten Lees, architect, masterplanner and Managing Partner, Paris for Grimshaw, about meeting this dual challenge. Though, much of the discussion focusses on the UK, where the government is targeting 1.5 million new homes over the next 5 years, many of them in next-generation New Towns, the discussion will be of interest to all those working internationally to make better, more sustainable and inclusive places.

  • 11. BETTER HOMES, THRIVING COMMUNITIES

    01:02:01||Season 5, Ep. 11
    In the first of two episodes on social and affordable housing , Tim Williams sits down with Mark Washer the CEO of Sovereign Network Group/SNG, one of the biggest providers in the UK, with an asset base of 85,000 homes, to talk about managing a massive business with a big social purpose: to provide good, affordable homes that are the foundation for a better life – with the aim of sustaining thriving communities, over generations. Joining them in the conversation is architect and master planner Kirsten Lees, Grimshaw’s Managing Partner in Paris and Sara Waller, SNG’s Head of Place, a role showing the significant emphasis SNG puts on supporting sustainable communities. In episode One we talk about the demands of running a big social housing provider and developer of affordable homes, under a new Government with housing as a priority. A specific focus is the role social housing providers can play in delivering the 1.5 million homes the UK Government wants to see built over the next 5 years, some of them in the exciting New Towns program. Episode two, has Sara and Kirsten further developing the focus on ‘housing in place’ and the need to design and deliver not just great housing but also great communities.

  • 10. A BIG & CLEVER IDEA: AUSTRALIA’S HIGH SPEED RAIL

    50:57||Season 5, Ep. 10
    Tim Parker has massive experience of successfully managing big urban infrastructure and development projects.In this episode, he shines a light on his unique insights from an impressive CV and speaks with both passion and clarity about leading his latest large-scale project: the Federal Government’s initiative to build high speed rail initially between Newcastle and Sydney on Australia’s east cost, with the ambition to build further on this link in future.This is a massive transport undertaking, promoting a low-carbon transition from car and air over to rail, and economic and housing development and community opportunity – a project of national, and we think international, significance of interest to listeners from a wide range of professional and policy backgrounds and countries. Big ambitions for a big country: seems about right to us.  

  • 9. BUILDING CITIES OF HOPE

    01:03:08||Season 5, Ep. 9
    In the latest Grimshaw Cities podcast, Dr Tim Williams interviews Syrian architect and best-selling author Marwa al Sabouni. Unable to practice her profession in her battle-ravaged city of Homs, as the buildings and the lives around her and across Syria were reduced to rubble, Marwa Al Sabouni turned her fierce intelligence to chronicling how her city and country were undone through decades of architectural mismanagement and mistakes. The result was The Battle for Home in 2016 and Building for Hope:Towards an Architecture of Belonging(2021). We talk about these important books, her architectural advocacy and the values Marwa believes that architecture needs to embody so as to promote greater civic harmony, humanity and yes beauty in a divided and often ugly world. A really important and challenging conversation about why, what and how we build with someone with a unique voice and standpoint not heard enough in the international discussions about the future of our cities: exactly what the Grimshaw cities podcasts were created to do. Joining Tim and Marwa on this occasion is Grimshaw architect and urbanist, Awkar Ruel, with his own special experience and contribution as an Iraqi-born Sydneysider.

  • 8. BREAKING THE HOUSING-FINANCE CYCLE

    57:08||Season 5, Ep. 8
    Tim talks with international housing expert Professor Josh Ryan-Collins of UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

  • 7. CHINA'S URBAN REVOLUTION

    57:41||Season 5, Ep. 7
    Tim Williams talks with Austin Williams, director of Future Cities and author of China’s Urban Revolution: Understanding Chinese Eco-Cities. What can we learn, as environmentalists, planners and architects, from the eco-city initiative and overall from the Chinese process of urbanisation?

  • 6. A MANIFESTO FOR OUR CITIES

    01:03:30||Season 5, Ep. 6
    Dr Aruna Sathanapally, CEO of Australia’s leading urban thinktank, the Grattan Institute, talks about the key policy priorities to make a more productive and inclusive nation.

  • 5. CITIES: AVOIDING 'NEO-FEUDALISM'

    41:34||Season 5, Ep. 5
    Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban studies at Chapman University in California, is the author of the best-selling book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is widely recognised as a leading international commentator on the future of cities and suburbs.In this episode, Joel joins Tim Williams for a passionate and insightful conversation about key urban trends. They explore Joel’s concern that declining home ownership and growing inequality are leading to a concentration of wealth and power reminiscent of pre-modern Europe. An important and thought-provoking discussion.

  • 4. TEXTS AND THE CITY: LIBRARIES AS PUBLIC SPACES

    49:38||Season 5, Ep. 4
    Today's episode features Dr. Caroline Butler-Bowden, State Librarian for the State Library of New South Wales, alongside Dr. Tim Williams and Grimshaw Principal, Eduard Ross. Together, they explore the role of libraries and museums in shaping cities and their significance as dynamic public spaces.