Professor Rob Adams explores ‘design and the city’ in this special Melbourne Festival edition of MTalks. In his role as director of city design at City of Melbourne, Prof. Adams implemented Melbourne’s first urban design strategy—rolled out in the wake of our late-’80s recession. Since then he has overseen the city’s evolution from windy wasteland to “world’s most liveable”.

What role does design play in urban revitalisation? What challenges persist for Melbourne’s CBD? What’s next for the inner suburbs and our commuter corridors? Prof. Adams presides over an evening of talking about thinking about cities, with contributions from Bernard Salt (KPMG), Patrick Ness (Cox Architects), Eli Giannini (MGS Architects) and Simon Spain (Artplay).