Architects Without Frontiers | Australia

Esther Charlesworth - AWF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dr Esther Charlesworth is founding Director of Architects without Frontiers (Australia). She has practiced architecture and urban design in Melbourne, Sydney and New York since 1983 before completing her Masters of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard University in 1995. Between 1995-1999 she was Senior Urban Designer with the City of Melbourne and is director of the CityEdge International Urban Design Series. Between 2000-2003, Esther was Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the American University of Beirut. She has also lectured extensively in architecture and urban design at RMIT University, the University of Melbourne, MIT, and during 2004 at QUT in Brisbane. She completed her Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of York (UK) in 2003.

Esther is recipient of five major international research awards to further her research into the role of architects in post-disaster reconstruction and has just completed two books on the subject:

• Divided Cities (Beirut, Belfast, Jerusalem, Nicosia and Mostar), with colleague Jon Calame (University of Pennsylvania Press, USA)
• Architects Without Frontiers, War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility (Elsevier Press, UK)

Esther is currently a research fellow in Sustainability, with Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University, Melbourne.

Ron Wakefield - AWF DIRECTOR
RMIT, Head of School - Property Construction and Project Management

Ron is currently Professor of Construction and Head of the School of Property, Construction and Project Management at RMIT, Australia. Dr. Wakefield researches and teaches at RMIT, in the areas of process simulation and modelling, residential and commercial construction and uses of information technology in construction management. Prior to joining RMIT, Dr. Wakefield was the William E. Jamerson Professor of Building Construction in the Department of Building Construction and the Associate Director for Building Technology Research at the Center for Housing Research, Virginia Tech.

Dr. Wakefield has over 18 years experience as an international researcher, consultant and engineer in building construction. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Dr. Wakefield taught at The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He was a visiting Fellow at City University of Hong Kong in 1995.

Zita Unger - AWF DIRECTOR
STRATEGY EVALUATION CONSULTANT

Dr Zita Unger has a career spanning 15 years as an evaluator, educator and entrepreneur, drawing on extensive knowledge of organisational development, business acumen and governance to bring valuable contributions at the board level.

Zita was founding Director of Evaluation Solutions Pty Ltd for 11 years, developing an award-winning online survey management tool and delivering survey based solutions to corporate, education and public sector clients. She is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), Melbourne Chapter. She received the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) Evaluation Training and Service (ET&S) Award for outstanding contributions to the profession of evaluation.

Andrew MacKenzie - AWF DIRECTOR
Publisher and founder of City Lab

Andrew Mackenzie was editor of Architecture Review Australia for nine years before starting his own independent architectural publishing initiative, URO. His first publication was the book The Private Life of Public Architecture on the Melbourne Convention Centre, and will be followed in late 2011 by Fallen Shadows, reflections of the National Gallery of Australia.

More recently he founded a new architectural collaborative agency called City Lab, working across public and private sectors to deliver innovative architectural competitions. With partners in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Auckland he is currently working on a range of competitions and design procurement projects.

Norman Day - AWF DIRECTOR
Norman Day and Associates

Norman has designed and built in Australia and Asia, notably in Melbourne, Canberra, Dili, East Timor and in Vietnam. He worked with the late Robin Boyd and Professor Frederick Romberg before starting his own practice in 1971, now with offices located in Melbourne, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok and Dili. Buildings include public and private housing and educational facilities in and around Melbourne, health buildings, institutional , new and restored.

His Major commissions include Mowbray College (Melton), Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists Headquarters (Melbourne), RMIT International University, Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City) and Can Tho University Learning Resource Center (Can Tho City, Vietnam) and Embassy for East Timor (Canberra).Since 2000, he has been involved in consulting the new nation of East Timor [1][2] consulting on the reconstruction of the country with projects including the Xanana Gusmão Reading Room/ Library (Dili), Hotel dom Aleixo (Dili)and schemes for empowerment training.

Leeanne Marshall - AWF Projects Co-ordinator

Leeanne Marshall is an architect with twelve years of diverse professional experience, which includes work in the UK, Ireland and Canada. She completed her Masters in Architecture at Melbourne Uni in 2008 with a focus on development issues, urbanisation and informal settlements, including project work in Indonesia. She volunteered for five months on AWF’s Anganwadi project building pre-schools in the urban slums in India. Leeanne is passionate about the designer’s role in community re-engagement, sustainable development and finding equitable, ethical and socially approporiate solutions to the problems of those most inn need.

Leeanne’s role with AWF includes managing current and future projects and regional programs in the Asia Pacific and Australia and coordinating volunteers, probono architects and other consultants. She is AWF’s project manager for the Dien Ban project in Vietnam, the new Norfolk Island Hospital Project and the new Cakaudrove Women's Resource Centre in Fiji.

Lani Fender - AWF Programs Co-ordinator

Lani has been involved with AWF since 2006 in both an administrative capacity and as an architect. Her professional portfolio includes experience across the design, construction and architecture fields in Australia, New York and Mexico. Lani’s architectural social conscience has foundations from her time working at Norman Day + Associates, where pro bono consultation services for the reconstruction of East Timor were provided by Norman and Kirsten Day. Lani joined AWF as an avenue to effectively contribute architectural services in circumstances of social/geographical crisis, particularly with respect to ongoing, long-term problems within our Australian backyard. If you email from the AWF website this is who you will be talking to. She looks forward to hearing from you.