Incinerator x MADA Talk 3: Regenerating and Reconnecting Recreational and Cultural Facilities

David Wadelton, Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club, 2025. Commissioned for the MVCC Visual Art Collection. Courtesy of the artist.

Incinerator x MADA Talk Series: Regenerating and Reconnecting Recreational and Cultural Spaces

Friday, 10 October, 4 to 7pm

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Incinerator x MADA Talk Series presents three free public events with local and international artists, designers city planners and other experts, to investigate the role of suburban revitalisation, creative placemaking and community development.

It is part of Incinerator Gallery's 2025 flagship exhibition, The Playground Project Melbourne (28 June to 12 October 2025), where Monash Art Design Architecture (MADA) is the Education Partner.

To celebrate the Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club's legacy and contribution to the life of Moonee Valley City Council, in 2025 Incinerator Gallery commissioned leading Melbourne-based artist, David Wadelton, to realise a new photo series for the MVCC permanent art collection. A pop up exhibition of these images will be on view at this event.

Venue: Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club
195 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds 3039, Victoria Australia (located across from Incinerator Gallery)

FREE event - bookings required

Duration: 3 hours
Doors open 3.30pm for 4pm start
Light refreshments will be served

David Wadelton, Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club, 2025. Commissioned for the MVCC Visual Art Collection. Courtesy of the Artist.

About Incinerator x MADA Talk #3

This event explores regenerative approaches to revitalising ageing and often unviable recreational facilities. Held on site at the former Maribyrnong Bowls Club, the session includes presentations of case studies that showcase renewed community infrastructure. These are followed by short presentations around strategic approaches to the regeneration of community facilities that support community cultural and social needs, local ecologies and respond to the realities of contemporary urban life. The event concludes with a keynote lecture by These Are The Projects We Do Together, operator of Brunswick's recently opened Balam Balam creative hub, about transforming challenging or underutilised sites into socially vibrant, inclusive places through architecture, curation, education and ongoing operations.

Produced by Incinerator Gallery and Monash Art Design Architecture, in association with Festival of Urbanism 2025.

PANEL 1: PRESENTATIONS, 4 to 5pm

Built Projects of Renewed Community Buildings

Bradley Kerr, Co-Director, Winsor Kerr

Bradley Kerr is a Quandamooka man, director of the design studio Winsor Kerr on Wurundjeri Country, and lecturer at Monash University. As Director of Winsor Kerr, Bradley works closely with communities and stakeholders to develop integrated design responses appropriate to place, Country, Peoples and culture. He will talk about this process in relation to recent civic and community building works.

Searle x Waldron and their Sports Facilities

Searle x Waldron is a design practice specialising in inventive public and community projects, from small pavilions to larger civic and recreational facilities. Winners of the 2025 AIA Victorian Architecture Medal, the studio explores the transformative potential of design across all scales.

Director Suzannah Waldron will present the refurbishment of the historic Maidstone Tennis Pavilion, originally built in 1917 as a single-gabled Sunshine Bowling Club pavilion, where heritage and contemporary design are carefully interwoven. She will also share insights from the Kingsville Tennis Club and other recent sporty projects.

Sibling Architecture and the Darebin Intercultural Centre

The Darebin Intercultural Centre is a community facility established within the City of Darebin’s Civic Centre. The space aspires to foster meaningful and constructive inter-racial, inter-cultural, and inter-faith relations between the people who live, work and play in the City of Darebin. Through its adaptive reuse of the existing building, originally considered culturally unsafe, curved pockets of space break down the barrier of ‘the box’, and foster a sense of an unwalled community.

Chair: Dr Timothy Moore is Associate Dean (Engagement) at MADA , Monash Architecture Senior Lecturer, a founder of Sibling Architecture, and Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Nicholas Braun is co-director of Sibling Architecture, an innovative practice that includes designing for the adaptive reuse of existing buildings, delivering outcomes that are grounded, responsive and socially engaged. He will present the Darebin Intercultural Centre, a community building that aims to foster meaningful and constructive inter-racial, inter-cultural and inter-faith relations.

David Wadelton, Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club, 2025. Commissioned for the MVCC Visual Art Collection. Courtesy of the Artist.

PANEL 2: PRESENTATIONS, 5 to 6pm

Strategic Approaches: Connecting Facilities, People and Ecologies

Liz Taylor, Urban Lab, Monash Art Design Architecture

Valentina Tansley, Head of Festivals and Events, MVCC

Nicole Kalms, XYX Lab, Monash Art Design Architecture

Michaela Prescott, Informal Cities Lab, Monash Art Design Architecture

David Wadelton, Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club, 2025. Commissioned for the MVCC Visual Art Collection. Courtesy of the Artist.

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: 6 to 7pm

Transforming Underutilised Sites: These Are the Projects We Do Together, in conversation with Prof. Mel Dodd, MADA Dean

These Are The Projects We Do Together, led by Joseph Norster and Millie Cattlin, are Melbourne-based designers renowned for transforming "problematic" or underutilised sites into socially vibrant, inclusive places through architecture, curation, education, and ongoing operations. Their latest project Balam Balam Place is a new purpose-built creative and community precinct located in the heart of Brunswick on Wurundjeri Country. The original site was purchased in 2010 when it was home to an old school with large buildings, a heritage house and public open space. In 2016 Merri-bek City Council appointed These Are the Projects We Do Together, to manage the site as ‘Siteworks’, and with the First Nations contemporary art gallery, Blak Dot. This activation provided the vision for the future of the site.

Chair: Professor Mel Dodd is the Dean of Monash Art, Design and Architecture, an award-winning architect, urban practitioner and academic leader. Her practice is underpinned by productive collaborations with industry, government and communities, contributing to inclusive and sustainable urban environments.