Team
Melbourne
Dr Esther Charlesworth AM
FOUNDING DIRECTOR
“Architecture is not a static object. We must factor in issues of risk—ecological, geological, political, social—and adopt a transdisciplinary mode of designing and delivering projects. We must then seek out the multiple narratives of the impact the designs, through diverse social, health, and education projects, have on people's lives.”
Esther is a Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University and is the Director of the Humanitarian Architecture Research Lab (HARB). She is the founding Director of Architects Without Frontiers and the Academic Director of the Master of Disaster, Design and Development degree (MoDDD) at RMIT. Since 1990, she has worked in the public and private sectors of architecture and urban design in Melbourne, Sydney, New York, and Boston, and has published seven books on the theme of social justice and architecture, including: Divided Cities (2009), Humanitarian Architecture (2014), Sustainable Housing Reconstruction (2015), and Design for Fragility (2023).
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AWF respectfully acknowledges the traditional landowners of the Country on which we work.