Brighid Sammon
Urban Planner
Brighid Sammon is a senior urban planner at Hansen Partnership and the 2017 PIA Australian Young Planner of the Year. She is convenor of the Women’s Planning Network; and a tutor at RMIT University and the 2018 Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation John Monash Scholar. Brighid has been published widely including The Australian and The Real Estate Conversation.
Andy Fergus
Urban Designer
Andy Fergus is an urban designer, design advocate, passionate about helping government, ethical developers and communities create successful places. He is co-director of Melbourne Architours and studio lead at Melbourne School of Design. Andy is a finalist in the City of Sydney Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge. He is a regular contributor to ArchitectureAU and Assemble Papers.
Claire Whelan
Urban Planner
Claire is a senior planner with experience across statutory planning, strategic planning and urban design.
She specialises in assessing applications and negotiating with Council, enabling an ability to identify and address potential issues at the early stages and avoid delays throughout the process.
Claire has a thorough understanding of Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) processes and has presented at the tribunal on a number of occasions. She holds certificates in the following PLANET courses; Assessing Neighbourhood Character, Building Design and Architecture, Development of Four or More Storeys. Claire was nominated as one of the Property Councils 500 Women in Property 2018.
Simone Bliss
Landscape Designer
Landscape architect Simone Bliss, is the founder of Melbourne-based SBLA studio, a design studio focused on civic projects, multi-residential housing and design with play.
Prior to SBLA studio, Simone worked as a senior landscape architect at Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL) and Hobart based Playstreet. She has fourteen years experience, designing and documenting internationally award-winning projects, including the Auckland Waterfront redevelopment and the National Arboretum's Pod Playspace.
Simone teaches for the University of Melbourne’s Master of Landscape Architecture and Bachelor of Urban Horticulture, and is part of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architect’s mentoring program.
Jessie Summons
Good Designs
Jessie is the Good Designs founder, she established and was inaugural CEO at Nightingale Housing and is an adviser at construction start up Matrak. She specialises in start-ups working in the built environment and advocacy for quality multi-residential development. Jessie started her career working in government on major state Infrastructure Projects at Creative Victoria. Jessie has recently spoken and chaired panels at Purpose conference SYD, Remix Conference QLD, Fifth Estate’s Hacking Housing Event SYD.
