SJB Urban’s work seeks to balance site specificity and social relevance, economic benefit, responsiveness to context and sustainable performance, and emerges from a process of thorough learning, strategic thinking and effective design communication. We work through a sequence of processes towards project completion:

  • Investigation and analysis of context
  • Listening to clients, community and stakeholders
  • Understanding of urban systems and knowledge of best-practice precedents
  • Strategic thinking and discussion
  • Innovative and thoughtful Design
  • Effective, useful and clear Advice
  • Attractive and concise Communication and Presentation

SJB Urban Director Simon McPherson is a Consultant/Tutor at the University of Melbourne, teaching advanced urban planning and design for senior and postgraduate students. He delivers lectures for this and other courses, and is a regular guest critic for the Master of Architecture program. Simon was also recently guest critic for the Masters program in Urban Design at the Bartlett School, University College London.

Industry events

SJB Urban regularly engages with clients, colleagues and other practices, to present and discuss our research and project work. We have presented in-house talks for development industry figures and Council colleagues, conducted site tours for staff and clients, and engaged broadly with consultants from a broad range of disciplines.

SJB Urban Cities Program

This monthly Program of in-house talks by, and for, SJB staff and guests, is attracting increasing interest and involvement. The events incorporate presentations on particular cities around the world, encompassing a broad scope of urban considerations, and accompanied by personal images and anecdotes from that city.

Conferences

In 2007, Director Simon McPherson was a Session Chair at the Urban Design Strategies Conference in Melbourne, focusing on Sustainable Communities. He also led a Workshop at the Green Building and Design Conference, on sustainable urban design for transport nodes. He has also presented at Walk21, the International Conference on Walking in Zurich, Switzerland, and has been accepted to present a paper at the World Sustainable Building Conference, Melbourne (SB08). This paper stems from his research and development of an alternative philosophical basis for urban development.