Rob Adams

Rob Adams is the Director City Design and Projects at the City of Melbourne and a member of the Cities of the Future Council of the World Economic Forum. Rob has longstanding connections with education, sharing his knowledge regularly with students. He has lectured frequently at RMIT University, taught master classes at the Robin Boyd Foundation, and has been a frequent lecturer and guest critic at the University of Melbourne, where he has been a Professorial Fellow since 2004.

With over 45 years’ experience as an Architect and Urban Designer and 33 years at the City of Melbourne, Rob has made a significant contribution to the rejuvenation of central Melbourne.

He and his team have been the recipients of over 150 local, national and international awards including on four occasions receiving the Australian Award for Urban Design and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Award 2014 for its Adaptation and Resilience Projects.

Rob has also been awarded the Prime Minister’s Environmentalist of the Year Award in 2008 and the Order of Australia in 2007 for his contribution to Architecture and Urban Design. In December 2016, Rob was conferred with the degree of Doctor of Architecture from the University of Melbourne.

Some key projects include Postcode 3000, CH2 Australia’s first 6 Star Green Commercial Office Building, Birrarung Marr, Swanston Street, City Square, Return to Royal Park, the Open Space and Urban Forest Strategies and numerous community buildings including Docklands, Boyd, East Melbourne and Kathleen Syme Libraries. His team is currently involved in two major city shaping projects, the Queen Victoria Market Renewal and Metro.

His recent focus has been on how cities could be used to accommodate and mitigate rapid population growth and the onset of climate change. He has published and presented extensively on the subject of ‘Transforming Cities for a Sustainable Future’.