Shelley Jane Penn AM (born 1965) is a Melbourne-based award-winning architect, educator, urbanist and built environment advocate.
Penn was educated at Kilvington girls grammar and completed her architectural training at Melbourne University in 1988, graduating with honours. [1] She is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) course.
In 1993, Penn established the firm Shelley Penn Architects as a hybrid practice initially specialising in residential design and shifting focus to include consultation to government and the private sector on public projects from 1999. [2] Her work has been awarded and exhibited nationally and internationally. [3]
Penn has held several positions within state and federal government and in 2014 was recognised as a leading figure in Public Policy within the top 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review and Westpac Bank. [4] In 2006, she became the first Associate Victorian Government Architect, and a member and then Chair of the National Capital Authority from 2009 to 2014 and the deputy chair of the Heritage Council of Victoria from 2008 to 2012. She has undertaken numerous consultancies as a strategic advisor and reviewer, including conducting major reviews for government including co-chairing the 2011 Barangaroo Review [5] . She has served on multiple Victorian, South Australian and New South Wales local and state government Design Review Panels for projects of all scales.
Penn is an active member of the architecture industry's peak body, the Australian Institute of Architects, including having held numerous positions on local and national committees and task forces. After a two-year term as an elected member and Honorary Secretary of the Australian Institute of Architects National Council, in May 2012 Penn was elected as the council's 73rd National President. She was only the third woman elected to the role after Louise Cox in 1994 and Melinda Dodson in 2009. [6] Her election as president was particularly notable given that only a small group of sole practitioners are elected to the volunteer role despite more than half of the institute's members identifying as sole practitioners. [2] She is a Life Fellow of the institute. [7]
In addition to advocacy through representation, Penn is an active contributor to professional discourse. She has been a panellist in numerous public debates, published in many leading professional journals, including Architecture Australia , Architecture and Design, Monument and Artichoke, and is a regular contributor for Parlour ; an online forum for the advocacy of women and equity in architecture. [8]
Penn is currently an adjunct professor in architectural practice at Monash University [9] and associate professor in architecture at University of Melbourne's Melbourne School of Design. [10] She has also taught, co-ordinated and guest-critiqued bachelor and master's students at Monash, RMIT, Deakin and Melbourne University, since her own graduation in 1988.
In the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours Penn was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to architecture and design in the public realm, and to professional institutes". [11]
The Shrine of Remembrance is a war memorial in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road. It was built to honour the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I, but now functions as a memorial to all Australians who have served in any war. It is a site of annual observances for Anzac Day and Remembrance Day, and is one of the largest war memorials in Australia.
Justine Clark is an architectural editor, writer, speaker and researcher, based in Melbourne, Australia. She is the editor of Parlour, a former editor of Architecture Australia, and co-author of Looking for the Local: Architecture and the New Zealand Modern.
Sir Roy Burman Grounds was an Australian architect. His early work included buildings influenced by the Moderne movement of the 1930s, and his later buildings of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the National Gallery of Victoria and the adjacent Victorian Arts Centre, cemented his legacy as a leader in Australian architecture.
Julian Gardner is an Australian lawyer renowned for his promotion of human rights through the practice of law. In 2015 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to the community through leadership roles with social welfare, mental health, legal aid and other legal organisations".
Peter McIntyre is a Melbourne based Australian architect and educator.
Margaret Leonie Edmond is an Australian architect.
Cassandra Fahey is an Australian architect and interior designer residing in Melbourne. She is Director of the architecture firm "Cassandra Complex". She emerged in the public spotlight in 2000 because of the controversial 'Newman House', located in St Kilda, designed for media and football identity Sam Newman. She is also known for her works on "The Smith Great Aussie Home" and the BHP Billiton Healesville Sanctuary "Platypusary". Her work has received a number of awards as well as being featured in many local and international publications.
Kerstin Thompson is an Australian architect, born in Melbourne in 1965. She is the principal of Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA), a Melbourne-based architecture, landscape and urban design practice with projects in Australia and New Zealand. She is also Professor of Design at the School of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and adjunct professor at RMIT University and Monash University.
The RMIT Design Hub is a research, archive, exhibition, and studio space of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia located on the historic Carlton & United Breweries site.
Yvonne von Hartel is one of the founding members of Melbourne-based architectural and urban planning firm peckvonhartel, which was established in 1980 and since has expanded its offices to Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. Von Hartel was the first woman to graduate with an honors degree in architecture from the University of Melbourne and is a Life Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects (LFAIA).
Dimity Reed is an architect, urbanist and academic. She has been involved in government advisory roles, as well as writing for both The Sun and The Age newspapers.
Jillian Meredith Garner is an Australian architect. She is a principal of Garner Davis Architects and in 2015 became the Victorian Government Architect.
Harriet Edquist is an Australian historian and curator, and Professor Emerita in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University in Melbourne. Born and educated in Melbourne, she has published widely on and created numerous exhibitions in the field of Australian architecture, art and design history. She has also contributed to the production of Australian design knowledge as the founding editor of the RMIT Design Archives Journal and is a member of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University.
Karen Burns is an Australian architectural historian and theorist. She is currently a senior lecturer in architecture at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne.
The Dimity Reed Melbourne Prize is an Australian architectural award. It is awarded annually at the Victorian Architecture Awards by a jury appointed by the Victoria Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects to architectural projects that have made a significant contribution to the public life of Melbourne, Australia. It was first awarded in 1997 to Six Degrees Architects for the small bar Meyers Place.
MPavilion is a temporary pavilion in Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne, erected annually since 2014. The event is sponsored by philanthropist Naomi Milgrom. Initially the project was planned for four years, but later it was extended by another two, until 2019, and then another three years to 2023. No pavilion was constructed in 2020 due to the Covid19 pandemic. The pavilions are used for various art events, after which each pavilion is gifted to the city or institution and moved to a permanent location.
Kirsten Bauer is an Australian landscape architect notable for her contributions to practice, education and research. She is a Director of Aspect Studios in Melbourne.
Sarah Lynn Rees is a Palawa woman descending from the Plangermaireener and Trawlwoolway people of North East Tasmania, Based in Birrarung-ga (Melbourne), Rees is an architectural practitioner, academic and writer. She is a prominent advocate and advisor with a firm commitment to Indigenising the built environment.
Michael Anthony Rayner is an Australian architect and urban designer. He was a director of Cox Rayner Architects for 33 years before commencing a new practice Blight Rayner Architecture in 2016. He has led the designs of many major Australian public buildings often with expressed structure. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland and a Life Fellow and Past President of the Australian Institute of Architects in Queensland. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2011. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering in 2009.
The Victorian Architecture Medal is the highest honour awarded annually by the Victoria Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) and has been awarded 38 consecutive times since 1987. The Medal was originally known as the ‘Street Architecture Medal’ introduced by the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects (RVIA) in 1929 as an award for the design of a building of exceptional merit. Buildings were judged on their "urban propriety and architectural etiquette; the building had to front a street, road, square or court" and with a requirement of being publicly accessible, thereby excluding residential and private commissions.