Professor Diego Ramírez-Lovering

Ramírez-Lovering’s research examines the contributory role that architecture and urbanism can play in addressing the significant challenges facing contemporary urban environments -climate change, resource limitations and rapid population growth with a key focus on the Global South and through a lens of planetary health. As an award winning architectural practitioner and researcher, he has been commissioned to design a range of projects including affordable housing, commercial projects and public art projects and has completed a number of urban resilience projects with state and federal Government in Australia and internationally.

Ramirez-Lovering is the director of the Informal Cities Lab (ICL) in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. The Lab undertakes design-based research exploring and speculating on the conditions of informality in developing cities. ICL research – designed and conducted in collaboration with government and industry – strives for impact, purposefully and strategically targeting implementation at the intersection of academic research and international development.

As an example of this research approach, Ramirez-Lovering is leading the development and implementation of designs for a multi-million dollar international research project aiming to advance human health and well-being in informal settlements. The project, titled Revitalising Informal Settlements and Their Environments, aims to transform housing, water infrastructure, water management, and sanitation practices in 24 communities in Fiji and Indonesia. The research is funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Our Planet Our Health program and the civil works from the Asian Development Bank and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand.

Areas of expertise include Sustainable Urban Design and Architecture, International Development, and Informal Settlement Revitalisation.