Cooling the City Masterclass

Thank you place makers, city shapers, and urban innovators!

The Cooling the City Masterclass was an amazing success! Around 350 built environment professionals joined us to be equally inspired and challenged by leading experts as we work together to create a cooler and more liveable city. There was an amazing buzz in the room, and the Masterclass was exactly what we all needed after our catastrophic and record-breaking summer of 2020. Thank you to each and every one of you who helped make it such a success and for your enthusiasm for creating a cooler and more liveable city.

The time for action is NOW

There was one clear and unequivocal message from all of our presenters and from the audience: The time for action is NOW. We experienced record breaking heat in the summer of 2020, with over 50 degrees being recorded in multiple locations across Sydney by urban heat researchers. We know it's going to continue to get hotter. We know Sydney is going to continue to evolve and grow. Now is the time for action. The time for waiting for 'someone else' is over. As built environment professionals, we ALL need to step up and take action, across all of our sectors. Start on a small scale, a single project, a single street. Our case studies from Dr Diane Pataki and her work in Utah, and closer to home the work of Dr Josh Byrne in Perth show it can be done. These examples show that we can start small – it not about scale it’s about starting something now that can grow as time goes on. But start somewhere. We literally have a city depending on us, and we all need to step up. Hopefully participants have already gone away from the event and started to consider how they can make small differences in their own organisation – if that’s you, we’d love to hear what changes you are making – you can email the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Relive the presentations

Our presentations were filmed and are now available online. 

Please click here to view them.

You can see brief highlights from our Masterclass event below:

#CoolingTheCity trends nationally on Twitter

Thanks to everyone who joined the online conversation on social media. It was great to see your feedback and enthusiasm, and to extend this critical discussion beyond just the people in the room. As a result of all of your work, it was great to see #CoolingTheCity officially trend nationally on Twitter. Let's continue that conversation!

What the audience said

This is a snapshot of what some participants have already told us:

• "It was one of the best Masterclasses I have been to".

• "I'll be engaging more with our customers on these matters, as I'm now more confident that other industry experts have the same frame of mind. Was great to see 350 odd people thinking the same".

• "Huge thanks for the Cooling the City Masterclass yesterday. Eye-poppingly good content".

• "It's good to know that there is evidence and a strong industry trend to rely on and to support action we take in the workplace in terms of updating planning controls, strategies and policies".

• "Good speakers - they presented well and actually said something".

• "HUGE VALUE! Thank you! I learned a lot and feel motivated and inspired to share new knowledge and to act now! Very grateful to have attended".

• "Penrith City Council did an excellent job curating a world-class event. The content was relevant, engaging and thought-provoking".

• "Absolutely supreme content. Really granular, deep dive academic expertise. Bravo".

You can see our Cooling the City Masterclass program here.

• Read more about the masterclass.

Like to stay up to date?

We’re delivering a Cooling the City Masterclass eNews over summer. This is the best way to keep up to date with our latest event announcements, the latest news and media coverage around heat, and case studies of work being done to create a cooler and more liveable city. You can subscribe to our Cooling the City Masterclass eNews below: