City North Shared Futures Fest 2025
Earlier this month, Melbourne’s City North district came alive as part of the RMIT City North Shared Futures Festival.
Cardigan Street, at the heart of RMIT’s City North Social Innovation Precinct, was free from traffic and full of possibility. The festival turned the precinct into a living lab where collaboration and curiosity came together, showing how inclusive innovation, regenerative practices, and advanced technology come together through community engagement to the city we want to live and work in.
Over two days, the precinct buzzed with energy and ideas. The Frugal Food Canteen demonstrated resourcefulness, transforming rescued produce into meals that were both experimental and nourishing, The Seeds of the Future Bank invited visitors to exchange skills and time, imagining alternative economies of care and fostering trust, reciprocity, and collaboration across generations. Troy Innocent, from RMIT’s Future Play Lab, led a Live Action Role Play (LARP) that invited participants to step into 2050—joining factions, tackling challenges, and exploring Indigenous-led urban design—transforming the precinct into a stage for immersive, collaborative storytelling about climate, community, and the future of cities. Giant puppets roamed the street, workshops and pop-ups invited hands-on experimentation, and music from Rainbow Chan, DJ PGZ, and Andrew 88 created spaces for joy, connection, and shared experience.
AR headsets and mixed reality installations allowed visitors to experience the past, and imagine the future of City North, revealing how design, ecology, and community intersect across time and place. Robots like Haku and AI-driven installations encouraged curiosity, interaction, and co-creation, while digital photobooths and immersive storytelling platforms and live experiences enabled participants to step into different perspectives—exploring future communities, imagining urban regeneration, and fostering empathy and shared responsibility for the environment.
Through gaming, speculative design, and participatory public art, advanced technologies became tools to make ideas tangible and actionable, demonstrating how imagination, collaboration, and inclusive innovation are embedded in the precinct itself.
Indigenous Responsible Practice and truth-telling were woven into every aspect of the festival through First Nations knowledge, history, and culture, and collaboration. The Welcome to Country and Indigenous Celebration led by Jaeden Williams acknowledged the meeting places of the Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung peoples and the eastern Kulin Nation, reminding everyone that the city’s future is inseparable from Country, culture, and community. This understanding is embedded in the design of the social innovation precinct and all research, teaching, and community engagement.
The festival also showcased projects from the RMIT City North Activation Challenge, highlighting student, staff, and partner co-designs to make the precinct more liveable, connected, and regenerative. These projects reflected the precinct’s long-term ambitions: integrating community, technology, social care, and inclusive innovation to create urban spaces that support people and planet.
City North is a living ecosystem of people, ideas, and practice. RMIT, the City of Melbourne, Regen Melbourne, Aurecon, the University of Melbourne, and a network of education, industry, and community partners are building a platform for inclusive, regenerative innovation. Each conversation, workshop, and activation strengthens this ecosystem, showing how imagination, technology, and social responsibility can combine to shape the city itself.
The Shared Futures Festival was another chance to celebrate the precinct and the impact of the City North district working together.
You can be part of this story through a range of current opportunities, including the RMIT Responsible Practice Showcase on 27 October, the City North Activation Challenge Circular Cities Showcase on 5 November, the National Health and Innovation Precincts Summit in early December, and much more.
These events provide a chance to explore, experiment, and collaborate alongside students, researchers, industry partners, and the wider community. If you would like to learn more or get involved in any of these events, please reach out at city.north@rmit.edu.au.
Discussions are also underway for City North potentially to host the IASP World Conference in 2028, showcasing Melbourne’s leadership in inclusive, socially responsible, and technologically advanced urban innovation.
What’s next for the City North Social Innovation Precinct
RMIT is now partnering with the Victorian Government and our City North neighbours to shape a detailed development plan for the next phase of the City North Precinct renewal. There’ll be plenty of opportunities to get involved and help shape what comes next as the project moves forward.
City North invites everyone to join in, explore, and imagine. Here, ideas become practice, technology meets creativity, and community shapes what comes next. Together, we are learning how to create places that nurture people, planet, and possibility — and you can be part of it.
Discover what is next at next.rmit.edu.au/community_events
