Areas of expertise Ms Rosemary Kennedy is Director of the Centre for Subtropical Design, see http://www.subtropicaldesign.org.au , a collaborative Centre at QUT where she teaches and researches.  Her major research interests include architecture and urban design, planning and public policy for sustainable urbanism and architecture for compact urban settlements in warm climates experiencing population growth and climate change impacts. She has published on subtropical urbanism, including Subtropical Design in South East Queensland, a Handbook for Planners, Developers and Decision Makers.

In collaboration with colleague, Adjunct Professor Peter Richards, she has also developed a highly effective design research methodology using the charrette method to experiment in the design of climatically-appropriate higher density housing typologies for subtropical settlements.  Rosemary was also a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project to research the impacts of high-density living in subtropical cities. The outcomes discuss social, environmental and economic dimensions and are published on http://www.highdensityliveability.org.au.

Rosemary established the Subtropical Cities international conference series which attracts leading researchers, industry professionals and government representatives from China, USA, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Thailand and India working in a wide range of disciplines concerned with human settlement, ecology and culture.  The conference successfully crosses disciplinary boundaries to bring together architects, planners, landscape architects, urban designers, artists, engineers, poets and writers to share knowledge on liveability in warm/hot urban settlements. She works with international collaborators in Singapore and Florida USA where she has been an invited speaker.

In the 1990s Rosemary Kennedy pioneered UVR-protective shade design guidelines, conducting primary research with Profs Brit Andresen and Michael Keniger at UQ, with funding from Queensland Health in ground-breaking skin cancer prevention research through environmental design. Over time, the guidelines established by this research have been adopted Australia-wide. Kennedy is a member of a trans-disciplinary team who are working on Cool and Covered; Designing out skin cancer.

Rosemary is an award-winning architect and was appointed as the Queensland Director of the Australian Institute of Architects National Awards Program in 2008. She has served on the Ministerial Taskforce for the Queensland Centre for Design, and the  Green Door Advisory Committee (2010-2012) advising  the Queensland Minister for Local Government and Planning. She is currently a member of the Independent Design Advisory Panel advising the Brisbane City Council on urban design and architectural design matters.

Rosemary is currently supervising the following PhD research:

Elizabeth Brogden Architecture & Disaster: a theoretical framework for post-disaster shelter design.

John Jory The ‘Eco-Strata’ Tower: the application of height relative variables to tall building design.

Cathryn Chatburn: Delivering the sustainable cities of the future: defining an approach to catalyse change in urban development outcomes.

Rosemary is associate supervisor for the following Masters Design research:

Laurelle Muir: Building resilient communities: the role of place-based community organisations in disaster preparation, response and recovery.

Hayley Sainsbury: You’re the voice: re-imagining and innovating ‘vertical villages’ for future Senior Living