Professor Rob Roggema is a Landscape Architect and an internationally renowned design-expert on sustainable urbanism, climate adaptation, energy landscapes and urban agriculture. He is Professor of Sustainable Urban Environments in the UTS School of Architecture and has a wealth of industry and academic experience; he has previously held positions at universities in the Netherlands and Australia, State and Municipal governments and design consultancies. Rob developed the Swarm Planning concept, a dynamic way of planning for future adaptation to climate change impacts.
Recent design-concepts Rob has developed include Double Defence, a proposal of a second row of barrier island to protect the coast for storm surges in times of climate change; A Floodable Eemsdelta for a region under threat of flooding, Bushfire Resilient Bendigo, a method of anticipating bushfires by creating a protective shield and slowly moving away the town; and FoodRoofRio, a rooftop garden with an aquaponic system that provides food for the whole family in Cantagalo favela in Rio de Janeiro.
Rob has designed and led over 30 design charrettes around the world, involving communities, academics, governments and industries in the design process. He has written three books on climate adaptation and design, four on Urban Agriculture, and one each about design charrettes, Rio’s FoodRoofs and Design for Recovery in Japan.