Rate My Professor Justyna Karakiewicz

Professor Justyna Karakiewicz is Professor in Urban Design at the Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture with Honours (BArch Hon), Architectural Association Diploma (AA Dip), PhD, and professional qualifications including Member of the Singapore Institute of Architects (MSAI), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, she served as Lecturer there from October 1980 to July 1991. She also taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and spent 14 years as Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong before joining the University of Melbourne as Professor in March 2008.

Her research specializations encompass volumetric architecture, complex adaptive systems, ethics of design, urban design pedagogy, urban form evolution, urban sustainability, and high-density urbanism, with a particular focus on Asian cities. Professor Karakiewicz has published over 70 papers and book chapters, along with three books, including The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric and Urban Galápagos: About the Sustainable Urban Development in the Galapagos Islands. Key publications include Effects of access to public open spaces on walking: Is proximity enough? (Landscape and Urban Planning, co-authored), Design is real, complex, inclusive, emergent and evil (International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2019), Pertopia: Speculative Thinking in a Short-Term World (Architectural Design, 2023), The impact of urban form on physical change: A quantitative and diachronic analysis of urban form evolution in Midtown Manhattan (2024), and The grounded projection: A reflective examination of urban design pedagogy at Melbourne School of Design (2025). She received Second Prize in the Austral Bricks Design Awards in 2009. Her work contributes to understanding physical change in urban environments and sustainable urban development through complex adaptive systems.