- Power of Women Building a better world

What if architecture wasn’t just about buildings—but about building a better world.

In this episode of the Power of Women Podcast, Di Gillett speaks with Professor Esther Charlesworth AM, a humanitarian architect, academic, and changemaker whose work sits at the powerful intersection of design, ethics, and social justice.

From war-torn cities like Mostar and Beirut to domestic violence shelters in Melbourne, Esther’s global career challenges everything we think we know about architecture. She shares the founding story of Architects Without Frontiers, a not-for-profit delivering civil infrastructure projects for the world’s most vulnerable communities, and opens up about what it means to design for fragility in an era of climate change, conflict, and chronic displacement.

In his episode, we explore:

How architecture can be a tool for peace, equity, and resilience
What it takes to lead in a system that still undervalues social impact design
Why the future of rebuilding—post-disaster and post-conflict—must include the people who live there
Why temporary housing often fails—and how we can do better
The myth of prefab as a “silver bullet” in Australia’s housing crisis.

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