PRACTICE


TRAFFIC is a collaborative design practice working across architecture, urbanism and computation.

We are interested in behaviour, form, the behaviour of form and patterns of occupation of the city and its architecture through the lens of procedural and process-driven experimentation.

This methodology is deployed as a mechanism to engage with the real, the hyper-real and the counterfactual.

We observe, research, lecture, analyse, design, speculate, make and exhibit.

Located in Melbourne, Australia, we have global projects, interests and collaborations, primarily in Australia, Europe and Asia.



PEOPLE



PROJECTS



WRITING



EXHIBITIONS




CONTACT





PEOPLE


Ian Nazareth,
PhD, M.Arch, B.Arch,

Ian Nazareth
is the founder and director of TRAFFIC, an architectural and urban design practice whose work explores immersive, speculative, and post-carbon futures for cities across physical and digital domains. He is also an architect, researcher, and Director of the Super Urban Lab at RMIT University

His professional practice, research, and teaching focus on the relationship between architecture and the city, and his work has been exhibited and published internationally, including at the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Tallinn Architecture Biennale, the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, the Barcelona Architecture Festival, and the Media Architecture Biennale.

Ian’s research situates architecture within broader technological, political, and ecological systems, focusing on how computation, sensing technologies, and governance stacks reorganise spatial imaginaries, civic infrastructures, and environmental futures. His research engages questions of post-carbon urbanism, infrastructural power, and the political life of data, positioning design as a critical method for interrogating how cities are made, and remade, through systems of information.

Ian completed his PhD in Architecture at RMIT University School of Architecture & Urban Design, where his research examined contemporary urbanism through speculative design, computational infrastructures, and data-driven forms of governance. His work investigates how cities are produced through protocols, simulations, and informational flows, reframing urban design as a practice of systems choreography rather than formal authorship.

He is a Research Leader within the School of Architecture & Urban Design and a senior member of RMIT’s Post-Carbon Research Centre, where he explores strategies for decarbonising the built environment and its infrastructures to foster sustainable, equitable, and resilient futures. He has held prior academic and leadership roles including Program Director and Head of Urban Design at RMIT University, and Associate Director at the Urban Design Research Institute in Mumbai.

At the Super Urban Lab, Ian leads collaborative research and speculative projects that investigate the technological, political, and ecological conditions shaping contemporary cities. The lab engages design practice with governance, policy, and civic institutions, supporting experimental inquiry into urban futures.

Ian is an architect educated in India and Australia, with prior professional registration in India. He serves as series co-editor for The Practice of Spatial Thinking (ACTAR), and co-hosts SUP – The Super Urban Podcast. Ian regularly contributes to architectural and urban discourse through lectures, symposia, podcasts, and exhibitions. His writing has appeared in The Architectural Review (UK), Architectural Review Asia Pacific, Australian Design Review and MONU: Magazine on Urbanism.




Natasha Maben, Architect (currently Non-Practising)
M.Arch, B.PD Arch, ARBV 17781

Co-founder of TRAFFIC 
(now independent; collaborating on selected projects)






Thank you to all collaborators and partners who have contributed in multiple roles and capacities to the projects and research of TRAFFIC.
Alexander Moorrees, Austin Zhao, Bailin Chen, Caitlyn Parry, Conrad Hamann, David Schwarzman, Graham Crist, Jamie Bond, Jason Ho, Jerome Peredo, Jessica Bourke, Jia Yang, Joyce Tan, Kathryn Larkin, Kevin Gao, Mark Thititum, Max Lewoshko-Fagan, Shamiso Shamu, Tommy Hung, Tony Hu, Wu Hao, Xin Fang, Yixuan Wang, Zhen Zhang and Ziyan Li.







A collaborative design practice working across architecture, urbanism, and computation.                     We observe, research, lecture, analyse, design, speculate, make, and exhibit.