EVENT
April 16,
2026
The Dale Studio,
Chippendale
Join organisational leaders, philosophers, scientists, designers and artists for the launch of House of Complexity. A day of conversations exploring new ways of seeing, thinking and acting in complex systems.
Why attend?
Thinking that crosses boundaries
Eighteen speakers. Six conversations. One poet, several CEOs, doctors, cognitive scientists, social scientists, artists, futures thinkers, researchers, policy-makers, philosophers, designers, innovation strategists, activists and a mindset coach. Come and think with us.
Complexity in practice
Hear from practitioners and researchers who cross disciplinary boundaries as a matter of practice, from CSIRO, the UTS Transdisciplinary School, UNSW, the University of Sydney, Macquarie University and House of Complexity.
Organisations in the thick of it
What does it look like when leaders take complexity seriously? Hear directly from people navigating it at The Smith Family, NRMA Insurance, QLD Health and Prevention United.
Six conversations, one bigger picture
How do human systems actually work? How do you design for change you can't control? What happens when poetry, science, philosophy and organisations think together? Where does thinking really happen? What can philosophy offer organisations? And what becomes possible when you resist the obvious? Six conversations. One gathering. A different kind of intelligence for a complex world.
In person and online
This gathering will be recorded live, with a small in-person audience in Sydney and a live stream for those joining online.
Speakers
Thu, Apr 16
Morning · 9 am – 12 pm
Why Complex Systems Thinking Matters Now
The world's most pressing challenges, in organisations, communities, and institutions don't yield to simple explanations or linear solutions.
This opening session introduces the insights animating House of Complexity: that human systems are shaped by relationships, meaning, and emergence rather than parts and plans.
Bringing together perspectives from strategic design, creative intelligence, and transdisciplinary practice, this conversation makes the case for why complexity thinking isn't an abstract intellectual exercise but a practical necessity for anyone trying to lead, create, or change anything that matters.
In conversation:
Steven Sullivan – Co-Founder, House of Complexity
Dr Barbara Doran – Director Creative Intelligence, UTS
Rodger Watson – Strategic Designer, House of Complexity; Adjunct Fellow, UTS
Designing Conditions, Not Outcomes
Leaders are trained to set goals, build strategies, and drive results — but transformation rarely follows the plan. Real change in organisations and society moves through thresholds, tensions, and constraint.
This session reframes the work of leadership: rather than engineering outcomes, what does it mean to design the conditions in which change can actually emerge? Drawing on experience across health, education, and social impact, this conversation offers a more honest and ultimately more effective understanding of how complex change happens.
In conversation:
Julie Batch – CEO, NRMA Insurance
Doug Taylor – CEO, The Smith Family
Amelia Olsen-Boyd – Executive Manager, CSIRO
Suzanne Dick – CEO, Prevention United
Steven Sullivan – Co-Founder, House of Complexity
Lunch · 12 pm – 3 pm
Recombining Poetry, Science, Philosophy, and Lived Experience
What do a poet-intensivist, a professor of transdisciplinary design, a CSIRO concept lab convenor, and a strategic designer have in common? They each work at the edges of their fields, where the most generative thinking happens.
This session explores what becomes possible when different ways of knowing are brought into genuine dialogue, not as metaphor or decoration, but as distinct lenses that illuminate what no single discipline can see alone. For organisations willing to think beyond their habitual framings, this is where new possibilities begin.
In conversation:
Dr Melanie Jansen – Poet, Clinical Ethicist and Intensive Care Specialist, University of Qld
Viveka Weiley – Convenor, CSIRO Concept Lab
Martin Tomitsch – Professor and Head, UTS Transdisciplinary School
Rodger Watson – Strategic Designer, House of Complexity; Adjunct Fellow, UTS
A New Model of Cognition
What if intelligence isn't confined to the brain?
Decades of research in embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended cognition are reshaping how we understand thinking itself — revealing that mind emerges through the interaction of bodies, environments, tools, and culture.
This session brings together philosophers of AI and cognitive science to explore what this shift means in practice: for how we design organisations, make decisions, build technology, and understand what it even means to be intelligent in a complex world.
In conversation:
Dr Inês Hipólito – Lecturer in Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Macquarie University
Dr Max Cappuccio – Deputy Director, Values in Defence and Security Technology Group, UNSW
Dr Barbara Doran – Director Creative Intelligence, UTS
Afternoon · 3 pm – 6 pm
Philosophy, Innovation, and Organisational Life
Philosophy has always been where the deepest assumptions get examined: about knowledge, identity, change, and what it means to act well. Yet it rarely enters the rooms where organisations make decisions.
This session makes the case for philosophy not as a luxury but as a practical resource: a way of loosening the hidden framings that constrain imagination and opening new territory for sensemaking, innovation, and change. With scholars drawn from business, sociology, and transdisciplinary design, this is a conversation about what organisations could think if they thought more deeply.
In conversation:
Dr Julian Prester – Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney Business School
Dr Juliet Bennett – Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, University of Sydney
Amelia Olsen-Boyd – Executive Manager, CSIRO
Dr Scott Matter – Senior Lecturer, Transdisciplinary School, UTS
Steven Sullivan – Co-Founder, House of Complexity
Resisting the Obvious
Every organisation, every person, every field has default patterns: familiar grooves of perception that make some things visible and others invisible. Creativity, at its most powerful, begins not with new ideas but with the disruption of the obvious.
This closing session brings together a photographer, an academic, a mindset coach, and a scholar of creative intelligence to explore what it takes to genuinely interrupt habitual seeing. Playful, provocative, and practically urgent, it's a fitting end to a day that has asked us to look at the world differently — and a beginning for what comes next.
In conversation:
Alina Gozin’a – Photographer, Director and Creative Intelligence Speaker
Amanda Tattersall – Associate Professor of Practice, University of Sydney
Giorgio Genaus – Founder, Author & Coach, Genius Institute
Dr Barbara Doran – Director Creative Intelligence, UTS
An Invitation to What Comes Next
We'll share a snapshot of what we're building at House of Complexity: upcoming talks and courses on complexity, innovation practice and philosophy, and how we plan to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners from around the world.
In conversation:
Steven Sullivan – Co-Founder, House of Complexity
