Melbourne Design Week is more start-up pitch for cash than debate of ideas this year, as a group of architects seeks developers and investors for $50 million worth of pilot projects to show how Australia’s second-largest city can become self-reliant in energy and cut out landfill waste.

Not all of the pilot proposals involve new technology, but they do demonstrate how technology can be “de-risked” and used at scale, says Ross Harding, an engineer and the curator of the A New Normal exhibition.