COUNTRY Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Unsettling Queenstown

RECONCILIATION AT SCALE

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

RECONCILIATION AT SCALE

COMPREHENSIVE FIRST NATIONS ENGAGEMENT

Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban

LOCATION
VIC
University of Melbourne Parkville Campus
Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri) people of the Kulin Nation

The first precinct wide development of its kind at Melbourne’s Parkville campus, the Student Precinct
paves the way for physical recognition of First Nations cultures as a signature project of the University’s ‘Elevate’ Reconciliation Action Plan.

A deep commitment has been made to ensure that pre-colonial thinking, perspectives and sensibilities are infused into the DNA of the project and are expressed by the design teams, along with the careful regeneration of post-colonial (heritage) fabric, for an inclusive and porous precinct that embeds cultural connection at the heart of student experience.

As part of a comprehensive First Nations engagement strategy, over 130 Indigenous stakeholders, representing over 45 First Nations language groups were consulted to ensure design was informed by their voices.

It is in this ‘in-between’ space, resting at the intersection of engagement and design, that the team promulgated a cultural understanding between non-Indigenous and First Nations people. This ensures that the Project embraces ‘Reconciliation at Scale’, and is tangibly activated within the fabric of the built environment – a key strategy that can extend beyond the site ‘boundary’ as an exemplar for future projects.

students.unimelb.edu.au/student-precinct#Indigenous-knowledges

CULTURAL STRATEGY
Jefa Greenaway

PRECINCT DESIGN
Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture
NMBW Architecture Studio Greenaway Architects Architects EAT
Aspect Studios
Glas Urban

Explore Further

REDISCOVERING THE GROUND

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

REDISCOVERING THE GROUND

REDISCOVER PHYSICAL COUNTRY TO EMBED FIRST NATIONS STORIES AND MATERIALITY

Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban

LOCATION
VIC
University of Melbourne Parkville Campus
Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri) people of the Kulin Nation

Central to the landscape vision of the Student Precinct is the ‘Welcome Terrain’ and the ‘Water Story’ – both concepts ensure a strong physical connection with local Indigenous knowledge.

The primary urban design move of the Student Precinct is removal of an twentieth century elevated concrete plaza covering the central area, reinstated by a new version of ‘solid ground’, both restoring the settings of original heritage buildings and embedding them in a new Indigenous-led conception of place.

Underlying the ‘Welcome Terrain’ is a network of connective gathering spaces paved in a patchwork of Indigenous stones that signify reconnection with the ‘lost’ ground. This includes representation of a ‘Water Story’ narrative from the pre-colonial waterway through the site, encapsulating the importance of eel migration paths that have been buried beneath layers of development.

lyonsarch.com.au/project/new-student-precinct/

CONTRIBUTORS
Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture
NMBW Architecture Studio Greenaway Architects Architects EAT
Aspect Studios
Glas Urban

Explore Further

LANDSCAPE-LED DESIGN

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

LANDSCAPE-LED DESIGN

BIOPHILIC CONNECTION AND INDIGENOUS CULTURE

Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban

LOCATION
VIC
University of Melbourne Parkville Campus
Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri) people of the Kulin Nation

Landscape-led design enables primary moves around and through new and existing built form within the Student Precinct to be completely transformed into a place that enables students to reconnect with nature and First Nations cultural engagement.

Key to the connection of land and student experience are cultural connections to artifacts and history – both at a student level (through politics and performing arts) and through living Indigenous culture (through embedded objects). This elevates natural and external space design interventions above built form.

Critical to architectural materiality in the precinct is the provision of resilience to student expression, with new and refurbished fabric expressed as a raw ‘student scaffold’ ready for inhabitation and re-adaptation over time. This empowers new student culture to take over living space more readily than the previously ‘fixed’ colonial exemplars on the site, and encourages ‘experience’ over physical permanence.

lyonsarch.com.au/project/new-student-precinct/

CONTRIBUTORS
Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture
NMBW Architecture Studio Greenaway Architects Architects EAT
Aspect Studios
Glas Urban

Explore Further

Learning Through Unlearning

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

LEARNING THROUGH UNLEARNING

CHALLENGING ACCEPTED PARADIGMS IN APPROACHES TO DESIGN EDUCATION

Adjacency Studio, University of Sydney

LOCATION
undefined
Sydney | Hobart
Eora | nipaluna

Decolonising our understanding of being and designing requires empathetic and systematic unlearning. An unlearning that challenges us to re-think our role as designers into the realm of advocates. A tactic of decolonisation within our studio was to examine and unlearn the Western worldview of nature and relationship to it. Our understanding is imbued with preconceived ideas/truths that most typically see nature as a state that exists without human intervention or coexistence. This view is antithetical to Indigenous Aboriginal culture, which has been intertwined and intervening with the land for tens of thousands of years.

In group discussions, we worked to acknowledge these specifically Western paradigms and unpack their influence on architecture. We encouraged students to challenge human-centred design and adopt a design paradigm of responsibility and connectivity. Half of the subject site was allocated to the regeneration of Country and its multi-species inhabitants with the intention that spaces designed for the human inhabitants in this area were designed to foster connections and caring for Country through reflection, curiosity, play and wonder.

CONTRIBUTOR
Adjacency Studio

Explore Further

Tapestry of Country

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

TAPESTRY OF COUNTRY

FOREGROUNDING INDIGENOUS DESIGN IN TEACHING

Adjacency Studio

LOCATION
undefined
Sydney | Hobart
Eora | nipaluna

Our Tapestry of Country was/is a mechanism for discussion and reflection. Underpinned by principles of care, coinciding with Sydney’s 2021 lockdown and introduction of the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia’s cultural competencies, each class began with all bringing an image set as their Zoom background to acknowledge and learn together about our First Nations culture and synthesis of time and being.

Together we read The Uluru Statement of the Heart and discussed the NSW Government Architect Office’s Connecting with Country Framework and Paper. We acknowledged on which Country we were on, the markings of time through traditional seasons, the Country and authors of our backgrounds; and how they engaged with the Framework principles.

We connected our “tapestry” images with our project, in which students were required to embed principles demonstrative of a nuanced understanding of Country. This brought us together while we were isolated; Connecting with Country connected us and provided

a unique experience and archive of the uncanniness of 2021. We captured each session, synthesising the semester into a graphic “tapestry”; one tactic of decolonisation within our studio.

CONTRIBUTORS FROM ADJACENCY STUDIO
Justine Anderson
Caitlin Condon
Tara Sydney

STUDENTS
Kate Gray
Hinatea Jones
Stella Kretzas
Alicia Mardones
Trupti Parshotam
Anja Petkovic
Luane Pike
Stephani Soro
Anandita Teneja
Chantielle Tang
Jane Banbury
Coco Wang
Thea Yang
Yuting Zheng
Iris Zi
Zöe Barker
Cicely Brown
Thirza Callista
Mohan Chen
Xi Chen
Shirley Feng
Sarah Fitzgerald
Caitlin Gazzard
Niamh Graham
Rachel Hintze
Sarah Jang
Minjee Kim
Chelsea
Kwok
Sophie Lovell
Fariha Ruhullah
Joey Tang
Georgia Tuckey
Olivia Winestock
Jing Yan
EJ Taylor
Benjamin Percic
Jade Ma
Sienna Whiteley

Explore Further

Formulating Design Principles

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

FORMULATING DESIGN PRINCIPLES

GUIDING STUDENTS TO DEVELOP MEANINGFUL FRAMEWORKS FOR DESIGN

Adjacency Studio, University of Sydney

LOCATION
NSW
Sydney | Hobart
Eora | nipaluna

Projects underpinned by care must reflect and build an understanding of how architecture can respond to both tangible and intangible qualities of place and people and move across and between place and people at various scales; this is at the core of Country-centred design. Carefully developed design principles provide a framework for thinking through the potential of design in a non-didactic and strategic manner to capture values and ethics in architecture that can be persuasively communicated through succinct text and diagrams to describe design moves and motivations as interventions and strategies discernible to a broad audience.

Each student was required to develop a suite of design principles to embed Country and reframe how housing is often perceived in Australia, as a means of building wealth to a fundamental human right. Together we unpacked what it means to feel safe and understand the qualities of spaces that bring us joy, dignity, and empowerment. We abstracted our understanding of personal experience to expand and capture stories from listenings and readings of women and children who’ve been victims of domestic violence and/or homelessness into design principles of care.

CONTRIBUTORS
Adjacency Studio
Studio 2B students (2021-2022) at The University of Sydney

Explore Further

ACOUSTIC LANDSCAPES

Ben Cottam on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

ACOUSTIC LANDSCAPES

N’arweet Carolyn Brigs AM, Justin Buckley, David Chesworth, Taylor Coyne, Alexis Farr, Laura Harper, Xavier Ho, Ana Lara Heyns, Sonia Leber, Jon McCormack, Marilu Melo Zurita, Oscar Raby

LOCATION
VIC
Rippon Lea Estate, Elstenwick, City of Glen Eira, Melbourne
Boon Wurrung Country

Our tactic, Medium Hybrid-ness yielded sites adjacent to the curfew boundary established by colonists for Meeanjin [Brisbane] to exclude Turrbal and Jagera people after dark that straddled Maiwar [Brisbane River], an explicit urban marker of the treatment of First Nations people. We amplified First Nations presence and assembled a diverse cultural mix for Meeanjin, where compression of time and spatial density register at medium scale.

We accounted for First Nations significance, changes over time, historical evidence, urban form, networks of social space and current use to unlock the potential of the sites and contribution to the city. Speculations were developed against the backdrop of Brisbane’s selection for the 2032 Olympics and pressures associated with rapid development and population increase. The inner city has attracted significant development generating hybrid conditions often involving fragments of remnant infrastructure.

Here we offer the Story Bridge site, that bisects Kangaroo Point, marking one boundary. We speculate on a lively variety of uses in spaces under the bridge and strategic connections between the bridge deck and Turrbal Country below.

INDIGENOUS ELDER
N’Arwee’t Professor Carolyn Briggs
AM

CLIENT
National Trust of Australia – Victoria,
Justin Buckley

FUNDING
Australian Heritage Grant
AHGII000002, Rippon Lea
Endowment Fund, The Drain Man

PROJECT LEAD
Laura Harper

RESEARCH TEAM
N’Arwee’t Professor Carolyn Briggs
AM, Justin Buckley, Taylor Coyne,
Alexis Farr, Laura Harper, Ana Lara
Heyns, Maria de Lourdes Melo Zurita,
Jon McCormack

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE AND AR
Oscar Raby

SOUND RECORDING AND COMPOSITION
David Chesworth, Sonia Leber, Taylor
Coyne

WEB DESIGN
Xavier Ho

IMAGE CREDIT
Sonia Leber

Explore Further

TRAVELLING UNDERGROUND

Ben Cottam on 15 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

TRAVELLING UNDERGROUND

RE-TRACING MEMORY, STRUCTURES AND JOURNEYS WHICH HAVE BEEN COVERED UP

N’arweet Carolyn Brigs AM, Justin Buckley, David Chesworth, Taylor Coyne, Alexis Farr, Laura Harper, Xavier Ho, Ana Lara Heyns, Sonia Leber, Jon McCormack, Marilu Melo Zurita, Oscar Raby

LOCATION
VIC
Rippon Lea Estate, Elstenwick, City of Glen Eira, Melbourne
Boon Wurrung Country

Understanding and working with the deep structure of environments requires a suite of forensic processes. Map-making can garner such intelligence through the careful piecing together of diverse knowledges over time and space. This layered map of the Great Swamp catchment on Melbourne’s eastern edge reveals its dynamic past and underlying waterscape in the context of radical colonial change.

The map does not invent or project; it simply traces and records complexity, superimposing a version from one moment in time over another. This includes markings of explorers, records of subdivision and parish plans and the reconstruction of possible swamp zones, all shown in relation to topographic contours and geological features. The drawing, constructed using GIS technologies, includes archival material from a range of sources with different types of subjectivity overlaid and geo-positioned in relation to ‘official’ contemporary datasets. Further detective work includes recordings, which make ‘natural’ sounds audible by placing hand made microphones in mud on the ground, and enable deep time connection to the ‘material’ of place through the rhythmic patterns of Boonwurrung language.

INDIGENOUS ELDER
N’Arwee’t Professor Carolyn Briggs
AM

CLIENT
National Trust of Australia – Victoria,
Justin Buckley

FUNDING
Australian Heritage Grant
AHGII000002, Rippon Lea
Endowment Fund, The Drain Man

PROJECT LEAD
Laura Harper

RESEARCH TEAM
N’Arwee’t Professor Carolyn Briggs
AM, Justin Buckley, Taylor Coyne,
Alexis Farr, Laura Harper, Ana Lara
Heyns, Maria de Lourdes Melo Zurita,
Jon McCormack

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE AND AR
Oscar Raby

SOUND RECORDING AND COMPOSITION
David Chesworth, Sonia Leber, Taylor
Coyne,

WEB DESIGN
Xavier Ho

IMAGE CREDIT
Laura Harper, Ana Lara Heyns

Explore Further

LEARNING COUNTRY

Ben Cottam on 12 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

LEARNING COUNTRY

MINUTE PORTALS

Jane Caught, Heliotope

LOCATION
various locations
First Nations Country as noted on image

Australia and its architecture tend to transplant ideas of place, form, and seasonality from afar, privileging a Western worldview. This tactic starts to learn place by collecting minute-long video recordings, capturing movement and sound; light interacting with the landscape; glittering spiders’ webs in the sun; breezes over native grasses. They become an archive, reflecting seasonal temporality and recording what actually occurs here across the year, to understand local micro-ecologies, to preserve a memory of Here, before it sustains radical change as our planet warms.

The videos are provocations – where exactly are you standing, gazing, all senses alive, for this minute? Whose traditional lands do you stand on? By what names were it known? What knowledge is embedded in this landscape? What were its cyclical, interconnected constructs? Each piece locates spatial coordinates; time and date stamps – Cartesian markers acting as portals to alternate perspectives. They demand questions that start to reveal both pre-settler experiences as well as the effects of colonisation on First Nations peoples. The act of researching an original place name reveals truth-telling and engenders relationships.

heliotope.com/Learning-Country-Archive

Explore Further

COLLABORATION WITH FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS

Jessie Lewis on 12 May 2023

Back to Open Archive

COLLABORATION WITH FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS

ARTWORK

Breathe for Aboriginal Housing Victoria

LOCATION
VIC
Reservoir
Umarkoo Wayi – Gangu Gulin Country

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which Umarkoo Wayi – Ganbu Guljin stands. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

An important but incredibly difficult mandate, to decolonise architecture, Aboriginal Housing Victoria’s Affordable Housing Project in Melbourne goes some way to re-thinking and re-making the canon of colonial housing typologies. Questioning, dismantling and re- positioning notions of identity, this project attempts to reset the dial on culturally sensitive affordable housing through programming, landscape, collaboration and materiality.

We worked with First Nations artist Tahnee Edwards to enliven the common areas with her artwork.

breathe.com.au/project/ahv-reservoir