MATERIALITY Archives - Unsettling Queenstown

ARCHAEOLOGY AS DESIGN INSPIRATION

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

ARCHAEOLOGY AS DESIGN INSPIRATION

A CULTURAL MATERIAL REPOSITORY EXPLORING ARCHAEOLOGICAL FORM

Phillips/Pilkington Architects

LOCATION
VIC
Breakaway Creek
Gunditjmara Country

This project redresses colonial development by re- homing ‘stolen’ Gunditjmara artefacts and supporting an economic future for the Gunditjmara. Gunditjmara have occupied the area around Tae Rak for millennia with many ‘re-homed’ in the former Lake Condah Mission. Archaeological research and investigations underpinned our design.

An archaeological dig was undertaken to assist in the location of the building, avoiding disturbance of any pre- contact or mission remains, with the preservation of both vital. We reviewed a significant body of archaeological and historical research. Dr Paul Memmott’s book, Gunyah Goondie + Wurley (UQP, 2007) was an inspiration, with an 1840 drawing of a Gunditjmara village and conjectural sketches of dwellings based on remnant circular walls found in archaeological excavations, led by Dr Heather Builth.

These traditional Gunditjmara dwellings are located on the Budj Bim lava flow, which occurred around 30,000 years ago. The circular Keeping Place with a base constructed of volcanic field stone and domed timber roof form evokes these traditional walls, repudiating the notion that Australia’s First Peoples did not build lasting structures.

phillipspilkington.com.au/projects/cultural/

gunditjmirring.com

CLIENT
Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation Inc. RNTBC

ARCHITECT
Phillips/Pilkington Architects

ENGINEERS
PM Design (all disciplines)

QUANTITY SURVEYOR
Heinrich Consulting

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Viesturs Cielens design

CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT PLAN
Context in Association with Extent Heritage Advisors

BUILDER
AW Nicholson

PHOTOGRAPHER
Terry Hope Photography

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RETURNING CULTURAL MATERIAL TO COUNTRY

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

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RETURNING CULTURAL MATERIAL TO COUNTRY

LINKING FIRST NATIONS' CULTURE, HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE

Phillips/Pilkington Architects

LOCATION
VIC
Breakaway Creek
Gunditjmara Country

The Keeping Place & Business Centre redresses corrosive colonial actions by re-homing ‘stolen’ cultural artefacts and supporting an on-going Gunditjmara economic future. Gunditjmara have occupied the area around Tae Rak (Lake Condah) for millennia with many eventually ‘re-homed’

in the former Lake Condah Mission, where this project is located. The Lake Condah possum skin cloak, ‘collected’ in 1872 and displayed in the Melbourne Museum is the focus of the cultural repository. These cloaks provided weather protection but were also intimately linked with a person’s life story and connection to Country, recorded in designs on the cloak. The museum-grade repository also houses spears, recently excavated stone tools and eel traps.

The design of the Keeping Place promotes connection to Country through the use of the circular plan and the domed roof, together with volcanic rock and timber, all traditional forms and materials of the Gunditjmara, which provide a story-telling link with the possum skin cloak. The project continues Gunditjmara care of Country, being self-sufficient, independent of all power and water needs.

phillipspilkington.com.au/projects/cultural/

gunditjmirring.com

CLIENT
Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation Inc. RNTBC

ARCHITECT
Phillips/Pilkington Architects

ENGINEERS
PM Design (all disciplines)

QUANTITY SURVEYOR
Heinrich Consulting

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Viesturs Cielens design

CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT PLAN
Context in Association with Extent Heritage Advisors

BUILDER
AW Nicholson

PHOTOGRAPHER
Terry Hope Photography

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MAKING WITH

Ben Cottam on 16 May 2023

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MAKING WITH

CONTINUING THE EXISTING THROUGH THE NEW

NMBW Architecture Studio

LOCATION
VIC
Flinders, Westernport
Warn-ma-in, Boon Wurrung

Making with is an attitude and approach to working with the existing and place. It denotes an acceptance of working with the given as a starting point to create something new. Making with brings the processes of designing and making together, and includes acts of careful taking away, rearranging, and patching. The stages typically called demolition and construction are not bounded and separate, rather they occur in a richer syncopation, not necessarily one before the other, or without detail design relationship and possible ambiguity between the two.

The original Flinders house was built by a fisherman and his daughter, later two fish shop rooms facing the street were added to the front of the house. The connection of the original house to the place through its fishing family history is drawn through the making of the new project. The outcome is a continuity of siting, materiality and colour of the original house and outbuilding in the new volumes. The blue colours come from the colours of the existing house, in their original and faded forms, the red and white colours from the fish shop blind.

nmbw.com.au

CLIENT
Mairéad McMahon

ARCHITECT
NMBW Architecture Studio

BUILDER
McMahon + UTRI

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Phyland Consulting

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UNSETTLING GROUND

Ben Cottam on 16 May 2023

UNSETTLING GROUND

NURTURING AND INVITING IN

NMBW Architecture Studio + Openwork

LOCATION
VIC
Richmond, Melbourne
Naarm, Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

We ask how we can relate to the ground as active and remember what lies dormant.

While much historical and contemporary urban practice is based upon an approach of ‘settling’ of ground, the Richmond factory conversion is an urban ‘unsettling’ of ground. This two-story brick building is a former factory filling the extent of its site. Taking away is a significant part of the project. A large cut-out is made in the existing continuous ground floor concrete slab, exposing the ground. A cut-out in the first level slab above and new large skylights bring natural light down to the ground.

Material taken away is rearranged and reused. Decisions around reuse consider the capacity for materials to be in relationship with and catalysts for the conditions of the wellbeing of the ground and plant growth. The holes in the concrete slabs, made through both coring and cutting of the concrete, make circular and square blocks of concrete that will be rearranged into stacks to support plants and create microclimates for the plants to erode, trespass, and grow out of the rubble and waste of the building.

nmbw.com.au

CLIENT
Tripple

ARCHITECT
NMBW Architecture Studio

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
Openwork

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
FORM Engineers

BUILDER
Never Stop Group

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Subtraction

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

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SUBTRACTION

CUTTING THROUGH THE COLONIAL

Nervegna Reed Architecture (Anna Nervegna + Toby Reed)

LOCATION
VIC
1 Neill Street Maryborough
Dja Dja Wurrung

Subtraction is the act of cutting through colonial architecture in order to reveal and open up space for multiple viewpoints, readings, experiences, histories and stories. Subtracting and erasing (tactics also used by colonialism to opposite ends) can be used as ways of investigating and provoking new heightened and inclusive visual and spatial experiences. The tactic of Subtraction can literally cut through the colonial architectural order, opening up dynamic ruptures in the historic order, while encouraging multiple perspectives, viewpoints and program possibilities.

In the Wartaka (coming together with purpose) we discussed this strategy (and the others) with the Djandak and Djaara Members design team. We discussed the idea of, rather than performing a ‘normal’ historic reconstruction of the building back to its 19th century state (and ideology), we would slice through the building, subtracting elements, to reveal and create spaces which connect cultures, multiple ideologies, beliefs, histories and stories: a system of design tactics which reveals new, multiple truths in the spaces (and unsettle the notion of a single dominant colonial ideology).

This process created building cuts and subtractions through the existing building and produced new horizontal spaces through the gallery to the Dja Dja Wurrung Indigenous interpretive sculpture garden and its stories of fire and water, and vertically through the truss structure towards the bell tower, opening up a perspective never before seen, and not part of the original colonial design intention.

nervegna-reed.com.au/projects/cgag

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Nervegna Reed Architecture

INDIGENOUS SCULPTURE GARDEN DESIGN
Dja Dja Wurrung Aboriginal Corporation and Three Acres Landscape Architecture

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Cutting Spatial Channels

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

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CUTTING SPATIAL CHANNELS

ERODING THE COLONIAL SPATIAL SYSTEM

Nervegna Reed Architecture (Anna Nervegna + Toby Reed)

LOCATION
VIC
1 Neill Street Maryborough
Dja Dja Wurrung Country

This tactic involves cutting and overlaying spatial connections through existing architectural space, opening up the spaces to allow for multiple perspectives. The colonial system is eroded, yielding new levels of enquiry and consciousness and allowing space for multiple, alternate histories, stories and viewpoints which are permanently linked to place and Country.

The space within the channels is treated as form or ‘space-objects’ within existing built fabric. These channels collide and cross in complex ways reflecting the dual cultures of the colonial and the Indigenous. This erodes the ideology of the existing, effecting ruptures in the spatial system and thereby its attached ideology. Eroding the existing colonial architectural form encourages acknowledgement, enquiry and perception. The tactic allows for the suppressed but enduring link to place and Dja Dja Wurrung Country, via the spatial channel connections to the Indigenous Interpretive Garden, which explores the themes of fire and water.

nervegna-reed.com.au/projects/cgag

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Nervegna Reed Architecture

INDIGENOUS SCULPTURE GARDEN DESIGN
Dja Dja Wurrung Aboriginal Corporation and Three Acres Landscape Architecture

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ERASURE

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

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ERASURE

REALMstudios

LOCATION
VIC
East Melbourne
Wurundjeri

The primary physical act was the removal of boundaries, both physical and conceptual, that segregated the drainage easement from surrounding ecologies, both human and natural. This included the deconstruction of the trapezoidal concrete drainage channel; once this dangerous canyon was removed, fences separating the corridor from surrounding residential neighbourhoods could also be removed.

realmstudios.com/channel-naturalisation

PROJECT TEAM
REALMstudios, Alluvium Consulting, E2DesignLab

CLIENT
Melbourne Water

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PURGE

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

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PURGE

Sibling Architecture

LOCATION
VIC
Preston, City of Darebin
Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country

The adaptive reuse of heritage buildings inevitably means confronting past histories and architectural ambitions that challenge how we occupy space today. It remains a fundamentally important strategy within Architecture to re-use, salvage and strategically appropriate existing conditions in a world of finite resources.

The tactic of Purge is used to negotiate the challenging intersection of past material histories that are encountered via adaptive reuse. Purge deliberately strips away colonial-era fabric of the existing architecture in order to provide agnostic spaces that are welcoming and accessible to all.

The Darebin Intercultural Centre project employed this purge tactic – negotiating the interior of the significant colonial-era civic building through a deliberate material purge of the original internal building fabric.

This reset took advantage of the lack of heritage controls of the interior, deliberately stripping away the ornate hard plaster decorations throughout the spaces. These decorative elements are reproductions of an idealised European form of nature, essentially colonial-era signs and symbols.

However, the colonial-era building is also a manifestation of people’s labour, energy, and resources and materials from Country. These buildings and spaces invariably remain an important asset for the community that shouldn’t be erased, but purged of colonial symbols to be sensitive toward the diverse user group and respectful to traditional owners.

siblingarchitecture.com/projects/darebin-intercultural-centre/

CONTRIBUTORS
John Tanner
Nicholas Braun
Amelia Borg
Lauren Crocket

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Un-building

Jessie Lewis on 16 May 2023

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UN-BUILDING

ENOUGHNESS

Aileen Sage Architects with Dr Danièle Hromek Of Djinjama, Jean Rice Architect, Dr Noni Boyd and the City of Sydney

LOCATION
NSW
Redfern
Gadi Country

Recognising that the existing building is constructed from materials of the Country on which it is sited, we acknowledge that these materials continue to hold stories and significance.

Recycled materials make use of what has already been taken from Country, rather than taking more. Local Sydney sandstone, dark and light bricks made from clay are exposed, reused and retained, recognised and valued. Clay earth, dug out for new structural piers, has been reserved for interpretation and artworks to be made with community members.

The additions carefully consider their materiality and composition, and the effects that light and water will have over these materials over time.

‘Un-building’ allows layers of material, wrought from Country, to be revealed. We seek to acknowledge what is ‘enough’, utilising existing resources and only taking more if necessary.

aileensage.com/publiccommercial#/redfern-community-facility/

PROJECT TEAM
Aileen Sage Architects with Dr Danièle Hromek of Djinjama
Jean Rice Architect
Dr Noni Boyd and the City of Sydney

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IDENTITY BRICKS

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

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IDENTITY BRICKS

SYMBOL OF RECIPROCITY AND MUTUAL EXCHANGE

University of Melbourne with Lyons, NMBW Architecture and Jefa Greenaway

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

Permanently embedded into the structural columns of a heritage building within the Student Precinct, Identity Bricks serve as creative recognition of this site as an Indigenous place with a continuing and diverse First Nations presence.

The Identity Bricks Project invited Indigenous students, staff and alumni to share and embed their cultural stories and journeys in a permanent installation on campus – they symbolise reciprocity and mutual exchange related to working on Wurundjeri Country. Through this exchange, participants acknowledge the gifts they have received from Country and its custodians, and gifted something of their story, Country or community in return.

Identity Bricks is a culmination of the combined efforts of the Architectural team, Murrup Barak Melbourne Institute of Indigenous Development, Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development and the wider Indigenous community at the University of Melbourne.

students.unimelb.edu.au/student-precinct/gallery/identity-bricks

PRECINCT LEAD ARCHITECT
Lyons

BUILDING ARCHITECT
NMBW Architecture

CULTURAL STRATEGY
Jefa Greenaway

ART CURATOR
University of Melbourne

ARTIST
Eucalyptus leaves – Charlie Miller, Kanolu and Gangulu

CONTRACTOR
Kane Constructions