2023

86533_Spatial Agency

  • The Design Studio: 'Aboriginal Housing & Community Infrastructure _ Coonabarabran' is focussed on culturally responsive design, based on the needs of a targeted demographic within the community such as multigenerational households, single-parent families or ageing community members.

    Students will be asked to establish a series of culturally and environmentally responsive design principles for the defined user group, which will be implemented in three complementary housing schemes and a community infrastructure intervention. The designs must be sensitive to the local landscape and support the social and cultural aspirations of the local Aboriginal community.

  • BOMO is the name that the community of Bombaderry fondly call their town. Situated on the Wodi Wodi part of Jerrinja Lands, the area is a diverse mix of coastal, farming, mountain, urban, and industrial landscapes. It is also known to have a painful history since colonial settlement and, even now, the area is experiencing challenges with new people coming to the area from the city to live. The clients of this studio want to build a community learning centre for small groups of all ages to take part in residential based social programs that contribute to local area wellbeing. Responding to the question; ‘Can lost memory of cultural landscapes be restored?’ (Kombumerri) and, under the framing of Government Architect’s ‘Elements of designing with Country’ model, students will engage with the clients and community to develop their concept for an inclusive (universal designed) off-grid, on Country residential community learning centre.

  • Students will work closely with BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation, which is the peak organisation for Aboriginal LGBTQIA, Sistergirl and Brotherboy peoples and communities in NSW. Their need is for a Pride and Culture Centre purposely built for them. The studio will investigate the histories and geographies of Sydney city to propose potential sites of cultural connection for the Centre. Once a site is uncovered, students will design a Pride and Culture Centre and explore a mix of programs that may include offices, a digital hub, training facilities, legal services, health services, healing spaces, commercial enterprises, emergency accommodation and an outdoor gathering space.

  • Partnering with the Weilwan Local Aboriginal Land Council, Place of Galahs is a design studio that explores the capacity of housing to provide health enabling benefits to remote Indigenous communities of Australia. Centred on the town of Gulargambone; meaning ‘place of galahs,’ the site is located on the Castlereagh River between Gilgandra and Coonamble and will explore the transformative potential of architecture to reduce disadvantage among Aboriginal people. Place of Galahs takes a community development approach to design practice enacted through a week long study tour to the NSW central west in Week 6, to work with the Aboriginal communities of Gulargambone to establish their housing and infrastructure requirements. Underpinned by a commitment to participatory design methods, The Place of Galahs studio investigates a range of design processes and techniques in combination with theoretical explorations about place, culture and the environment.

  • Sydney is an ever-densifying, ever-gentrifying, ever-erasing city. Urban Aboriginal Communities need now more than ever, cultural, community and ceremonial space(s) in the heart of Sydney. The Barangaroo Precinct holds a profound responsibility to heal and resurface Country. Where an entire headland has been carved, sliced and developed, Country remains. Embedded within are the memories of Country, and her people. The Cutaway, an urban scar, provides an opportunity to become a premier cultural facility to celebrate and heal Country whilst supporting the worlds oldest living culture and practices. Through connecting with Country and Local Peoples, students will begin to understand the importance of reinstating the character and meaning of Country, designing and offering a place which nurtures and connects to culture.

  • The Bringing Them Home Report says that “at least 100,000” children were forcibly removed from their families, culture and communities between 1910 and 1970s in Australia.

    They are the Stolen Generation.

    Link-Up aims to reunite Aboriginal peoples, their families and communities in NSW to “find it back home; home to family, country, community and culture”. Offering a series of programs and events such as Reunification, Family Link, Redress Scheme and Community Builders.

    Together, students and Link-Up will draw out these events as case studies (and all things required to make them happen) to acknowledge how it comes to be by identifying the spatial requirements, effects, affects, physical and non-tangible interactions in Link-Up’s healing process.

    Students will then share this knowledge by developing a brief for a Community Hub or Connection Place that will inform or determine a future site.

    After an investigation into pre and post colonial histories, geographies on this site, students will be tasked with translating the findings into a design intervention.

    Image: Took The Children Away, Archie Roach & Ruby Hunter (2010)

  • Students are asked to design a series of interconnected safe places for women and their children leaving domestic violence to live, and for domestic and family violence staff to work, located in an existing structure built for Hobart Women’s Shelter in Hobart, Tasmania. Students will collaborate with Hobart Women’s Shelter and University of Tasmania colleagues who will be working simultaneously on proposals for activity and therapy focused spaces, as a participatory design focused exercise. This Studio investigates a range of design processes and techniques in combination with theoretical explorations about gender, culture, psychology, and the environment. A spatial approach to this brief will require an ethical positioning which addresses a diverse social, cultural and political focus. This studio aims to produce outcomes that are humane, fit-for-purpose, sustainable and urgently needed