Conferences & Keynotes

  • A saturation of images has constructed dominant, popularized representations of space that are often controlled by “Western” media and government agencies. Thus, images have come to play a fundamental role – alongside literary texts and oral testimonies – in the representation of architecture and the city. In a world populated by the visual, the naturalization of the consumption of images warrants interrogation. In Eyewitnessing: The Use of Images as Historical Evidence, historian Peter Burke advocates for the need for plurality: for images to be placed in “context,” better yet, “in a series of contexts in the plural,” and/or studied within a series of images (p.187). Images are not pure documents, they crop, erase and reveal information and their implications hold different values across time. Operating in plural allows for the re-contextualization of time and place, allowing authors and audiences to see in new ways, challenge silenced, hegemonic, or dominant narratives of architecture and the city. More than ever before, it is necessary to critically reflect on the visual as narrative practice through a deeper engagement with the role images play alongside other sources.

    Methods of recording, collecting and assembling knowledge through visual practice has a long history and has played a critical role in the production of urban histories throughout the twentieth century. Situating this practice, the paper first discusses an oeuvre of historical and contemporary precedents from Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas to Geoffrey Farmer’s Leaves of Grass. These precedents trace alternative histories of everyday life through images, content and spatial arrangement. Subsequently, this paper usees two case studies from the Indo-Pacific Atlas – a large-scale photographic installation – to demonstrate how images are used to reveal counter-narratives on the city. As a result, operating in the plural yields non-chronological and non-hegemonic constructions of urban realities in Beirut and Medellin.

    Burke, J. (2014). Eyewitnessing: The Use of Images As Historical Evidence. London: Reaktion Books.

    Image caption:

    ​​The Indo-Pacific Atlas comprises four case studies that constitute a new reading of the region. The projects are Immaterial Company Towns by Gonzalo Valiente; Cape Town: Youtube Gentrification by Kane Pham; The Urbanism of Al Jazeera by Endriana Audisho; and Medellin A Tale of Two Cities by Christina Deluchi. Overseen by Urtzi Grau and photographed by Jack Dunbar. Photograph by Jack Dunbar.

  • Scenario-based participatory drawing (SBPD) and the dynamic potential of informal space

    Participatory design is often promoted as an inclusive, open-ended, and fluid methodology for giving voice to marginalised and underrepresented user groups.[1] Within an Aboriginal design context in Australia, participatory design acknowledges the complex socio-political milieu and cultural differences; there is an implied responsibility to address social, cultural, political, and economic challenges within architectural design processes. Reflecting on a series of participatory workshops undertaken within the evaluation of an Aboriginal housing program within the Indigenous community of Wreck Bay, Australia, this paper explores the potential of Scenario-Based Participatory Drawing (SBPD) to identify the dynamic potential of informal spaces relevant to culturally responsive architectural design outcomes. The research draws on methods developed by Farley et al. in ‘The House Game’, which asked residents to draw a plan of their house while describing the “interactional politics of the household”[2] (Farley et al). Aligning with the assertion that ‘Informality carries missions of the gathering of people and reacts to the needs of the local communities,’ within an Aboriginal context, conversations about daily practices and cultural events such as Easter, Christmas, Weddings and Funerals and the use of informal and alternative spaces promoted residents to reflect on their familial and household relationships as well as different modes of gathering indicating the user’s housing needs. Adapting Paul Memmotts Cultural Design Paradigm as an analytical framework, this paper evaluates the capacity of Scenario-Based Participatory Drawing as a technique to identify the tangible and intangible use of informal spaces to inform design principles for new models of culturally responsive Aboriginal housing outcomes.

  • Towards Aboriginal home ownership? Implications of subdivision with discrete Aboriginal communities of Australia

    Discrete Aboriginal communities in Australia were originally established as missions and reserves under government policy that forcibly removed Aboriginal people from their traditional lands. Ongoing compensatory land claims, in recognition of Aboriginal land rights, have resulted in the transfer of title of these former missions and reserves to Aboriginal people.

    Focused on two recent programs to subdivide Aboriginal lands in the communities of Jervis Bay Territory and New South Wales, this paper explores the implications, advantages, and disadvantages of subdividing community lands within remote Aboriginal communities of Australia.