Abstract
Since the 1970s, a number of Australian architects have been considering how non-Indigenous designers can work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to achieve better built environments. A consistent message from this work has been the importance of employing inclusive, respectful, cross-cultural processes that engage the client and end-users, understand the history of the people and place, and share knowledge and expertise in the process.
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Notes
- 1.
Both authors have been participants in this project, Synapse SAIF (Supported Accommodation Innovation Fund) project since its inception. The first author was the lead architect, and Fourmile was a member of the project’s Traditional Owner Reference Group , the project’s design manager (2011–2013) and the landscape designer.
- 2.
‘Traditional Owner ’ is a term used in Australia to describe an Indigenous person who has original or first rights over land. In most urban areas of Australia, traditional ownership is not formally recognised under non-Indigenous Native Title Law as freehold title extinguishes Aboriginal rights to Native Title (Native Title Act 1993).
- 3.
Captain James Cook was a British explorer and navigator who was sent by the British Crown to claim Australia as a territory in 1770. At the time, no legal justification for this was provided, but in subsequent eras the doctrine of terra nullius was used to justify the invasion as having a legal justification. The terra nullius legal fiction was overturned by Mabo vs. Queensland (1992) allowing for the re-establishment of Native Title by Indigenous people over certain tenures of land within Australia.
- 4.
‘Indigenous architecture’ has recently become a widely used and accepted term for a specific field of research and practice. This occurred when the author collaborated with others in the field such as Elizabeth Grant , Kelly Greenop, Rueben Berg and Jefa Greenaway (and later Daniel J. Glenn, Albert L. Refiti and Paul Memmott ) to develop social media and Wikipedia sites to share Indigenous architecture projects in the public domain.
- 5.
- 6.
Yarrabah was established as an Aboriginal reserve in the late 1890s and is located south of Cairns . Mr Fourmile was born and lived in Yarrabah as a small child.
- 7.
A lean-to is a traditional Aboriginal dwelling, made of bark, leaning on an angle and propped up on one edge, to create a triangular-prism-shaped space.
- 8.
A fish trap is a tool used by Aboriginal people to herd and trap fish. Fish traps come in many forms. In this instance, the reference is to fish traps made from cane, woven grasses or palm leaves.
- 9.
In the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia, certain Aboriginal people who distinguished themselves to the non-Aboriginal population were presented with an inscribed metal ‘king’ or ‘breast’ plaques (or gorgets). For more information about gorgets, see National Museum of Australia (2017).
- 10.
- 11.
In this context of anthropology, a moiety is one of two halves of a social or ritual group into which people are divided. In Arnhem Land , people are divided into two moieties: Dhuwa and Yirritja .
- 12.
An Acknowledgement of Country is one method of opening a meeting in Australia that acknowledges and recognises the Indigenous Traditional Owners of the land where the meeting is being held. It aims to pay respect to the Elders of the land, past, present and future.
- 13.
‘Sorry business’ is associated with death in the near or extended family and includes the practice of taking sufficient time associated with preparing, attending and supporting others in Indigenous funerary customs.
- 14.
Queensland Health is the state government statutory body that provides health services in Queensland.
- 15.
A seasonal plant avenue is an avenue of plant species selected to bloom and fruit in succession at different times of the year. Through this successive blooming, it will act as a pneumonic device for some of the residents to reconnect them with the natural environment.
- 16.
This was a requirement to enable staff to have a line of sight to each unit.
- 17.
A story place refers to a place in the natural landscape where an Indigenous Spiritual Ancestor and their history reside.
- 18.
Indigenous avoidance practices relate to specific behaviours or respect between particular kin. Some kinship relationships require people to not see or speak to one another and to not be within close proximity.
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Fantin, S., Fourmile, G.G. (2018). Design in Perspective: Reflections on Intercultural Design Practice in Australia. In: Grant, E., Greenop, K., Refiti, A., Glenn, D. (eds) The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_17
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