I have devoted most of my professional life to exploring how built form influences our social and cultural interactions. As architects, we have a responsibility to ensure that the design of the building reflects the local history of its site; Past, present and future. It should generate a sense of place and purpose that respects all cultural and social groups that have deep ties to the site.
My team and I are proud to use design to educate the community about the delicate relationship between built form and traditional land owners. The preoccupation with globalization and innovation in architecture today means that we often get swept up in the alluring universality of branded projects or “modern projects”. It can be hard to see beyond modernity and “progress”. As a result, the history, narratives and customs of First Nations that have influenced Australian landscapes for thousands of years are often overlooked in the design process. This is something that must be enthusiastically addressed with a culturally intuitive design approach.
Architecture is the art of presenting, not telling. This offers tremendous potential for us to share the important cultural history of our First Nations ancestors. ARM Architecture has spent years developing a co-design process to engage First Nations communities right from day one of the design journey.
Our complex R&D process with First Nations elders, advisors and community members ensures that our designs honor place, culture and language and remind people of what and who our land really stands for.
Our approach to culturally intuitive design begins with listening and extracting the key messages that need to be expressed. What does it mean to be Australian, and to represent the culture in architecture and design? What absences and silences do we need to address? How do we communicate this respectfully and realistically to the wider community?
Wominjeka
Wominjeka is the word for Woi-wurrung, often translated as “welcome”. It was introduced to me by my Aunt Doreen Garvey Wanden, granddaughter of William Barrack for whom ARM designed the Barrack Building in 2015. It is a word that has stuck with me, and has continued to enrich my efforts to understand First Nations culture.
But wominjeka does not literally mean “welcome”. It translates more accurately as “comes with a purpose”; A much stronger definition and reflects the way we should approach intercultural learning. Welcome – what dates, stories and perspectives can we welcome? What is yet to be welcomed that needs to be communicated? After all, architecture can be viewed as a means of finding meaning, a journey of discovery with the ability to enlighten each individual in society.
Good design in this context means adopting a sensitive approach to copyright sharing. For the Barrack Building, we received my Aunt Doreen Garvey Wanden’s blessing for sharing William’s legacy in a meaningful way.
The original site of the Barrack Building was an old brewery at the end of the hub, indicating its locational importance in Melbourne’s historic landscape. William Barrack was a prominent figure who connected two distinct societies, a change-maker that was largely unknown among the colonial societies.
The design of the building evokes the image of Barak, which becomes even more pronounced when viewed from afar. This representation of knowledge, uncertainty, clarity, and confusion, inspired us to integrate the conversation of First Nations history into mainstream society.
There are nuances in the word Wominjeka, and we wanted to express this in many aspects. As we were giving a physical salute to the wider community, we were also saying, “Tide with caution and respect and with eyes and ears open.” Our goal was to encourage people to engage with the stories and narrative inherent in the site, inviting them to discover them beyond the surface level.
Design as a teacher
The design should encourage future generations to understand reconciliation and to share First Nations history with the mix of cultures that Australia has come to represent.
Incorporating and designing First Nations culture into spaces can inspire educational proposals within the architectural findings themselves. Much of our work at ARM is inspired by the collective experience.
The saturation of traditional First Nations stories in the design result adds to the contrast in our sense of identity and place. Therefore, a live design experience is perhaps a more valuable learning tool than anything we can use in a textbook.
Celebrating our complex history is important, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it. We believe this is best achieved by amplifying true representations of First Nations communities and their stories.
Through joint design and consultations with N’Arweet Carolyn Briggs, a senior at Boon Wurrung, we are beginning to better understand how cultural threads intertwine, and how we can express them as a celebration of the Kulin nation.
Together with Caroline, we designed RMIT OurPlace, a learning environment with seventeen different student centers, each evoking the six chapters of Boon Wurrung and other narratives inspired by Caroline’s appreciation for country.
People often understand things in relation to their environment, integrating historical messages through color, art, texture, and words. Integrating education and design exposes end users to culture and storytelling on both the physical and subconscious levels. They are immersed in a multi-sensory experience of First Nations culture across the spaces they participate in every day.
Jesse Judd.
Embedding First Nations culture in Australian schools
First Nations design has strong application in primary schools. It provides an immersive opportunity to educate new generations about First Nations culture on a daily basis.
Our recent teaching work in practice has included co-workshops in the studio with elders, artists and makers of Wathaurong, Boonwurrung and Woi Wurrung.
We embarked on a co-creation process to develop insights and profiles for eight different schools, delving into the geographic, historical, and cultural features of each location. This process was a true result of First Nations-led determination.
On one of the key projects, ARM collaborated with historian, artist, and theurong Barry Gilson, and they involved representatives from the communities in which each of the school’s sites is located. The First Nations-led design process has enriched our vision for each site with site-centric stories, themes, and applications of visual art.
This work is an important example of how culturally intuitive design can be used to nurture a more positive pathway to reconciliation for the next generation in Australia.
Raising the voice of first nations
It is my hope that the relationships we form with First Nations artists, consultants and cultural practitioners will extend beyond our projects, and bear fruit in many other profiling and leadership opportunities in the broader community.
Australia lacks a significant presence of First Nations architects, and I hope that a culturally intuitive and participatory approach to design will begin to set a new direction for the future of our built environment.
It is important to consult with this community, and to make every effort to support conceptual ideas as true representations of the culture. We can cultivate this interest by providing opportunities for artistic expression and educational resources, thus correcting misconceptions about what Australia’s built environment meant to the colonial world.
It’s a sensitive collaborative process, and it goes on to reveal deep insights into the role of art, storytelling and society in First Nations culture, something we don’t know enough about as a group.
There is a yearning for more insightful and truly representative expressions of First Nations culture in Australian architecture, and it has been largely ignored until recently. We should stop regularly and reflect: How can we better educate ourselves about our cultural roots, and share this knowledge with the wider community?
There is a deep history that we need to understand in our practice. It has been a 20-year matchmaking journey with ARM Architecture, and one that continues with almost every one of our projects.
The Uluru Heart Statement expresses this fundamental shift towards more inclusive architectural and design outcomes that reflect our cultural roots. This also speaks to the idea that sovereignty is a spiritual idea, and has not been waived or extinguished.
Our relationship with the ancestral roots of Australia has not disappeared on this earth. It is our collective responsibility to recognize and communicate First Nations culture as it has existed for centuries in this place, which we call home.
Jesse Judd is a director at ARM Architecture. This week, Judd moderated a panel discussion with Australia Build Week Online on the topic of design for culture.