Connecting and Designing with Country Notes

Australian Architecture: Influences and History

  • Australian architecture is influenced by cultural, environmental, and socio-political forces.
  • Early architecture was dominated by British and European styles like Georgian, Victorian, and Federation, ignoring the Australian context (Goad & Willis, 2012).
  • Colonial planning prioritized rectilinear layouts and zoning laws, focusing on extractive economies.

Grid Systems

  • Hoddle Grid: The layout of Melbourne, Victoria, established in 1837 by surveyor Robert Hoddle as the first formal town plan.

Pros of Grid Systems

  • Grid lines are intersecting streets in a regular pattern with evenly sized allotments and occasional parks.
  • Purpose: To provide a structured and organized urban environment and ease navigation.
  • Impact: Contributed to the rapid expansion and systematic growth of Australian cities, influencing future urban planning principles.

Grid Systems Legacy

  • Disruption of Natural Landscapes: Ignores natural topography, leading to leveling and reshaping of terrain, disrupting ecosystems, causing soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and habitat alteration.
  • Increased Impermeable Surfaces: Results in more roads, sidewalks, and buildings, preventing water infiltration, increasing flood risks, causing water pollution, and reducing groundwater recharge.
  • Heat Island Effect: Dense concentration of roads and buildings can make cities significantly warmer, exacerbating climate change and affecting residents' health.
  • Lack of Green Spaces: Prioritizes land use for residential or commercial purposes over green spaces, impacting environmental and social well-being.
  • Inflexibility to Local Context: Does not respond to the unique environmental and cultural context, leading to homogenization of urban spaces and disrespect for local ecosystems, cultural heritage, and Indigenous knowledge.
  • Increased Car Dependency: Prioritizes roads over pedestrian or cycling paths, encouraging car-dependent urban sprawl, contributing to air pollution, traffic congestion, and higher carbon emissions.
  • Overuse of Resources: Increased demand for construction materials, water, and energy can strain local environments, impacting long-term sustainability.

Climate and Geography

  • Australia's climate (harsh sun, bushfire risk, coastal exposure) requires focus on passive cooling, shading, and durable materials.
  • Regional modernism and climate-responsive architecture emerged mid-20th century, encouraging adaptations like wide eaves, elevated floors, and cross-ventilation (Hyde, 2000).

Architectural Styles

  • Colonial (1800s, 1849)
  • Victorian (1850-1901)
  • Federation Edwardian (1890s-1920s)
  • Art Deco (1930s, 1930-1939)
  • Late Edwardian/Californian Bungalow (1915-1930)
  • Post War (1940s, 1940-1949)
  • Modern (1950 - Present)

Global Sameness in Cities

  • Globalization of Design and Construction Practices: Widespread adoption of international standardized styles leads to uniformity, prioritizing efficiency over local uniqueness.
  • Standardization of Building Materials and Techniques: Use of prefabricated materials and modular construction promotes uniformity.
  • Influence of International Corporations and Brands: Multinational corporations introduce standardized storefronts worldwide.
  • Technological Advancements: CAD and BIM software streamline design, favoring standardized solutions.
  • Economic Factors and Cost Efficiency: Developers favor cost-effective, replicable designs, lacking obligation to the environment.

Australia's Unique Identity

  • Australia’s diverse landscape includes arid deserts, rainforests, coastal plains, and mountains.
  • A strong sense of identity helps individuals connect with Country, fostering belonging and pride.
  • Social Cohesion: Promotes mutual respect and unity in multicultural and First Nations contexts.
  • Healing from Historical Injustice: Supports truth-telling, cultural survival, and intergenerational healing.
  • Environmental and Cultural Stewardship: Promotes responsibility for caring for land, water, and cultural heritage, aligning with Indigenous principles of sustainability.

Connecting with Country: Frameworks

  • Connecting with Country Framework (NSW Government Architect, 2020): Encourages built environment professionals to consider how their work can enable cultural continuity, ecological care, and spiritual connection with Country, moving beyond standard consultation toward Country-centred practice.
  • National Standards and Professional Competencies (AACA, 2021): Requires registered architects to demonstrate understanding of First Nations peoples' connections to Country, embedding this shift into national practice. Design literacy must now include cultural literacy, recognising that Country has agency and design decisions impact intergenerational wellbeing.
  • Connecting with Country Framework (NSW Government): Project managers should incorporate this framework early in scoping, stakeholder engagement, and throughout all project phases.
  • Infrastructure Australia’s Sustainability Principles: Project managers must demonstrate place-based, culturally relevant practices in funding and planning proposals.
  • Green Star – Design & As Built Rating Tool (Green Building Council of Australia): Construction managers can earn project credits by integrating Indigenous perspectives and engaging with Traditional Custodians.
  • Local Government and State Planning Policies:
    • Victoria: Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2006
    • Queensland: Cultural Heritage Duty of Care Guidelines
    • Western Australia: Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021
    • Relevance: Compliance with cultural heritage protection is required in early project planning and risk assessment stages.

Case Studies

  • Connection to Country Reference Imagery: Materiality of Country can be drawn into design, like the Indigenous Centre of Excellence. Joinery and wall finishes express the identity of place through materials like Blackbutt and Spotted Gum Timber, soil references, locally sourced aggregate mix to concrete and clay to bricks, and physical references to Country.
  • Designing with Country Case Study Definition: Application of insights gained through connecting with Country into the planning, design, and delivery of built and natural environments. It translates cultural, ecological, and place-based knowledge into regenerative design strategies that protect nature..
    • Focus Area: Sydney – Hospital in NSW
      • Embedding Indigenous worldviews and narratives into the design process
      • Co-designing with Aboriginal communities
      • Using materials, forms, and systems that reflect Country’s needs
      • Responding to landscape, climate, and ecological systems
      • Creating places that foster belonging, healing, and continuity

Connecting with Country: Key Concepts

  • Knowing: Knowing the rhythms of Country – place sensing
  • Observing: Observing seasonal cycles and change – place seeing
  • Feeling: Feeling the memory embedded in land – place remembering
  • Moving: Moving in harmony with terrain and time – place walking
  • Learning: Learning from Elders and kin – place teaching
  • Creating: Creating with respect for land and all living/non-living – place making
  • Speaking: Speaking language of place – place voicing (dual naming)
  • Resting: Resting in silence and spirit – place stilling

Connecting with Country: Core Principles

  • Definition: Grounded in reciprocal care—if we care for Country, Country will care for us.
  • Focus Areas:
    • Cultural protocols, stories, and ancestral knowledge
    • Relationships with Elders, Traditional Custodians, and Community
    • Understanding Country as a living entity with its own agency
    • Slowing down to listen, observe, and reflect
    • Prioritising care, respect, and responsibility

The Importance of Indigenous Architects

  • There are only a handful of Aboriginal architects in Australia; Jefa Greenaway is working to change that.

Eco-Friendly Construction

  • Eco-friendly construction involves sustainable practices that promote resource conservation, minimize waste, and reduce the carbon footprint.

Sustainability

  • Sustainability = Keeping Country healthy, focusing on environment, society, and economy.

Sustainable Construction

  • Sustainable construction is environmentally conscious of the material, design, process, and sustainability of the structure and the effect it has on the environment.

Sustainable Practices:

  • Optimizing Site Potential
  • Sustainable Energy Use in Buildings
  • Protect and Conserve Water
  • Optimizing Material Usage and Building Space
  • Effective Operational and Maintenance Practices
  • Enhancing Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)

Connecting and Designing with Country: Sustainable Practices

  • Deep Listening to Country (Cultural and Ecological Assessment)
  • Designing with Natural Systems
  • Use of Local and Natural Materials
  • Regenerative Landscaping and Biodiversity Protection
  • Embedding Indigenous Cultural Narratives
  • Water and Fire as Living Systems
  • Ongoing Governance and Custodianship
  • Minimising Disturbance and Honouring Sacred Sites

Sustainable Design

  • Sustainable design reduces the negative environmental impacts caused by humans and our construction industry in both the present and the future.

Country and Wellbeing

  • Country is not owned — it is lived with, spoken to, respected, and cared for. The wellbeing of people is inseparable from the wellbeing of Country (Jackson & Barber, 2013).
  • For Indigenous peoples, identity is formed through relationships with Country. Every hill, river, and tree holds significance — they are relatives, not resources.
  • This understanding challenges Western design paradigms that separate people from nature and extract from land rather than live in reciprocity with it.

Historical Context

  • Colonial invasion disrupted the profound relationships that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples held with Country. Forced removal of people from their lands, along with the suppression of language, ceremony, and lore, led to cultural disconnection and dispossession (Watson, 2009).
  • Colonial planning and architecture imposed Eurocentric frameworks that viewed land as a commodity rather than a relative, ignoring the deep cultural and spiritual responsibilities held by Indigenous peoples.

Contemporary Relevance

  • Reconnecting with Country is not just a cultural imperative — it’s an ecological and social one. Embedding Indigenous knowledges into the built environment can heal relationships with land and community. It fosters reconciliation, strengthens cultural identity, and offers pathways to climate resilience and sustainability (Neale & Kelly, 2020).
  • Designing with Country is a practical and symbolic act of reparation — one that supports the cultural integrity of place and challenges the ongoing legacies of colonisation in planning and construction.

Paradigm Shift

  • Connecting with Country is more than design inspiration — it is a paradigm shift that acknowledges Country as a teacher, client, and collaborator (Government Architect NSW, 2020).
  • By embedding Indigenous worldviews into contemporary practice, we not only enrich our design outcomes but contribute to cultural revitalisation, climate resilience, and social justice.

Benefits of Integrating Indigenous Knowledge

  • Cultural Enrichment: Designs that reflect Indigenous narratives and aesthetics.
  • Environmental Sustainability: Utilizing traditional ecological knowledge for sustainable practices.
  • Social Cohesion: Fostering inclusive spaces that respect diverse histories and identities.

Venice Architecture Biennale 2023: 'Home'

  • Australia was represented by an all-Indigenous creative team for the first time.
  • The exhibition, titled ‘Home’, was led by architects Jefa Greenaway (Wailwan/Kamilaroi) and Sarah Lynn Rees (Palawa), alongside writer and curator Tony Albert (Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku Yalanji) and creative director Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora Nation).
  • Their work was grounded in Indigenous philosophies of place-making, narrative, and cultural responsibility (Greenaway, 2023).
  • 'Home' took the form of a rammed-earth installation, constructed using soil collected from over 20 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations across Australia. The use of earth as a medium was a deliberate reference to both environmental sustainability and the deep cultural and spiritual connections Indigenous peoples have with land.
  • This exhibition challenged the Eurocentric paradigms of architectural representation. Rather than presenting a blueprint or static model, ‘Home’ embodied a living narrative of Country — highlighting Indigenous sovereignty, kinship, and belonging. It showed the world how Country can be both subject and co-author in design, not merely a site for intervention (The Guardian, 2023).
  • The structure was disassembled and the materials were returned to the Nations they came from— a powerful act of respect and reciprocity in line with Indigenous cultural protocols. This circular process of giving and returning underscores a key value of Designing with Country: that materials have agency, and that Country must be cared for throughout a project’s life cycle (Rees, 2023).
  • This project exemplifies how Indigenous-led architecture can redefine sustainability, not just in ecological terms, but through relationships — with people, land, and ancestors. ‘Home’ is not a metaphor, but a declaration: Indigenous knowledge systems are not alternatives — they are necessary foundations for reimagining our shared futures.

Authentic Engagement

  • One of the key challenges in Designing with Country is ensuring authentic and ongoing engagement with Indigenous communities. Too often, consultation is treated as a checkbox — brief, extractive, and occurring too late in the process. Authentic engagement requires early involvement, respect for cultural protocols, and relationship-building over time. It’s about co-creating, not just consulting (Walker et al., 2021).

Avoiding Tokenism

  • Designing with Country must be more than surface-level aesthetics or symbolic gestures. True integration of Indigenous knowledge systems involves embedding philosophies, values, and processes into every stage of design — not just decorative elements like totems or patterns (Neale & Kelly, 2020). Tokenism risks misrepresenting culture and undermining trust. To avoid this, practitioners must take the time to understand the story of place, the custodianship of land, and the cultural permissions required for representation.

Capacity Building

  • Supporting Indigenous representation within the built environment professions is vital. This means training, mentoring, and creating space for Indigenous voices in architecture, planning, and construction sectors. Without this, the burden of engagement often falls on a few individuals. Capacity building also includes empowering non-Indigenous professionals to work ethically with Country and community, guided by Indigenous leadership (Taylor, 2023).

Core Concept: Designing with Country

  • Designing with Country is not just a methodology — it's a relational philosophy. It asks architects, planners, and developers to place Country at the centre of all decision-making processes. This means designing in ways that respond to the land's cultural, ecological, and spiritual dimensions — not just its physical terrain (Government Architect NSW, 2020). It challenges the conventional view of land as a blank site for development and instead respects it as a living system with memory, meaning, and law.

Core Principles

  • Deep Listening (Dadirri): As described by Elder Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr, Dadirri is a form of deep, contemplative listening — a respectful stillness that allows one to hear the stories and rhythms of Country and community. In practice, this means taking time to build relationships with Elders and knowledge holders, not rushing consultation, and allowing for cultural protocols to guide the process.
  • Respect: Respect is about honouring Indigenous cultural knowledge as equally valid and authoritative. This includes respecting Traditional Custodians' decisions on what can and cannot be shared, and ensuring designs are aligned with local protocols, stories, and custodianship responsibilities (Yunkaporta, 2019).
  • Collaboration: Designing with Country is not something done for Indigenous people but with them. It requires Indigenous leadership, not just participation. This collaboration must be continuous — from concept through to construction and ongoing management (Taylor, 2023).