Aboriginal yards in remote Australia: Adapting landscapes for Indigenous housing

The Adapting landscapes for Indigenous housing paper draws on data from a qualitative climate change study with Australian Aboriginal people in the remote areas of Queensland and regional studies to explore ways that yards can enhance thermal performance around conventional housing. The paper explores how living spaces outside of the house continue to be overlooked and under-utilised despite evidence of appropriate housing designs. Further, Aboriginal people have modified their behaviour and made changes to their external living environments, often without sufficient resources, to achieve social and cultural continuity as well as energy efficiency.

Aboriginal Living Conditions and Response Paradigms

In this article, Lester Thompson, a lecturer in School of Human Services at Queensland University of Technology and associate of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, University of Queensland, discusses Aboriginal living conditions and how policy has failed them. Through his examination of where policy has failed, Lester Thompson presents a case study of living conditions in Katherine, NT highlighting how government assistance during a catastrophic flood event led to dislocation of Aboriginal people.