Valuing “Under the House”: Women’s Knowledge and the Architectural History of the Stumped Queensland House
The paper offers a gendered reading of the uses of “under the house” in the raised Queensland house and in contrast to emphasised material and climatic narratives, highlights the value women placed on the everyday use of interstitial housing space under the Queensland house “between the stumps” and beneath the floorboards. There is emphasis on the socio-cultural importance women placed on these informal housing spaces for domestic activities. The paper draws on Australian textual records, re-considers women’s occupation and the implications of this as a rereading of Queensland’s “vernacular” architecture.
Resilience: a Lived Experience
The thesis, Resilience: a Lived Experience, written by Keith Andrew Noble explores agriculture in contemporary Australia with focus on Northern Australia. The thesis acknowledges the importance of seeking out knowledge from farmers with experience and explores how the Situational Awareness, the Ability to Plan, the Ability to Adapt, Social Connectedness and perception of Fairness through a Grounded Theory Approach contributes a new understanding of resilience.
Redefining architecture to accommodate cultural difference: designing for cultural sustainability
The Architectural Science Review piece combines ideas about the nature and interrelation of culture and architecture that have preoccupied researchers at the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre (University of Queensland), analysing the living environments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The article draws a number of examples from the analyses of Aboriginal Australian built environments to illustrate their points.
Mobility of Aboriginal People in Rural and Remote Australia
This research project quantifies and contextualises Aboriginal mobility using case study findings to develop a better understanding of Aboriginal perspectives, experiences of, and aspirations for mobility. The research aims to understand both the depth of attachment of Aboriginal people to their settlement places and the impact of any such changes on their mobility and service needs.
Mapping Indigenous Futures: Decolonising Techno-Colonising Designs
The Mapping Indigenous Futures: Decolonising Techno-Colonising Designs provides a critical interrogation of the consequences of modernity and coloniality, particularly in an Aboriginal Australian context, with focus on the accelerating speed of socio-communicative technological change. The paper provides five provocations that illustrate ways in which the nature of modernity enables socio-communicative technologies to increasingly eliminate groups’ capacities to imagine decolonising being-human. It includes application of learnings surrounding decolonising design modes of listening and comprehending that can contribute to help groups think, talk and map their situatedness and mobilise decolonising options for their own worlds.
Lockhart River Retail Store and Offices
The Retail Store and Offices in Lockhart River is a built project in Far North Queensland. It serves as a commercial space to a remote Aboriginal community with facilities that meet their needs. The design of the space works with Country, taking into consideration the culture, climate and landscape of the area.
‘LIVIN’ THE DJ WAY’: Aboriginal housing and health in Dajarra
The thesis Livin’ The DJ Way: Aboriginal housing and health in Dajarra investigates how
Aboriginal housing could be more culturally responsive. The research primarily aimed to investigate the relationships between the housing and health experiences of Aboriginal people in the western Queensland town of Dajarra. By tracing the history of government housing policy the study identified how housing has affected the health of Aboriginal people in Dajarra and explored the differences and similarities between Aboriginal and Western worldviews. The research further identified health stressors experienced by the Dajarra people in their houses, day-to-day lives and environment, and documented examples of how they adapted their living practices inside and outside the houses.
James Cook University Outdoor Learning Centre
The Indigenous Outdoor Learning Centre (OLC) at JCU’s Douglas Campus is a built project completed in 2014. It’s an educational space designed with an outdoor teaching environment that promotes two way learning of different cultures. The project was built using sustainable practices and Indigenous knowledge.
Indigenizing practice: Maximizing economic benefits
The new health and wellbeing centre in the Aboriginal community of Yarrabah demonstrates the value of projects that engage the local community not only in building design but in ongoing economic opportunities.
Gurra Gurra Framework 2020-2026
The Gurra Gurra Framework 2020–2026 is designed to help The Department of Environment and Science (DES) work in genuine partnership with Queensland’s First Nations people to achieve stronger outcomes for Country and people. It is a framework that has been developed with input from across the department and co-designed with external First Nations leaders in Queensland, to identify and formalise the structure required for change. It works to continue connection to culture and place through better governance and management of Country.