User:JOOZLy/Indigenous Architecture

Indigenous Architecture

Australia

Traditional Indigenous Architecture (Ethnoarchitecture)

The traditional or vernacular architecture of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people varied to meet the lifestyle, social organisation, family size, cultural and climatic needs and resources available to each community.

The types of forms varied from dome frameworks made of cane through spinifex-clad arc-shaped structures, to tripod and triangular shelters and elongated, egg-shaped, stone-based structures with a timber frame to pole and platform constructions. Annual base camp structures, whether dome houses in the rainforests of Queensland and Tasmania or stone-based houses in south-eastern Australia, were often designed for use over many years by the same family groups. Different langauge groups had differing names for structures. These included humpy, gunyah (or gunya), goondie, wiltja and wurley (or wurlie).

A 19th-century engraving showing Aboriginal people and humpy.

Until the 20th century, a fallacy existed that Aborigines lacked permanent buildings. Europeans’ early contacts with Indigenous populations led them to misinterpret Aboriginal ways of life. Labelling Aboriginal communities as 'nomadic' allowed early settlers to justify the takeover of traditional lands claiming that they were not inhabited by permanent residents.

Stone engineering was utilised by a number of Indigenous language groups. Complex examples of Aboriginal stone structures come from Western Victoria’s Gunditjmara peoples These builders took utilised basalt rocks around Lake Condah to erect housing and complicated systems of stone weirs, fish and eel traps and gates in water courses creeks. The lava-stone homes had circular stone walls over a metre high and topped with a dome roof made of earth or sod cladding.

Evidence of sophisticated stone engineering has been found in other parts of Australia. As late as 1894, a group of around 500 people still lived in houses near Bessibelle that were constructed out of stone with sod cladding on a timber-framed dome. Nineteenth Century observers also reported flat slab slate-type stone housing in South Australia’s north-east corner. These dome-shaped homes were built on heavy limbs and used clay to fill in the gaps. In New South Wales’ Warringah area, stone shelters were constructed in an elongated egg shape and packed with clay to keep the interior dry.

Indigenous Housing Design

Housing for Indigenous people living in many parts of Australia has been characterised by an acute shortage of dwellings, poor quality construction, and housing stock ill-suited to Indigenous lifestyles and preferences. Rapid population growth, shorter lifetimes for housing stock and rising construction costs have meant that efforts to limit overcrowding and provide healthy living environments for Indigenous people have been difficult for governments to achieve. Indigenous housing design and research is a specialised field within housing studies. There have been two main approaches to the design of Indigenous housing in Australia - Health and Culture.

The cultural design model attempts incorporate understandings of differences in Aboriginal cultural norms into housing design. There a large body of knowledge on Indigenous housing in Australia that promotes the provision and design of housing that supports Indigenous residents’ socio-spatial needs, domilicary behaviours, cultural values and aspirations. The culturally specific needs for Indigenous housing have been identified as major factors in the success of housing and failing to recognise the varying and diverse cultural housing needs of Indigenous peoples have been cited as the reasons for Aboriginal housing failures by academics for a number of decades. Western style housing imposes conditions on Indigenous residents that may hinder the practice of cultural norms. If adjusting to living in a particular house strains relationships, then severe stress on the occupants may result. Ross noted, "Inappropriate housing and town planning have the capacity to disrupt social organisation, the mechanisms for maintaining smooth social relations, and support networks." There are a range of cultural factors which are discussed in the literature. These include designing housing to accommodate aspects of customary behaviour such as avoidance behaviours, household group structures, sleeping and eating behaviours, cultural constructs of crowding and privacy, and responses to death. All of the literature indicates that each housing design should be approached independently to recognise the many Indigenous cultures with various customs exist across Australia.

The health approach to housing design developed as housing is an important factor affecting the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Substandard and badly maintained housing along with non-functioning infrastructure can create serious health risks. The 'Housing for Health' approach developed from observations of the housing factors affecting Aboriginal peoples' health into a methodology for measuring, rating and fixing 'household hardware' deemed essential for health. The approach is based on nine 'healthy housing principles' which are the:

1. ability to wash people (especially children),
2. ability to wash clothes and bedding,
3. removing waste,
4. improving nutrition and food safety,
5. reducing impact of crowding,
6. reducing impact of pests, animals and vermin.
7. controlling dust,
8. temperature control, and
9. reducing trauma.

Contemporary Indigenous Architecture

Defining what is Indigenous architecture in a contemporary context is an on-going debate in some spheres. Many researchers and practitioners note that Indigenous architecture projects are those which are designed for Indigenous clients or projects that imbue Aboriginality through consultation Aboriginal involvement. This latter category may include projects which are designed primarily for non-Indigenous users. Notwithstanding the definition, a range of projects have been designed for, by or with Indigenous users. The application of evidence-based research and consultation has led to museums, courts, cultural centres, keeping houses, prisons, schools and a range of other institutional and residential buildings being designed to meet the varying and differing needs and aspirations of Indigenous users.

Notable Projects include:

• Marika Alderton House (Yirrkala, Northern Territory)
• Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre] (Uluru, Northern Territory)
• Brambuk Cultural Centre (Halls Gap, Victoria)
• Wilcannnia Health Service (Wilcannia, New South Wales)
• Girrawaa Creative Works Centre(Bathurst, New South Wales)
• Achimbun Interpretive and Visitor Information Centre, (Weipa, Queensland)
• Tjulyuru Ngaanyatjarri Cultural and Civic Centre (Warburton, Western Australia)
• Port Augusta Courts Complex (Port Augusta, South Australia)
• Kurongkurl Katitjin Centre for Indigenous Australian Education and Research (Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia)
• Aboriginal Dance Theatre (Redfern, New South Wales)
• Nyinkka-Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre, (Tennant Creek, Northern Territory)
• Karijini National Park Visitors Centre (Pilbara, Western Australia)
• West Kimberley Regional Prison (Derby, Western Australia)
• Djakanimba Pavilions, (Wugularr or Beswick, North Territory)

Indigenous architecture of the 21st century has been enhanced by university-trained Indigenous architects, landscape architects and other design professionals who have incorporated different aspects of traditional Indigenous cultural references and symbolism, fused architecture with ethnoarchitectural styles and pursued various approaches to the questions of identity and architecture.

Prominent Practitioners

• Glenn Murcutt
• Gregory Burgess
• Dillon Kombumerri
• Kevin O'Brien
• Finn Pederson

Prominent Researchers

• Paul Memmott
• Paul Pholeros
• Elizabeth Grant
• Helen Ross

Canada

Prominent Practitioners

• Douglas Cardinal

New Zealand

Early Māori Architecture

The first known dwellings of the ancestors of Māori were based on houses in their Polynesian homelands. In New Zealand these buildings were semi-permanent, as people moved around looking for food sources. Houses had wooden frames covered in reeds or leaves, with mats on earth floors. To help people keep warm, houses were small, with low doors, earth insulation and a fire inside. Around the 15th century communities became bigger and more settled. People built wharepuni – sleeping houses with room for several families, and a front porch. Other buildings included pātaka (storehouses), sometimes decorated with carvings, and kāuta (cooking houses).

Prominent Practitioners

Rewi Thompson

Prominent Practitioners

Diedre Brown

External links

• Australian Institute of Architects (AIA)
• ArchitectureAU - online repository of Architecture Australia, the magazine of the Australian Institute of Architects