TAKE2
HOUSING DESIGN IN INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA
EDITED BY PAUL MEMMOTT
EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE CATHERINE CHAMBERS
TAKE 2 : Housing Design in Indigenous Australia
Edited by Paul Memmott
Published August 2003
Publisher:
The Royal Australian Institute of Architects
PO Box 2272, Red Hill ACT 2603
ABN 72 000 023 012
ISSN 1447-1167
Design concept and coordination: Michael Phillips, Brisbane
Printing: (To be completed by graphic designer)
Paper Stock: (To be completed by graphic designer)
Copyright in this volume belongs to The Royal Australian Institute of Architects.
Copyright in individual articles remains with the respective authors.
All rights reserved. This publication is copyright. Other than for the purposes of and subject
to the conditions prescribed under the Copyright Act, no part of it may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying
or photocopying, recording or otherwise), now known or hereafter invented, without prior
written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Whilst every care has
been taken in the production of this publication, the authors and The Royal Australian
Institute of Architects accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the information
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
The authors have made every reasonable effort to identify and contact the authors or
owners of copyright in the drawings and photographs included in this book and to attribute
authorship. Where this has not occurred, their authors or owners are invited to contact the
book authors or the publisher.
Title page, detail, A house in an Alice Springs town camp
designed by Mark Savage and Jane Dillon in the mid
1980s. [Photographer: James Ricketson, 1987, AERC
Collection, University of Queensland.]
ii
Watercolour sketch of an Aboriginal village near Mt
Shannon in north-west New South Wales. The function of
the small domes (adjacent to the larger ones) is not
known, but there are two plausible suggestions as to their
use. One is that they were used to store grass seeds and
other staple seeds and grains. The other is that they were
dog kennels. [Source: Sturt, Capt. C. 1849 Narrative of an
Expedition into Central Australia, London: T. and W. Boone,
1849, Vol. 1 facing p.254. Artist: J. H. Le Keux.]
RAIA SISALATION PRIZE
This issue is the second in the recently established RAIA journal series, TAKE. which
celebrates a new direction for the longstanding RAIA Sisalation Prize. Managed by the
Royal Australian Institute of Architects and sponsored by Insulation Solutions, this prize
has been awarded annually since 1956. Over the years it has taken different formats—as
a travel scholarship, as a commission to an author to write a book—and since 2001 as two
separate prizes to an editor and associate contributors of the RAIA architectural journal
series, TAKE.
While retaining its objective to develop and apply architectural knowledge in Australia, a
review of the RAIA Sisalation Prize in 2001 resulted in its restructure into two stages to
make it more attractive to a wider range of potential applicants and to deliver an annual
event. The first stage selects an editor, who as primary prize winner, proposes a theme and
draws together in stage 2 a team of associate contributors to produce a journal volume
featuring an edited collection of papers. The theme of each issue bridges academic and
practice issues in architecture. The RAIA Sisalation Prize is awarded annually and seeks
to further the development of architecture through both the annual publication of the guest
edited journal TAKE and an annual symposium event addressing key issues of the journal
publication.
The RAIA Sisalation Prize is guided by a Steering Committee including practitioners,
academics and a representative of the sponsor, Insulation Solutions. The Steering
Committee is responsible for the overall management of the prize including selection of
the major prizewinner, selection of the journal theme, guidance to the Editor, copy editing,
management of editorial and publication issues and promotion of the prize. The Steering
Committee reports to the RAIA National Education Committee. The RAIA Education Unit
provides management support for the Prize, including the journal publication, and the
RAIA Chapter Manager in the state/territory in which the event is held manages the annual
symposium. The symposium launching this second issue was held in Brisbane,
Queensland in August 2003.
STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Richard Blythe (Chair to March 2003)
University of Tasmania, Member of RAIA National Education Committee
Clare Newton (Chair from April 2003) University of Melbourne
Graham Bell
University of New South Wales
Cameron Chick
Insulation Solutions
Dennis D’Arcy
Insulation Solutions
Antony Moulis
University of Queensland
Robert Riddel
Robert Riddel Architect
James Staughton
Staughton Architects
Julie Willis
University of Melbourne
Heather Woods
RAIA Education Manager
RAIA Queensland Chapter
Judith Gilmore
Chapter Manager
Stephen Earle
Member Services Manager
All enquiries about the RAIA Sisalation Prize should be directed to the RAIA Education
Unit, The Royal Australian Institute of Architects, PO Box 3373, Red Hill, ACT 2603.
A photograph of Meriam men building a house in 1958 on
the island of Mer (or Murray Island), the most easterly of
the Torres Strait Islands. It was built of bamboo and bush
timber, with woven coconut leaf walls. The grassthatched roof was about 2.4 metres high at the ridge of
the gable. Elevated, split bamboo floors were also
utilised, being raised about a metre from ground. Under
the influence of Pacific Islander missionaries around the
turn of the 19th Century, this gable roof design
superseded traditional dome forms. [Photographer: J.
Beckett, University of Sydney.]
Ph: 02 6273 1548; Fax: 02 6273 1953; Email: national@raia.com.au
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Contributor Profiles
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Paul Memmott & Carroll Go-Sam
Synthesizing Indigenous Housing Paradigms: An Introduction to Take 2
12
Julian & Barbara Wigley
Remote conundrums: The changing role of housing in Aboriginal communities
18
Paul Memmott
Customary Aboriginal Behaviour Patterns and Housing Design
26
Jane Dillon and Mark Savage
House Design in Alice Springs Town Camps
1
Su Groome
Designing for the Northern Tropics (or how to avoid mango madness)
1
Paul Pholeros
Housing for health, or designing to get water in and shit out
1
Catherine Keys
Housing Design Principles from a Study of Warlpiri Women’s Jilimi
1
Shaneen Fantin
Yolngu Cultural Imperatives and Housing Design: rumaru, mirriri and galka
1
Philip Kirke
Designing for Spatial Behaviour in the Western Desert
1
Simon Scally
Outstation Design – Lessons from Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation in Arnhem Land
1
Paul Haar
Community Building and Housing Process: Context for Self-Help Housing
1
Geoff Barker
More than a House: Some reflections on working with Indigenous clients on the Housing Process
1
Col James, Angela Pitts and Dillon Kombumerri
Indigenous Housing Design: Social Planning Determinants at Redfern
Bibliography
Part of a discrete urban settlement on the outskirts of a
rural town in the Murdi Paaki region of western New South
Wales in 1999. The 'humpy' survives from a Town Camp
established on a Town Common Reserve in the 1950s. As
part of an ATSIC programme, most humpies have been
replaced by modern houses on elevated platforms to
reduce flooding risks presented by the nearby river.
However the residents had retained a few humpies, partly
for storage and visitor use, but also as symbols of a past
lifestyle era. [Photographer: P. Memmott, AERC, University
of Queensland.]
1
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Paul Memmott
Associate Professor Paul Memmott is an architect and anthropologist with 30 years experience in the field of
Indigenous people-environment relations. He is currently Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research
Centre (AERC) located in the School of Geography, Planning and Architecture at the University of Queensland,
which maintains a national focus on Indigenous housing and settlement research. Memmott is also Principal of
the consulting firm Paul Memmott and Associates (PMA), which is based in Brisbane and operates in close
association with the AERC. The firm specialises in consulting on Aboriginal projects and since 1972 has had a
long track record of involvement in Aboriginal housing practice and research.
Memmott has undertaken numerous projects throughout Australia, ranging from anthropological and cultural
heritage investigations for Indigenous groups, to architectural projects, settlement planning and housing policy
development for government clients. Memmott’s general research interest is the cross-cultural study of the
ethno-environmental relations of Indigenous peoples. He is the author of five books, 90 published papers and
some 200 technical reports for clients ranging from Indigenous organisations, to state and federal governments.
(see www.aboriginalenvironments.com)
Carroll Go-Sam
Carroll Go-Sam is a descendant of the yabulambara and gambilbara Dyirbal people from the Wild, Herbert and
upper Tully River basins, and maintains connections and interests in townships and locations where Dyirbal
people are located. Go-Sam’s Bachelor of Architecture degree was completed in 1997 at the University of
Queensland, and was complimented with studies in anthropology. Go-Sam’s study focused on the issues of
Aboriginal environmental design and culminated in the completion of her final year thesis entitled The Mutitjulu
experiment: a study of decentralised houses by Paul Pholeros, which was awarded the Department’s thesis prize.
Go-Sam has worked for Aboriginal community organisations such as Kambu Progress Association, Tangentyere
Council and Musgrave Park Cultural Centre. She has been employed by various Brisbane architectural firms and
worked on the Bidungu Housing Project, Gregory Crossing, North Queensland. Her professional services range
from project management, architectural design, negotiation with authorities on town planning issues and design
assessment. She also participates in traditional owner organisations such as Budjubulla, Gumbilbara and
Gooliwana Bana, which focus on service delivery for Dyirbal decendants.
Julian and Barbara Wigley
Julian and Barbara Wigley are practising architects who have specialised in community planning, housing
management and building design for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander client groups for the past 31 years.
Their architectural practice specialises in Aboriginal town planning, housing, land negotiation and facilitating
community participation in development projects. They assisted in the establishment of Tangentyere Council in
Alice Springs during their stay in Alice Springs between 1975 and 1979 while working for the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Housing Panel. The Wigleys continued an independent national architectural practice
assisting community clients in northern Australia after the closure of the panel in 1979. They have co-authored a
number of books on housing and housing management.
Jane Dillon and Mark Savage
During the 1980s Jane Dillon and Mark Savage spent eight years in Alice Springs working for Tangentyere
Council, an Aboriginal community council and resource agency that provides architectural and planning services
to Aboriginal communities and organisations within a 600 kilometre radius of Alice Springs. The range of work
conducted by Dillon and Savage was considerable and included housing, schools, clinics, stores, sporting
facilities, art and craft centres, community and childcare centres, offices and media facilities. The nature of their
work in Central Australia provided an understanding of the broader issues surrounding the provision of housing,
infrastructure and other community facilities for Aboriginal groups.
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Dillon and Savage currently run a small architectural practice in Sydney, which has focused on providing
architectural services that require a high degree of community involvement. They have continued to work on a
variety of planning and design projects with a wide range of Aboriginal communities and organisations in many
parts of Australia.
Su Groome
Su Groome is a Cairns based architect and a founding partner of Studio Mango, with over ten years experience
working in Tropical North Queensland. She has worked with Indigenous communities for more than seven years.
Groome’s work with Indigenous communities includes: settlement planning with developing communities; design
of housing, outstation facilities and community buildings; and housing maintenance projects based on the
Housing for Health methodology devised by Healthabitat (see Pholeros below). Her work in Cairns includes a
demonstration sustainable house, designed around passive design principles, and incorporating substantial
renewable power and water conservation components. The Master Builders and Housing Industry Association
gave this house an award.
Groome’s published work includes numerous contributions to the Centre for Appropriate Technology’s Our
House magazine, discussion papers on participatory planning and kitchen design for the Centre for Appropriate
Technology, planning reports for the Port Stewart and Mona Mona communities, a report on the Housing for
Health project in Pormpuraaw and the Your House book for Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Housing. Groome is also a contributor to the National Indigenous Housing Guide.
Paul Pholeros
Paul Pholeros is an architect and has a small architectural practice working on urban, rural and remote area
architectural projects throughout Australia. He is also a co-director of Healthabitat Pty Ltd, in partnership with a
specialist medical doctor and an environmental health professional. For over 17 years, Healthabitat has been
involved in improving the health of Indigenous people by improving their living environments by means of
community projects around Australia.
Cathy Keys
Cathy Keys graduated from the Department of Architecture, University of Queensland in 1993 after completing
a final year thesis concerned with Indigenous birth practices and their implications for architectural design. She
then commenced a doctoral thesis on Warlpiri single women’s camps or jilimi. Over the four years of this research
based in the Warlpiri community of Yuendumu she completed a number of user-needs consultations for the
community. She has tutored and lectured in Aboriginal environments to architecture students and written and
published on aspects of Warlpiri women’s living environments. Keys currently works in the Queensland
Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing.
Shaneen Fantin
Shaneen Fantin has eight years experience working with Aboriginal people on community and housing projects
in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Canada. Between 1997 and 2002 she was consultation and design
architect (with Troppo Architects and Richard Layton and Associates) on seven National Aboriginal Health
Strategy housing and infrastructure projects in the Northern Territory and Queensland. Fantin’s particular
expertise is in cross-cultural consultation and design. Most recently she has worked on the consultation and
design process of the Bwgcolman Youth Space on Palm Island for the Queensland Community Renewal Team.
Fantin has recently submitted her PhD thesis entitled ëHousing Aboriginal culture in northeast Arnhem Land’
which focuses on the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land and the translation of their cultural beliefs and practices into
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architectural design outcomes. She has won numerous grants and awards for her research into Aboriginal
housing design and culture, and has co-authored papers and reports on Yolngu traditional architecture,
Indigenous homelessness and post-occupancy evaluations of Aboriginal Housing in the Northern Territory. Fantin
is currently a lecturer in Design Studio, Remote Area Construction, Architecture and Technology, and History and
Theory in the Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia.
Philip Kirke
Philip Kirke is the Principal Architect of the Western Australian office of GHD. He graduated with an Honours
degree in Architecture from the University of Western Australia in 1988. From 1990 to 1991 he worked in
Manchester in the United Kingdom and was involved in community architecture projects for its inner city West
Indian community. Kirke gained corporate membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects before returning
to Australia. From 1992 to the present time he has been the architect for the major staged development of the
unique multi-cultural Christmas Island District High School. From 1996 to the present time he has been
continuously involved in remote Aboriginal community projects, chiefly in the Western Desert, but also in the
Kimberley, the Great Victoria Desert with the Spinifex peopleand with Western Australia’s wheatbelt Nyoongar
communities.
Kirke has developed an interest in the idea that our own society has become too large and anonymous. A true
culture, that is a culture born of the spirit of man and functioning as a living instrument of that spirit, is nowhere
to be found, except in pockets as micro-cultures. He is currently designing a series of unique houses for local
artists in Perth. These houses have been influenced by his cross-cultural work and with a fresh sense of what is
unique and important in our own micro-cultures.
Simon Scally
Simon Scally graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1987. In 1992, he moved to Darwin and established
Build Up Design Architects. The firm’s focus is the delivery of high quality, culturally appropriate housing, schools,
clinics, community buildings and infrastructure for Aboriginal clients. Build Up Design has received a number of
awards from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ NT Chapter, including the 1994 Institutional Award for
the Bawinanga Womens’ Centres, the 2000 Institutional Award for the Belyuen School and the 2001 Public
Building Award for The Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education study centre at Maningrida.
Paul Haar
Architect, Paul Haar, is a sole practitioner with offices in Melbourne and country Victoria. Much of his work as a
young graduate was focused on researching climate-appropriate design, and the revitalisation of a community
based housing culture amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in remote parts of northern
Australia. Experience in these fields has led him to develop, in his practice design processes and building,
solutions that are guided less by architectural ego and more by the essence of client and community in the
context of a sustainable future. Underlying this thrust is a 28-year grounding in construction management and
trade work, gathered from a broad range of small and medium scale projects.
Haar was born to a migrant family of farmers, engineers and wood craftsmen. Thus his well-known appreciation
of timber in architecture, his attention to detail in construction practice, and his love for community and the land
are easily explained.
Geoff Barker
Geoff Barker has worked with Indigenous communities over a period of approximately 20 years. This period
included eight years with Northern Building Consultants (NBC), an Indigenous owned and directed organisation
operating in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Five of those years were spent
as the organisation’s General Manager. Practical Management and Development (PM+D), which he founded, has
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been the focus of his activity for the last 10 years. The firm has been involved in housing and community facility
design, asset management, and community planning and development projects, as well as major infrastructure
development work and providing assistance to self-build schemes.
Barker’s prime interest is in working with community groups to enable them to integrate their ideas and needs
into an overall project methodology, and then to develop these into a community-based project delivery process.
The intention is to achieve specific project objectives concurrently with a range of community benefits, which can
lead to improved conditions and wellbeing. PM+D’s staff are involved in a range of voluntary activities including
technical advice to Yirra Yaarkin Noongar Theatre in Perth, and membership on the Graham (Polly) Farmer
Foundation Board that funds Indigenous education projects in Western Australia.
Col James
Col James, AM, is a local resident architect/planner who has worked with the Aboriginal Housing Company since
its inception in 1972. James is a graduate of the Universities of NSW, Sydney and Harvard, and director of the
I.B. Fell Housing Research Centre, located in the Faculty of Architecture, at the University of Sydney. He is
committed to the active involvement of university staff and students to support the local Aborigines.
Angela Pitts
Angela Pitts has over ten years experience in urban and regional development working in Africa, the United
Kingdom and the United States of America. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney and
holds Masters degrees in Urban Planning and African Area Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA). Since arriving in Australia, Pitts has worked as a volunteer for the Aboriginal Housing Company as a
social/urban planner on the Pemulwuy Redevelopment Project.
Dillon Kombumerri
Dillon Kombumerri, a Yugumbir man from the Gold Coast, Queensland, is a registered architect with 13 years
experience. He set up Merrima in 1995 within the NSW Government Architect’s Office as a discrete business unit
run by Indigenous design professionals. Kombumerri previously sat on the Aboriginal Housing Company Board
and is currently a director of AISEAN (Australian Indigenous Scientists, Engineers and Architects Network Ltd).
Incorporated in 2001, AISEAN is a national network of Indigenous professionals working in the fields of science,
engineering, architecture and the built environment.
Catherine Chambers (editorial assistant)
As a Senior Research Assistant with the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, University of Queensland,
Chambers has been engaged in a number of cultural heritage, native title claim and site recording projects. She
has co-authored a major published report on violence in Australian Indigenous communities, and a series of
papers on how Indigenous homelessness can be categorised and responded to. Since early 2001, she has been
involved in a Mentoring and Evaluation Program initiated by the Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women
to assist its National Indigenous Family Violence Grants Program recipients.
Chambers graduated from the University of Queensland in 1995, receiving a Bachelor of Architecture with
honours. Her tertiary studies also included an anthropology component. She has worked professionally on
architectural projects within Australia and overseas, including heritage conservation schemes, urban renewal,
convention and conference centre projects, single and multi residences and educational facilities. She was a parttime design tutor at the Queensland University of Technology’s School of Architecture for three years. During
2003, Catherine has been employed as a Research Officer with the Cultural Heritage Branch of Queensland’s
Environment Protection Agency, assisting with maintenance of the state’s Heritage Register
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The collection of specialist knowledge and skills related to the design of housing for Aboriginal Australians
has emerged as an architectural sub-discipline1. One of its chief components centres on how an
understanding of the cultural differences inherent in Aboriginal domiciliary behaviour can inform the design
process. This can be described as the cultural design paradigm. Two other architectural paradigms have
impacted on Aboriginal housing design in recent years; these are the environmental health paradigm and the
housing-as-process philosophy, both of which contribute to its distinctiveness as a field of study and
practice. Reconciling all these approaches within the design process has become a key challenge for
contemporary practitioners.
The cultural design paradigm involves the use of models of culturally distinct behaviour to inform definitions
of Aboriginal housing needs. Its premise is that to competently design appropriate residential
accommodation for Aboriginal people who have traditionally oriented lifestyles, architects must understand
the nature of those lifestyles, particularly in the domiciliary context. This knowledge also increases understanding of the needs of groups who have undergone cultural changes, including those in rural, urban and
metropolitan settings, by helping to identify those aspects of their customary domiciliary behaviour that have
been retained. The approach was adopted by a variety of practitioners in the 1970s and is analysed here in
Take 2. For example, the first essay by Julian and Barbara Wigley, who have 30 years of experience in the
field, starts with a thumbnail sketch of Aboriginal history2, and goes on to outline a series of design
conundrums in Aboriginal housing. It addresses some contradictory cultural needs, a number of which are
considered by later contributors.
Julian Wigley’s work in Alice Springs during the mid-1970s included assisting with the establishment of
Tangentyere Council, an umbrella Aboriginal organisation that now services some 18 or 19 Alice Springs’
town camps. Tangentyere is considered something of a benchmark in Aboriginal housing design and
practice. In the mid-1980s, its architectural department was managed by the Take 2 contributors Jane Dillon
Synthesizing Indigenous Housing Paradigms:
An Introduction to Take 2
its housing stock. He attempted to apply the ‘cultural design paradigm’ to his analysis of the approximately
Paul Memmott & Carroll Go-Sam
120 designs in the Tangentyere portfolio3. It was this early work, and the experience he gained by exposure
and Mark Savage. At this time Paul Memmott was contracted by the council to carry out an evaluation of
to other Central Australian projects throughout the 1990s4, which forms the basis of his essay in Take 2. Jane
Dillon and Mark Savage’s contribution deals with the design approach that developed within Tangentyere
during the 1980s in response to the town campers’ culture. The perspective of the first three papers in the
monograph is, therefore, strongly focused on Central Australia.
Meanwhile the cultural design paradigm has been taught, researched and applied from within the Aboriginal
Environments Research Centre (AERC) at the University of Queensland, of which Memmott is Director5. Two
of the AERC’s doctoral graduates, who are architectural practitioners in their own right, have also
contributed to Take 2 and their work demonstrates elements of this approach at its strongest. Shaneen
Fantin’s paper on Arnhem Land Yolngu people deals with the relationship between housing design, and
avoidance behaviour and sorcery, whilst Catherine Keys’ discussion of women’s domiciliary camps built and
occupied by Warlpiri people of the Northern Territory’s central west extrapolates design strategies related to
their culturally distinct household needs. Their work is complemented by that of Philip Kirke whose essay
considers further issues related to designing for spatial behaviour, as exemplified in his work with the Martu
tribespeople of the Western Desert of Western Australia.
Whereas Dillon and Savage’s paper draws readers into the specifics of tropical, arid-area climatic design,
material choice and detailing, Sue Groome’s contribution provides an overview of these technical design
aspects, which is illustrated by using a number of examples from Australia’s tropical north. These contexts
are characterised by the monsoonal influence and reflect her professional experience with the Centre for
Appropriate Technology6 before she established her own practice in Cairns.
The attention given to technology and detailing by Dillon and Savage, and Groome leads readers into the
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second paradigm: environmental health design. This approach emerged from within Nganampa Health
Assessment for Bush Communities18, again provides case study material on seven Central Australian
Council in Alice Springs, which services the Anangu Pitjantjatjara homelands in the north-west of South
communities, but also contains useful housing design guidelines for that region. Another relevant housing
Australia. Between 1986 and 1987, Nganampa, in conjunction with the South Australian Government,
book, recently published, is Settlement: A History of Australian Indigenous Housing edited by the historian
sponsored a review of environmental and public health in these homelands. The resulting document has
Peter Read. Its themes are strongly focused on history and government policy but not design, even though
become known as the ‘UPK report’7. In it architect Paul Pholeros combined his architectural skills with those
some contributors were architects19.
of Paul Torzillo, a doctor, and Steph Rainow, an anthropologist, to develop an understanding of the critical
relationships between poor Aboriginal health and housing technology performance. A seminal project of a
In selecting contributors for Take 2, we have assembled some general papers that provide an overview of
similarly multi-disciplinary type, involving an architect and a doctor, had been carried out prior to the
housing design principles and strategies being used across the Australian continent. Our apologies to those
Nganampa et al study8. However, the former was the first that systematically isolated and causally linked
colleagues whose housing designs and case studies we have had to unfortunately refrain from including due
complexes of health problems with sets of design features and ranked them in a set of priorities based on
to a lack of space. It is within their important work that one will discover a further range of design solutions
the likelihood of improving health standards. Pholeros, Torzillo and Rainow have produced further books
that emphasise in different ways, the three contemporary paradigms sketched out within the pages of this
about their work, most recently under the logo of Healthabitat, as well as a series of important papers9. Their
monograph.
work culminated in a commission from the Commonwealth, State and Territory Housing Ministers’ Working
Group on Indigenous Housing to prepare The National Indigenous Housing Guide10, and their methodology
has been practically applied through a large-scale ATSIC project entitled, Fixing Houses for Better Health
Project.
Endnotes
Despite some contradictions existing between the design practice guidelines or methods advocated by the
1 In making this statement, we are not suggesting the approaches to Aboriginal housing design that we discuss are somehow
paradigm11, these two approaches
fundamentally different to those adopted in mainstream practice. Indeed, all of the normal principles, methods and precepts
proponents of the cultural design paradigm and the environmental health
can and should be complementary. They lead into a third architectural paradigm: the housing-as-process
apply. But in addition there is a gradually accruing body of knowledge and techniques focused on a range of problems
philosophy, which aims to firmly situate housing design and provision within the broader framework of an
Aboriginal community’s planning goals and cultural practices, as well as its socio-economic structure and
encountered in this field of work, which in combination, if not in their inherent nature, are rather unique.
2 The reader interested in Aboriginal housing history would benefit from perusal of Read, P. (ed.), Settlement: A History of
development. One fundamental aspect of this approach involves design attention being given to the
Australia Indigenous Housing, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2000; Memmott, P., ‘Aboriginal Housing, State of the Art (or
community’s housing management capacities to ensure that all technology is locally sustainable. This
non-State of the Art)’, Architecture Australia, (June 1988): pp.34–47; Memmott, P. (ed.), ‘Aboriginal and Islander Architecture in
subject is introduced in Simon Scally’s essay on outstation architecture in the Top End. A second grass-roots
Queensland’, Special Edition, Queensland Architect: Chapter News and Views, Brisbane: Royal Australian Institute of Architects,
proponent of this philosophy is the architect and builder Paul Haar, who has extensive experience in self-
September 1993; and Wigley, B. & Wigley, J., Black Iron: A History of Aboriginal housing in Northern Australia, Darwin: Northern
help housing projects involving Indigenous Australians and whose essay draws on his experiences at Mt
Territory National Trust, 1993.
3 Memmott, P., ‘The Development of Aboriginal Housing Standards in Central Australia: The Case Study of Tangentyere
Catt, another Top End outstation, and St Pauls in the Torres Strait. (Thus, four contributions in Take 2—
Groome, Fantin, Scally and Haar—focus on northern Australia.) The housing-as-process philosophy is
Council’ in Judd, B. & Bycroft, P. (eds), Evaluating Housing Standards and Performance (Housing Issues 4), Canberra: Royal
considered more systematically as a design methodology in the essay by Geoff Barker12. Finally, the
Australian Institute of Architects, National Education Division, 1989, pp.115–143.
4 For example see Memmott, P., Long, S., Fantin, S. & Eckerman, E., Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Aboriginal Housing in the
integration of social planning and architectural design in the context of a metropolitan setting that has been
rife with drug abuse, violence and police conflict is examined in the paper on Redfern by Col James, Angela
Pitts and Dillon Kombumerri.
N.T. for IHANT: Social Response Component, Brisbane: Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, University of Qld, 2000.
5 Formerly in the Department of Architecture, now the School of Geography, Planning and Architecture. The AERC grew out
Why has this monograph been prepared? Despite the specialist nature of Aboriginal housing design, there
of the Aboriginal Data Archive, which was founded in 1976 by Peter Bycroft and Paul Memmott.
6 Mention of technical design issues and the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CAT) raises the subject of alternate technology,
has not been a book produced that deals with this subject from a broadly architectural perspective, that
as explored and publicised by CAT. The concept originally stems from the design philosophy of its Director, Bruce Walker (1986,
encompasses general principles and contrasting paradigms and that offers examples from around the
1990–91, 1994). It might be argued that alternate technology as it applies to Aboriginal housing and settlement design is another
continent. However, there have been other important books on Aboriginal housing published. The first, A
Black Reality13, collected a series of essays written mainly by anthropologists, which were headed by an
design paradigm; however, in our view, it can be readily examined and analysed within the other paradigms.
7 Nganampa Health Council Inc, South Australian Health Commission, & Aboriginal Health Organization of South Australia,
overview of housing policy completed by the editor. It contributed to the ‘cultural design paradigm’ that was
1987 Report of Uwankara Palyanyku Kanyintjaku: An Environmental and Public Health Review Within the Anangu Pitjantjatjara
emerging in the 1970s through its anthropological documentation of domiciliary behaviour in traditionally
Lands, Alice Springs, December 1987.
8 In Wilcannia in 1974–75, see Memmott, P., Humpy, House and Tin Shed: Aboriginal Settlement History on the Darling River,
oriented camps but, as architects did not write it, it failed to translate its findings into design strategies. Three
successive books, written by architecturally trained authors, did engage in design issues but were largely
case studies of single settlements. These were: Black Out in Alice14 that considered the Mount Nancy Town
Sydney: Ian Buchan Fell Research Centre, Department of Architecture, University of Sydney, 1991, pp.151–154.
9 For example, see Pholeros, P., ‘The Provision of Housing—An Improbably Dream?’ in 1987 Report on Uwankara Palyanku
Camp in Alice Springs; Humpy House and Tin Shed15 that dealt with Wilcannia in western New South Wales;
Kanyintjaku: An Environmental and Public Health Review within the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, Alice Springs, December 1987;
and Housing for Health16 that examined the Pipalytjara people living in the north-west corner of South
Pholeros, P., AP Design Guide, Building for Health on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, Alice Springs: Nganampa Health Council,
Australia. Helen Ross’s 1987 book Just for Living17 is a further example of the case study type, centring on
1990, (Reprinted 1994); Pholeros, P., Rainow, S. & Torzillo, P., Housing for Health: Towards a Healthy Living Environment for
the Aboriginal community at Halls Creek in Western Australia. It was written by a social scientist whose
Aboriginal Australia, Newport Beach, New South Wales: Healthabitat, 1993; and Pholeros, P., Torzillo, P. & Rainow, S., ‘Housing
perspective was essentially one drawn from environmental psychology, and like Heppell’s first book, while
for Health: Principles and Projects, South Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland, 1985–97’ in Read, P. (ed.), Settlement:
it offered important insights into cultural values and behaviour in relation to housing, it did not translate these
A History of Australian Indigenous Housing, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2000.
10 Healthabitat, The National Indigenous Housing Guide: Improving the Living Environment for Safety, Health and Sustainability,
into design strategies that could be readily implemented by architects. A fifth book, Housing Design
14
15
Canberra: Commonwealth, State and Territory Housing Ministers’ Working Group on Indigenous Housing (Australian
Department of Family & Community Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission), 1999.
11 For example, see Shaneen Fantin’s essay in Take 2.
12 One of Geoff Barker’s major contributions to Aboriginal housing has been to facilitate the second sustained integration of an
Indigenous organisation and an architectural service, after Tangentyere. This organisation is known as Northern Building
Consultants (NBC). NBC evolved in the 1980s under different structures, with the duration of Barker’s involvement being from
1984 to 1991. NBC now has two successful independent companies, one operating in the Northern Territory and one in Western
Australia.
13 Heppell, M. (ed.), A Black Reality: Aboriginal Camps and Housing in Remote Australia, Canberra: Australian Institute of
Aboriginal Studies, 1979.
14 Heppell, M. & Wigley, J., Black out in Alice: A History of the Establishment and Development of Town Camps in Alice Springs,
Monograph 26, Canberra: Development Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1981.
15 Memmott, Humpy, House and Tin Shed, 1991.
16 Pholeros et al Rainow & Torzillo, Housing for Health, 1993.
17 Ross, A., Just for Living: Aboriginal Perceptions of Housing in North-west Australia, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1987.
18 Morel, P. & Ross, H., Housing Design Assessment for Bush Communities, Alice Springs: Tangentyere Council, NT
Department of Lands, Housing and Local Government, 1993.
19 See Memmott, Keys, Smith, Pholeros et al, and Haar in Read, (ed.), Settlement, 2000. All except Smith are contributors to
this journal.
16
Above
A typical cross section through a domestic space illustrating the climatic and functional relationships between a
house and related bower shades, windbreaks and other
outdoor facilities. [Source: Wigley, B. & J., ‘Community
Planning Report: Barkly Region’, 1990, p.62.]
Below
An architectural impression of a cook house unit and
bower shades with a timber floor platform located in a
yard space or near a house used during rainy periods.
[Source: Wigley, B. & J., ‘Community Planning Report:
Barkly Region’, Prepared for ATSIC on behalf of the
Jurnkurakurr Aboriginal Resource Centre, 1990, p.58.]
17