Session 71 summary
Jefa is Wail wan Kamilaroi (second largest language group in New South Wales), this is how they locate themselves and centre themselves. Secondly he is a registered architect and he established Greenway Architects back in 1998 and significantly they seek to think about architecture and design practise as being holistic and being integrated offering of design thinking which straddles many different design principle. So, they don’t get caught up in the silos of architecture or interior design, urban design or landscape design- they see them as coming from the same will of creativity and so that is how they have positioned themselves as practioners within a built-in natural environment. Jefa through his works sees a rich opportunity to embed indigenous design thinking into the modes of practise and that is very significant in terms of how they undertake the work that they do. The third pillar of how he contextualises what he does is academic- which always runs parallel to his educational relationship and practise. So, his role currently at the University of Melbourne is in fact to indigenise the curriculum, to imbed indigenous perspectives, sensibilities and knowledge systems into design education which is an important role in contribution in terms of reshaping how people think about design practise. And the final area of focus is advocate and really showcasing the values of indigenous design and importantly often using different groups and networks as a way of prosecuting the value proposition of why indigenous design in fact matters. Within the Australian context there is 67,000 years of continuous connection, they are known to be the oldest living culture on the planet and so over 3,000 generations of continuity of connection, it contextualises the blip in time of the colonial experience compared to the 67,000+ years of connection. There is great innovation and originality in aboriginal thinking and certainly they have contributed remarkably in terms of grooming the landscape for human occupation. There are many firsts that exist in the Australian context- they (indigenous community) were the first architects, 1st hydrologists, 1st ecologists, 1st farmers and in terms of carbon dating and so forth it is demonstrated that arguably they were the first stonemasons and bakers in terms of that continued connection where that trace lineage back to the language groups the tribes the nations that undertook these practices. But the reality in the modern context is that 75% of the indigenous people are urbanised, so it is important to acknowledge that contemporary reimagining of culture is in part of what they do as design practioners. They start to look at those intersection points between the past the present and the future. Yet the reality is, all projects in Australia are built on indigenous lands and it begs the question what does that mean for them as practioners in built-in natural environment and it is a significant question that they are still in many respects grappling with, knowing too in the Australian context they face some serious challenges. A quotation from Ryan Gorrie sums everything up, “if nothing of your culture, history, language or art is visible in the streets, parks and buildings where you live, how can you ever feel welcome there?” this is the challenge for the architects and designers to start to readdress this question and find a way where they can embed indigenous perspectives into the design practise. There has only ever been somewhere in the order of 12 registered indigenous architects of private practise in Australia. So, certainly they are starting from a low base, fortunately there is a large cohort of young people in the Schools of Architecture in Australia now so it is estimated about 80 students across the system which is very encouraging for the future. But there is still a need to start to showcase how they can actually have a voice within that space. Speaking of the challenges; they have had some colonial frontier wars where the colonizers have in many aspects eradicated the indigenous populations. It is certainly seen in recent years is the reckoning of history, the black lives matter movements coming out of the States certainly re-assist the understandings of history and challenge some of the ways which has framed/refrained history. And so ultimately it becomes a mechanism to reassess the role of history and connection and place as part of the way in which people can address and reconcile some of the challenges of the past.
For Jefa, the notion of designing for the country should be broadened and think about how to design for country, with country and of country which is based on a series of principles; relational, reciprocal, restorative, narrative infused, engaging, evocative, empowering and truthful. The first one refers to the shift of the mind-set from a transactional to a relational model, one needs to be reciprocal-share the benefits of when they engage with indigenous voices in a built-in natural environment, one should ideally repair and restore the landscape and ideally start to infuse storytelling and narratives within the execution of their design work, indulge and engage in compelling works, unashamedly contemporary in their re-imaginings of culture becomes evocative and we move beyond what Jefa calls the muralization of culture which somehow becomes a form of exotic plumage that’s grafted on the side of the building and therefore empowers and facilitates the determination and benefit and certainly embeds truth telling- revealing some of the difficult stories that they engage with. One of the mechanisms used to do this is- they benchmark their modes of practise against the International Indigenous Design Charter. This was 10 years in the making with the number of important academics and what they sought to do was to create protocols for culturally responsive design practise where they embed a range of different dimensions. The Charter states; ‘When working on projects involving the representation of indigenous culture communication designers and buyers of design (non-indigenous and indigenous) are expected to adhere to the following 10 points: it should be indigenous led, Self-determined, Community specific, Deep listening, impact of design, Indigenous knowledge, shared knowledge (collaboration, co-creation, procurement), Legal and moral, develop a cultural competency and charter implementation.
So, in the starting of all the projects Greenway undertakes is to do some level of cultural mapping. The first map of Victoria since 1837, it shows a rich ecosystem of wooded landscapes, hills, wetlands and tributary. But there is the super imposition of how people have made change in the ecology- change in the direction of the river- widened it straightened it and certainly affected the natural flow. So, these become important ways to understand a place better. Jefa states that this thinking can be applied regardless of the scale, so the first project he shares is looking at a very small scale which was a commercial development right in the heart of Melbourne in an existing colonial building and what was sought here was a ceremonial space- a space to conduct a traditional ceremony known as the smoking ceremony which welcomes people on to the land in which they are conducting business. There they created a small little intervention with the medieval courtyards setting but the meaning behind is greater than the scale of that intervention. So by creating the fire-pit element in the space, what they enable is for traditional owners to undertake an ancient ceremony practice (smoking ceremony) where essentially the smoke cleanses them and they are invited into the country. What they did in that particular intervention is radiating around the fire pit, they located signs of significance around the people- the traditional owners of Melbourne. It also embeds truth telling because it speaks to some of those challenging stories of colonization stories which has dramatically altered and changed Melbourne. The second project he talks about is the Nebulous Dubai as part of the Australian pavilion as part of expo 2020. What they sought to do there was to encode meaning by the Department Of Foreign Affairs and Trade was ‘can you blame the two cultures?’- with regards to the Emirati culture- create a special space which blends culture and builds connection. There they encoded materials and textures and different interior design elements to speak the story and encode cultural meaning and so by creating an engaging with a number of makers crafts people like indigenous furniture designer Nicole Monks. They crafted a space which shows the ingenuity and the material culture and the sophistication of different techniques in order to illustrate the capacity of making as being an important dimension of design practise. Another small intervention they did was speaking to their workers/ curators of Venice architecture. There they curated a series of projects across Australia and showcase the role of design and also some of their shared challenges around knowledge- the importance of language, the storytelling, conservation and sustainability incurring in place or country. This became a useful way to showcase Australian architecture to the world but understanding that indigenous voice and agency is significant and important and they showcase project with architecture practitioners were grappling with the complexity of how one does in a respectful way and in a way reveal the processes that the architects need to often go on and build those connections and relationships.
Some of their medium scale projects are; a project which relates to a very important Wetland System near the bay of Melbourne Port Vila. That is a place where both aquatic life and avian life is very much protected by the remnant bit of important wetland system but what is quite interesting is to understand that indigenous people have always manipulated the landscape for inhabitation. There is an idea of the interconnection between a natural landscape and modified landscape building upon ancient history. So the project which was done in collaboration with different groups; Grimshaw, McGregore Coxall etc. where they sought to do was a new visitor centre which had research facilities to showcase to the community the importance of sustainability by embedding indigenous knowledge systems as part of the process to better understand and orientate oneself to the wetland system and starting to embed and encode biophilic design principles. So, they started with three core pillars- language, narrative and culture, around what is called indigenous design thinking. The starting premise was to encode language and knowing language which wasn’t written, it was oral history but then starting to look at language in all forms- the architectural language, interior design language, landscape design language and then encode a narrative or a storyline which unifies or reveals some of the histories and connection to the place and then start to amplify and alleviate culture as key to design practise. So, they were certainly inspired by the sight; the sight is a decorated landscape- there was a lot of building rubble on the side- so they sought to be innovative and use some cues from the sight, rich flora to inspire, to think about the design on a range of different levels as a way of demonstrate that they can remediate landscapes in compelling ways. So, they started to across three different layers; they started with the cultural layer where they thought about how they would heal country, how they could learn from the country in a particular to when it comes to learning landscape and how they can nourish country in the future. Then they looked at the ecological layer where they can start to think about using the grassland setting and mounted by using and repurposing the building rubble on sight and then they started to build a biophilic layer as well where they started to build a narrative in terms to the connection with the place in which one experiences a strong connection to an important ecological system. Significantly there is a range of different conditions they were working with. They looked at the environmental classifications of that area and tried to find ways that they can bring to the surface and start to use them as a tool education and knowledge exchange through the art of architectural intervention. Jefa’s next project was a 26 km cultural trial adjacent to a really significant river system known as Plenty River. There his team started to look at the critically to find mechanism whereby they could start to tell story and start to really position a compelling understanding of that place. The way in which they did was to really interrogate the opportunities there across the three bridges. So, they looked at each characteristics of each part of the sight those bridges would be headed and use that as a mechanism to be inspired by country. The colour signifies the opportunity to tell the stories and use interpretive panels to start to communicate the stories as well. So, they looked at places where they could encode colour and texture to the reality and tactility as part of experience of those bridges. But also provided those post points to better connect and orientate and to view the landscape as well. So it became a really important way to understand and appreciate the context and the setting stories that are encoded in all of the places that they traversed.
Large scale project- a project they have been working on for a number of years, its known as the New Student Precinct and it is located on a 2.5 hectares site at the University of Melbourne, the design being to stitch it back into the city and to relocate the beating heart/ the convivial spaces, the food and beverage, the cultural offerings of the university to better align to a new metro system. There, they looked at and engaged first nation’s voices- the indigenous students, staff, leadership in the university and then they met the feedback and insights across different domains by looking at the narrative, design and activation. This provided the evidence base to imbed particular stories, design elements and start to look at that as a way to alleviate their thinking. They always start with cultural mapping to reveal and understand the place because understanding history helps them think about the opportunity and design intervention. So, they were able to validate certain stories like there used to be a sort of ornamental lake and they were able to reveal that to this very day- underneath the campus through the water system of the pot creek lines there is an eel migration that traverses under the campus through the present. This speaks to the resilience of the indigenous people and flora and fauna to still thrive under the concreted metropolis that is Melbourne. This repositions their urban design strategy and they thought about telling this story. They know design can be a powerful influence so they sought to think about broadly around indigenous procurement to empower indigenous enterprising businesses in the supply chain, they thought about foregrounding public art, thought about embedding and encoding object based learnings from the cultural collection of the university. They sought to use these ideas to inform architecture, the urban design the landscape design, the interior design. They know that design cannot do all the work so they sought also to look at the opportunities where they can improve the relationship of indigenous people to the university. They looked for creating ceremonial spaces for fire (fire pits for ceremonial practices) they thought about digital way finding opportunities, the use of language- indigenous languages as well. So this became a comprehensive integrated design way of thinking. Across the 2.5 hectare site they revamped buildings and added 2 new buildings. So this became an overarching large scale intervention within a major university campus.
About the Speaker
Jefa Greenaway
Jefa Greenaway is founding Director of Greenaway Architects, a Senior Lecturer (University of Melbourne)/Honorary Fellow of Design (Deakin University), and a Cultural Ambassador for the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA). He’s championed Indigenous led design thinking for 30 years as a registered architect in NSW/VIC/ACT, as co-founder of Indigenous Architecture + Design Victoria (IADV), as co-author of the award winning International Indigenous Design Charter, as well as being a Regional Ambassador (Oceania) of INDIGO (International Indigenous Design Network). His practice is a founding signatory of Architects Declare Australia, an initiative that seeks to respond to issues related to climate change and biodiversity loss, explored through a diverse array of project work, incorporating educational, commercial, residential, cultural and urban design projects, with recent projects including the award winning Ngarara Place, the Koorie Heritage Trust as well as the Marvel Stadium upgrade, and the Hobsons Bay Wetland Centre. He was also a co-curator of the Australian exhibition at La Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2021 and was recently included in the Qantas 100 Inspiring Australians and was a 2022 inductee into the Design Institute of Australia’s (DIA) ‘Hall of Fame’ signifying an outstanding contribution to Australian design.
