space laboratory for architectural
research and design
  "Indigenous
Environment Forum", April 2005. Organised by Prof Steffen Lehmann
and Peter Hedley. Participants included: Adj Prof Paul Pholeros, Dr Victor
Hart, Kevin O'Brien, Richard Kirk, Mark Newman, Tom Murray, and Elders
from the Community. |
This multi-disciplinary Forum on the cultural expression of created environments for Indigenous people will facilitate collaboration within QUT between various disciplines, faculties and interest groups, with other Universities and the design professions in Australia.
The Forum will create a debate on:
Various exemplars of the built environment and Aboriginality will be explored to help show better ways and understanding some of these issues.
This Forum will seek to draw upon interests in built environment, history, cultural geography, art history, film, sociology, etc. In doing so, we aim to explore how the Australian landscape and the notion of ‘place’ and ‘identity’ filter and shape the way we understand and interact with the built environment.
The Forum is on the cultural expression of created environments for Indigenous people in Australia. Some of the themes to be explored will be:
Open Forum Debate (from 2.35pm to 3.35pm)
Academic staff from QUT’s School of Design, from the Creative Industries Faculty and from other institutions will engage in the open discussion of the Forum, including:
Professor Greg Hearn, Associate Professor Jill Franz, Associate Professor Paul Memmott, Adjunct Professor Paul Pholeros, Dr. Gary MacLennan, Associate Professor Vesna Popovic, Associate Professor Phil Heywood, Professor Steffen Lehmann, Dr. Doug Baker, Dr. Dianne Smith, Dr. Anoma Kumarasuriyar, Victor Hart, Peter Hedley, Richard Kirk, Kevin O’Brien, Michael Bond, Leeanne Enoch, Tom Murray, Dennis Hardy, Mark Newman, Brett Leavy, Stephen Long, Paul Sanders, Jack Williamson, and others.
Organised by Professor Steffen Lehmann and Peter Hedley, QUT School of Design, in collaboration with Creative Industries Faculty and Oodgeroo Unit
Opening and Introductory Remarks
9.00am – 9.10am Welcome by Professor Steffen Lehmann and Peter Hedley (QUT)
9.10am–9.15am Opening by Leeanne Enoch, Senior Indigenous Policy Officer (BCC)
Session I (speaker 40 min. + discuss 10 min.) chaired by Dennis Hardy
9.15am – 10.05am Associate Professor Paul Memmott, Director of Aboriginal Environments Research Centre (UQ)
10.05am – 10.55am Mr Kevin O’Brien, Merrima Design Architects (Brisbane)
10.55am – 11.10am Morning Tea Break (offered for free to all participants). Didgeridoo music.
Session II (speaker 40 min. + discuss 10 min.) chaired by Leeanne Enoch
11.10am – 12.00pm Mr Victor Hart, Oodgeroo Unit (QUT)
12.00pm – 12.50pm Mr Richard Kirk, Richard Kirk Architects (Brisbane)
12.50pm – 1.40pm Lunch Break
Session III (speaker 40 min. + discuss 10 min.) chaired by Associate Professor Jill Franz
1.45pm – 2.35pm Adjunct Professor Paul Pholeros, Architect (Sydney)
2.35pm – 3.35pm Open Forum Debate and Conclusion Summary by Associate Professor Jill Franz (QUT)
3.35pm – 4.00pm Mr Tom Murray, Film Maker (Sydney)
4.00pm – 4.15pm Afternoon Tea Break (offered for free to all participants)
Films
4.15pm – 4.30pm Film screening: ‘Cherbourg up to the 50s’ (2003), short b/w film about the built environment of the township; by Mark Newman, Creative Industries (15 mins. film)
4.35pm – 5.30pm Film screening: ‘Dhakiyarr vs. the King’ (2004), documentary film about the Yolngu clan leader Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda who faced murder conviction, and the tragic meeting between white and black law in 1933 Northern Australia; by Tom Murray (56 mins. film). Winner of the 2004 Prize for Most Outstanding Film at Sydney Film Festival Dendy Awards.
5.30pm -6.00pm Followed by discussion about the films presented
Associate Professor Paul Memmott
An architect and social anthropologist, Paul is the Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, at The University of Queensland. He specialises in cross-cultural studies of people-environment relations. Research interests encompass architectural anthropology, Aboriginal housing and settlement design, Aboriginal access to institutional architecture, Indigenous constructs of place and Cultural Heritage, vernacular architecture and Native Title, action research on Indigenous homelessness and violence. He also operates a research consultancy practice on Aboriginal projects to remote and urban Aboriginal groups in six States.
Mr Kevin O’Brien
Kevin is one of the collaborative group of three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander designers, know as Merrima Design. Formed in 1995, is the first of its kind in Australia. Merrima is concerned with creating living, breathing buildings that are as adaptive as our culture. Like our bodies, they are tools for living and express our cultural identity to the wider community. Kevin runs the Brisbane office and is currently completing his Masters of Philosophy at the University of Queensland.
Mr Victor Hart
Victor Hart was born in Hopevale, Cape York, and is a Thiitharr Warra, Yiithu Warra traditional owner from this region. He is a Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community School in Acacia Ridge, as well as being the Manager of QUT's Oodgeroo Unit and has taught and written within the field of Indigenous studies in universities for over a decade. Victor has recently been involved in the Queensland Stolen Wages campaign.
Mrs Leeanne Enoch
Leeanne Enoch is Senior Indigenous Policy Officer, Social Policy of Brisbane City Council.
Mr Richard Kirk
Richard is the Director of Richard Kirk Architects, established in 1995. RKA has established itself as a leading practice in the provision of architectural design services and it regularly receives peer recognition for design excellence in the form of RAIA Awards. Completed projects include numerous housing projects for public entities, commercial buildings, schools, interiors, redevelopment projects, detached dwellings, and master planning. Current projects include the Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Musgrave Park which will be completed as part of the Millennium Arts Program.
Mr Tom Murray
Tom Murray is a freelance film-maker, writer, and broadcaster. A graduate in Politics and Geography from Sydney University, he has written and produced feature documentaries for ABC Radio National and JJJ, and essays for International literary magazines. His debut documentary film ‘Dhakiyarr vs the King’ won the 2004 Dendy Awards Most Outstanding Film prize at the Sydney Film Festival. Tom has also produced educational videos, CD ROMs, and web-based teaching aids, as well as three documentaries in North East Arnhem Land, and remote-area documentary projects, eg. in the Simpson and Strezlecki Deserts of central Australia.
Adjunct Professor Paul Pholeros
Paul Pholeros is an architect and runs a practice in Sydney. He is also director of HealthHabitat and Adjunct Associate Professor in the faculties of Architecture and Health Sciences at the University of Sydney. He has worked nationally and internationally on Indigenous housing and health issues and improving the living environment since 1985.
Associate Professor Jill Franz
Dr Franz is Associate Professor in the School of Design and design research leader in the Faculty of Built Environment & Engineering, QUT. Her current research reflects interest in several areas including person-environment studies, collaborative practice, design methodology, design teaching and learning, and creative practice as research. In terms of the latter, she is presently undertaking projects which integrate art, philosophy and design through visual media practices such as painting. She is also editor of the IDEA Journal.
Professor Greg Hearn
Greg Hearn is Professor of Media and Communication and acting Director in the Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre at QUT. Over the last ten years, his research has focused on the future cultural impacts of the internet for organisations and communities. He is a Director of the Youth Internet Radio Network an online media site linking remote and urban communities.
Mr Mark Newman
After studying filmmaking in Paris, Mark returned to his native South Africa in the early 80’s where he worked in the film and television industries. After this, he worked in London, before coming back to South Africa in 1994, where he produced and directed numerous documentaries, talk shows and dramas. In 2001 he immigrated to Brisbane where he works as a film-maker, community media producer and academic, since 2004 as Senior Research Fellow in CIRAC – the Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre of QUT. His main area of research is in the field of Digital Media as a tool for community advancement, eg. working in Cherbourg, and recently on a similar project in Woorabinda.
Mr Dennis Hardy
Dennis Hardy is an Industrial Design Lecturer at QUT. He studied and practiced product design in the UK until 1975 when he moved to Austrialia. Since then he has practiced as a design educator establishing the Industrial Design profession in Queensland. In 1980 he became President of the Queensland Chapter of the Design Institute of Australia and later he worked with the Queensland Department of Fair Trading in Infant Safety, and the Cherbourg meat industry establishing design links between indigenous workers and food processing.
Professor Steffen Lehmann
Dr Lehmann is Professor and Chair of Architecture in the School of Design at QUT. Prior to his appointment in 2003, he worked fifteen years as a practising architect, ten of those years with his own, award-winning practice in Berlin. From 1988 to 1993 he worked in London and Tokyo with renowned architects. Steffen has designed and built a wide range of projects, published several books and a substantial number of articles. He is also a founding member of s_Lab space Laboratory for architectural Research and Design (www.slab.com.au).
Mr Peter Hedley
Peter Hedley is a Senior Lecturer at QUT in the School of Design. Since completing his first degree is in Architecture, he has deliberately set out to develop a broadly based philosophy through his studies in Education, Urban Studies, and a Master in Social Ecology. Peter has a fascination with Eastern philosophies, mysticism, and culture, coupled with abiding interest in designing with people in mind, and believes our built environment should satisfy the physical, psychological and cultural needs of their occupants.
Uni/RAIA Lecture 
Indigenous