Design concepts and processes for public Aboriginal architecture

The authors wrote this paper in an attempt to document and describe how to address the design challenge of a public building which captures and distils Indigenous cultural assumptions, perspectives, connections, and cultural content. Although there is a body of knowledge about Aboriginal vernacular design and meaning, and about related architectural design issues, there is not a good sense of how relevant this collective wisdom is in the context of a public or monumental building. There are also many pitfalls in prescribing something in a domain which is largely uncharted - or indeed of prescribing anything to architects, or on behalf of Aboriginal communities. Questions that are addressed in this paper include:- What might an interested architect want to know about Aboriginal cultures? What are some possible thematic elements and complexes that might lend themselves to architectural form, function and meaning? What are some good and bad examples of previous attempts to design and incorporate Indigenous culture into public buildings? What Aboriginal design issues are most relevant to the design of public architecture