The Indigenous cultural knowledges co-designing campuses

Australia’s social and cultural evolution is expressed through its university campus landscapes, which have become increasingly significant as a means to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which these campuses have been built.

The western ‘tradition’ of cloisters and lawns is becoming less inscribed in campus landscapes, and a belated acknowledgement of Australia’s Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders has seen universities recognise their potential agency for reconciliation.

The establishment of schools or centres of Indigenous studies has played an important role in the reconnective process, and meaningful forms of engagement have involved mapping of traditional and historical Indigenous cultural landscapes of campus sites.

Nearly two-thirds of Australian universities today have some form of representation or interpretation of Indigeneity on at least one of their campuses and, of these, 50 per cent identified specific involvement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

A historical tipping point appears to have been reached, with diverse initiatives now in evidence.

Attempts to engage with Indigenous culture within campus environs occur through yarning circles and spaces for congregation and participation, the involvement of Indigenous people in the design and creation of gardens and cultural walks, and the interpretation of Indigenous histories of sites through landscape-related studies and interpretive signage or art.

One of the initial expressions was Beth Gott’s Indigenous plant garden, first established at Monash University in 1985.

Another early Aboriginal garden is the Riawunna Centre for Aboriginal Education garden at the University of Tasmania’s Newnham campus, in Launceston, designed by landscape architects Sinatra Murphy with Urban Initiatives, and completed in association with Peter Elliott Architects in 2000.

The design and construction of the Riawunna cultural garden had input from Aboriginal community members, students and stakeholders who shared their cultural knowledges.

The garden features Tasmanian Aboriginal plants and stone in various forms, including ‘Guardian stones’ along with shell grit, field stones and dolerite boulders collected from within lutruwita (Tasmania) that represent the nine Aboriginal nations of lutruwita, showcasing the diverse landscapes.

Indigenous interpretations of site permeate a vast array of new work, often stemming from meaning derived from Aboriginal place names.

At the University of Melbourne, ‘Wominjeka’ – the Woi-Wurrung word for welcome – is manifest in an annual ceremony that acknowledges the Woi-Wurrung (anglicised ‘Wurundjeri’) people’s Elders, past and present.

The word adorns the campus’s Grattan Street entrance.

The University’s Student Precinct Project was designed by a consortium led by Lyons and had its landscape designed by ASPECT Studios and GLAS Landscape Architects.

These designs are a product of engagement with Indigenous knowledge across a broad stakeholder group, including local Elders and Indigenous staff and students (collectively representing forty-five different language groups), and managed via Indigenous architect Jefa Greenaway of Greenaway Architects, and with Greenshoot Consulting.

The scheme is based around symbolically ‘daylighting’ the now subterranean Bouverie Creek, and interpreting Indigenous associations with the land, like eel migration, that remarkably still occur amid a largely obliterated pre-colonial landscape.

The unfolding dialogue between Indigenous space and universities is raising expectations and making non-Indigenous Australia more aware and accountable, seemingly in all situations.

Deep within RMIT’s CBD campus of lanes and tightly packed spaces, where any ostensible reminder of a pre-colonial landscape is concealed, lies Ngarara Place.

Designed by an all Indigenous team – led by Jefa Greenaway (Wailwan and Gamilaraay) in collaboration with Charles Solomon (Gubbi Gubbi and Monero/Ngarigo, landscape design) and Aroha Groves (Weiwan and Gomeroi, artwork) – Ngarara Place signifies Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders’ culture and history as manifest on the lands of the Kulin Nation and their custodians, the Woi-Wurrung and Boon Wurrung people.

As Jefa Greenaway puts it, the meeting place expresses connection to Country and knowledge exchange and attempts to “give voice to a[n expanding] constellation of Indigenous moments in the city”.

It includes a purpose-built fire pit for annual smoke ceremonies, an event that sensorially reaches students and staff, and marks city space in a unique and memorable way.

Australian universities harbour a wealth of designed landscapes, both historic and contemporary, and provide a tangible record of evolving social, cultural and intellectual values.

Campuses have served as sites for experimentation, often in concert with an emerging environmental ethos dating back to the 1960s.

That early consciousness saw environmental values expressed botanically, then ecologically, and later, sustainably. From the whole-of-campus planting schemes to the selective and fine-grained enhancement of campus environments, many early decisions in planting have contributed essential qualities to campus landscapes today.

In the face of resource depletion and changing climatic conditions, the ethos of managing the campus as a holistic environment is required now more than ever.

The knowledge contained within campuses represents great hope.

Together with the vital recognition and engagement of the Indigenous custodians of the land on which universities were built, campus landscapes are charting a new course, remaking places in new ways, yet also drawing on thousands of years of knowledge.

As universities increasingly engage with their cities and environs, the campus is fast becoming a catalyst for broader change.

This is an edited extract from the chapter titled ‘Charting Landscape: Identity and Ethos’ within the book Campus: Building Modern Australian Universities (2023), edited by Associate Professor Andrew Saniga and Professor Robert Freestone.

Banner: Eel migration route, University of Melbourne Student Precinct. Picture: Teddy Bujor