Just About Architecture

This project is predicated on the understanding that indigenous culture is disproportionately unrepresented within the built environment. The tired, cliché response of the Architect as conduit for the synthesis of designing by listening to an indigenous client, subtly disguises systems of class and race segregation that understand the role of the professional as one belonging only to the dominant culture. There are 12000 registered Architects in Australia, less than ten of whom are indigenous. If the profession accurately represented the population, we would have 396 indigenous Architects.

The proposal seeks to understand how we enable a more diverse Architectural profession through the genesis of the Just About Architecture School, a program for people existing in marginalised communities to practice understandings of architecture from their own unique cultural lens.

Notions of Architecture, just about, are explored through a series of design build studio projects that propagate an understanding to the community that architecture has meaning and value beyond what may conventionally be understood. Located on Gertrude St, Fitzroy, the project explores what it means for the practice of architecture to exist on the high street and how we as architects may shift from proposing appropriation to enabling appropriate proposition.