Designing with Country

Yulendj Weelam—the home of deep knowledge in the Boon Wurrung language. Home—the place where a person feels they belong.

So much of the design of our urban and civic environments ignores the sovereignty of our First Peoples. It ignores the fact that this has been home to those peoples, to their knowledges, practices and culture for in excess of 65,000 years.

How can our built environments better become home to the knowledge and culture of our First Peoples, and one which reflects the deep knowledge of Country? How do we understand our place, and what practices will bring us closer to a home in which we can truly belong?

What's On

Join the Yulendj Weelam Lab for a lively panel discussion about identity and placemaking within our built environments. Hear from elders, design practitioners and knowledge holders as they explore these issues.

In conversation:

—Sophia Pearce (Barkandji weaver & PhD Candidate, RMIT Landscape Architecture Program)

—Beau de Belle (Gamilaraay man, RMIT University's Vice Chancellor's Indigenous Pre-doctoral Research Fellow, Co-leader of the RMIT Architecture & Urban Design, Yulendj Weelam Lab)

Facilitated by:

—Christine Phillips (Eastern Kulin-based non-Indigenous architect, writer and senior lecturer and co-leader of the RMIT Architecture & Urban Design, Yulendj Weelam Lab)

—Jock Gilbert (non-Indigenous landscape architect, writer and lecturer and co-leader of the RMIT Architecture & Urban Design, Yulendj Weelam Lab)

Presented in partnership with Yulendj Weelam Design Research Lab from RMIT's School of Architecture and Urban Design.

RMIT is a Program Partner for this event.