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Jaffa Greenaway will never forget the first time he heard his father’s voice. That was in 2017, when he was watching a documentary about Australia’s Aboriginal people fighting for national constitutional recognition.
“It was poignant and surreal,” Mr. Greenaway recalled. “In a word: emotion.”
In the film, his father Bert Groves, an Aboriginal man born in 1907 and a civil rights activist, recounts how he was denied an education because of his large skull. Falling victim to phrenology, a pseudoscience that lingers in Australia. Entering the 20th century.
Mr Greenaway, 53, was raised in Australia by his German mother after his father died when he was a baby. However, his father’s values - such as defending Aboriginal rights and valuing education – were instilled in the young boy.
Mr Greenaway is one of what he estimates are fewer than 20 registered Aboriginal architects in Australia. He is also a major proponent of “rural-centered design,” which brings an Aboriginal worldview to architectural projects.
“People like Jaffa are rare,” said Peter Salhani, an Australian architecture journalist who has admired Mr. Greenaway’s work in Melbourne for years. Mr. Salhani said his project “definitely represents Indigenous voices — something we need now more than ever.”
For many Aboriginal Australians, the land they were born into or belong to has spiritual importance. When people talk about “country” they are not just referring to the physical land and waterways, but a belief system in which everything is alive, between humans, animals, buildings, plants, rocks, water and air no difference.
One goal of a design approach that embraces this worldview is to reveal what was found on a site before European settlement, and to do so in a way that puts the environment first.
One of the best examples of the Greenaway Project that reflects these values is the amphitheater and plaza that connects the University of Melbourne, where the architect studied, to Swanston Street, considered the urban spine of the city. Mr. Greenaway sat under a small rubber tree and pointed to the mudstone tracery on the amphitheater grounds, which snaked around clusters of native plants and into the building’s interior.
“This represents a creek that was once here,” Mr. Greenaway said. For thousands of years it served as an aquatic highway for migrating eels, which were later channeled into storm drains. Today, eels are occasionally found lost in university ponds, lost while trying to continue their migratory route.
Rural-focused design is no longer an aesthetic, but a different approach to the building process, starting with Aboriginal architects leading projects and working with local Aboriginal communities. Mr Greenaway describes it as “co-design”.
Country-focused design also prioritizes sustainability, seeking to give back to the land rather than take it away. “We’ve always done it this way,” Mr Greenaway said of Aboriginal culture.
Aboriginal Australians fared better in creative fields – from music to visual arts to theater and literature – than in architecture, which Mr Greenaway said remained the “last bastion”.
“There is a residual feeling that architecture is not for us because it is complicit in colonization,” he continued. “Now that we have more voices contributing to the field, over the next few years we will really change ideas about what design and architecture can do for communities.”
A short tram ride from the amphitheater, Mr Greenaway’s first project to test his design ideas was Ngarara Place at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
The first thing people notice is the small size. Ngarara Place consists of a segmented garden bed planted with native plants, with each section representing one of the six to seven seasons observed by the indigenous Kulin people who live in the area. It also features a fire pit for smoking ceremonies, a wooden amphitheater and contemporary Aboriginal art installations.
格林納威先生說,在這片土地的傳統守護者的語言中,“Ngarara”的意思是“聚集”,當在儀式上使用時,甚至當學生們只是坐著時,這個地方就會被“ activation”.
“It’s amazing to me how this little place accelerated interest in these concepts,” Mr. Greenaway said as he browsed the site. “It kind of changed the conversation and had a ripple effect.”
Prior to Ngarara Place, Greenaway Architects, which he founded with his wife Catherine Drosinos, worked almost exclusively on residential projects. Today he is involved in larger public projects, reflecting mainstream Australia’s growing interest in this type of design.
In New South Wales, large infrastructure projects must now consider Indigenous design, and Indigenous design credits are compulsory for Australian architecture degrees.
“We have reached a level of cultural maturity where we can now have these conversations,” Mr Greenaway said.
Asked about the failure of last year’s referendum to give Aboriginal Australians a voice in parliament in the form of an advisory body, Greenaway said there was still reason to be optimistic.
“I’m encouraged that there’s a strong interest in engaging with Aboriginal culture and finding pathways to reconciliation,” he said.
At Melbourne’s central meeting point, Federation Square, stands the Koorie Heritage Trust, a cultural center celebrating the Aboriginal heritage of southeastern Australia. Mr. Greenaway has recently completed the interior renovation of the building, which is divided into three floors. The overhead lighting arrangement reflects Aboriginal astronomy, nearby concrete columns are reminiscent of scar trees, and graphics on the walls symbolize smoking rituals.
Many items in the cultural collection are placed in drawers, inviting people to open them, but information panels are lacking. Mr Greenaway laughed when this seeming omission was pointed out.
“You’re looking at it from a Western way of thinking about what a cultural collection should be,” he said. “This is an invitation to proactively, not passively, come forward and engage in dialogue with museum staff.”
When Mr Greenaway was a student, he was the only Aboriginal person in his class studying architecture at the University of Melbourne. Today, he estimates there are 70 to 80 Aboriginal students studying design and architecture degrees across the country.
Many students know Mr. Greenaway as an approachable mentor.
He co-founded a not-for-profit organization – the Australian Aboriginal Architecture and Design Association – to support Aboriginal careers in design and help them navigate an industry that is still adapting to Aboriginal design thinking. He also recently co-authored the International Indigenous Design Charter, a global blueprint for leveraging Indigenous knowledge in commercial design practice.
His focus on Aboriginal ecology and ancestral narratives made him a pioneer whose projects were “inherently political,” says Alison Page, co-author of First Knowledges Design Co-author of a book discussing Aboriginal architecture in contemporary Australia.
Ms. Page said his approach paved the way for other projects to address historical injustices suffered by Indigenous people and settlers.
“Designing it this way, you start to reveal stories and narratives,” she said. “Some of these may be difficult to face, but they are part of the truth about a place. We are not far away from telling the truth now.”
What’s next for Greenaway Architects It will be the first of its kind in the country: a college specifically designed for Aboriginal students at the University of Technology, Sydney.
The steps of the Temple of Remembrance, the Melbourne War Memorial, offer stunning views of the city. From this perspective, the cityscape is dominated by skyscrapers rising along Victorian avenues, while Mr Greenaway’s scheme sits subtly and intimately at ground level.
Mr Greenaway said his aim was to create places “full of meaning, but never grandiose” and to “embed a layer in Melbourne’s urban fabric that provides agency for Aboriginal people.”
When asked about his future aspirations, he said: “My real hope is that through our practice we have begun to develop new directions around equity in design to ensure that the voices of the voiceless are represented in Australian design practice. ization, but also beyond. It’s only starting now, but we have to keep the momentum going.”
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