Heart Spirit Home:
Creating culturally safe aged care for Aboriginal Elders

Kate McMahon & Rob Nerlich

Studio Description

The need for culturally safe homes for Aboriginal Elders has never been more urgent! How can architecture create living places for First Nations Elders that embeds them in community and Culture, connects them with Country and fosters agency.

The studio will investigate ways that architecture can interweave culturally and climatically responsive design, tectonics, topologies, and forms to anchor memory and enrich Aboriginal Elders housing communities.

This studio will involve listening to understand cultural needs of Aboriginal Elders as well as physical challenges that older persons face, in an attempt to provide housing that enhances independence and provides culturally safe spaces that foster community. Technical and care aspects will need be managed to enhance living. How can the provision of culturally appropriate social, communal, and intergenerational spaces enhance the lives of Aboriginal Elders?

The site will require deep investigation of the urban and environmental context, engaging with Indigenous design responses and designing with Country.

Studio Outcomes

Cultural and social justice issues explored will include how architecture can contribute to the creation of culturally safe, dignified and delightful places for Aboriginal Elders to live.

A sensitive response to site will be developed through investigation of climate, topography, orientation, landscape and urban characteristics with a focus on Country and First Nations Knowledges. Students will learn to interpret data to gain understanding of the setting. Projects will need to respond sensitively to care for Country.

Students will be challenged to learn about Indigenous understandings of Country through engagement and research, and to understand how these relate to the community of residents.

Iterative massing studies will be undertaken before detailed planning to understand site potential and urban realm design opportunities.

Environmentally sustainable design will be explored appropriate to the location and orientation of the site. Operational and embodied carbon will be considered, and methodologies explored to guide construction techniques and material selections.

Studio Leader/s

Kate McMahon is a registered architect in Victoria and the United Kingdom and is an experienced Studio Leader in the Master of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. Kate is a co-founding director of mcmahon and nerlich architects a design and research led small practice in South Melbourne. Having worked extensively on a wide range of education and residential buildings here and in the UK, Kate designs iteratively using 3d spatial explorations including a combination of physical and digital modelling, and is interested in how quality design can enrich communities.

Rob Nerlich is a registered architect in Victoria and is an experienced Studio Leader in the Master of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. Rob is a co-founding director of mcmahon and nerlich architects. With considerable experience in projects across many scales, here in Australia and abroad, Rob is interested in housing in all its forms - from individual houses to inner urban apartments and believes that all members of society deserve a dignified and appropriate place to live.

Readings & References:

Alison Page and Paul Memmot – Design, Building on Country

Daniele Hromek (Guest ed.), Dossier - What can non indigenous designers do? Architecture Australia - July 2023.

Yim Eng Ng, Country, Family, Kin and Community; Architectural considerations for indigenous aged care in Architecture Australia, September 2021.

Robert McCarter and Juhani Pallasmaa – Understanding Architecture.

Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture.

Christian Norberg- Schulz – Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture.

Rachel Hurst, St Albans Housing , NMBW Architecture Studio with Monash Art, Design and Architecture in Architecture Australia, May/April 2022.

Schored, Monash University, XYX Lab Gender+Place, A Design Guide for Older Women’s Housing.

Schedule:
Thursdays 3:15-9:15pm in MSD 140 

ABPL90437 Design Studio C is an early-start subject. The ballot is held online at the beginning of O-week, opening on Monday 19 February and closing the morning of Tuesday 20 February. There is some preparatory online work to be completed during the week. Teaching begins with an all day, in person, compulsory Symposium on Friday 23 February.



Off-Site Activities:
Melbourne metropolitan site inspection (location TBC)

Contact Handbook