Better Integrative Briefing: Country, Community and Cultures

The Collective Environment (bringing together both the natural and constructed) requires diffusing siloed thinking and allowing for a circular process through time where design informs the brief and briefing informs design. To achieve this approach, we can learn a lot from Indigenous ways of thinking. In this guest blog, Marni Reti explains what it means to design with Country.

An Indigenous world view is concentric, not linear. All people and things are a part of Country, inclusive of all things that were and all things that will be – both naturally occurring and constructed by people. Therefore, what we design, what takes up space, becomes a part of the Country it occupies. This is one of the many reasons why we, in Australia, acknowledge Country at every event and encourage everyone to know which Country and whose land we stand on. It also means designers have an inherit responsibility to Country and the communities that it affects.

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Architecture Beyond Buildings: Reframing Sustainable Design

As we become increasingly aware of the need for regenerative design, Jim Gall discusses traditional architectural perspectives of sustainability and the need for architects to re-think design to ensure a more sustainable future.

Image courtesy of Jim Gall.

An overarching problem for now and the future is the design and making of human habitation that can sustain and be sustained by the ecosystems that support it. This makes sense as the way humans can continue to inhabit the Earth.

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To Share or Not to Share

Jacques Chevrant reflects on the need for the Architecture, Environment & Construction Industry to look outwards and learn from other industries to better engage with innovation and knowledge sharing to ensure long-term sustainability.

Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Corporate_greed_octopus.jpg

Reflecting upon the competitive nature of the Architecture, Environment & Construction Industry (AEC), the for-profit organisation residing within has increasingly behaved like a silo. Intellectual property amidst innovation is closely guarded, used as a tool for maximising competitive advantage.

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