‘Acknowledging that a site belongs to a specific Country on a particular part of this continent enables us to draw inspiration, ideas and opportunities directly from that place and the people who belong to it.’ With the ‘Designing with Country’ approach, architect Kevin O’Brien (BVN Architecture) encourages Australian architects to incorporate indigenous cultural practices into the design of their projects. For ‘A’A’, the architect looks back at his design method, through the presentation of two of the agency’s flagship projects: the Lockhart River Store and the Cape York Partnerships offices, which aspire to reconcile the built environment and First Nations cultures.

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10 February 2025
Kevin O’Brien, architect at BVN Architecture

Between 2012 and 2016 the completion of two architectural projects within First Nations communities in different tropical locations of Far North Queensland, Australia revealed nuanced considerations that heavily influenced the architecture. The resulting architecture was responsive to culture, tropical climatic conditions, and the practicalities of building in remote and regional locations prone to wet seasons.

The first project, a community retail store and community offices in Lockhart River (12.7861° S, 143.3419° E) required observance of traditional cultural practices together with awareness of the remote nature of the location to inform the construction process. The community in Lockhart River practice the traditional custom of familial avoidance, where, for example, a husband must avoid his wife’s sister(s), and a wife must avoid her husband’s brother(s). This gets difficult when a building, like a retail store, has one single secure entrance for the community. The design addressed this behaviour through the provision of a verandah extending into an extensive shaded landscape-come-community space, that allows community members to self-organize and ensure discrete surveillance of the front door from comfortably shaded positions. Shade in this tropical climate is a necessity, exploring the opportunity of it to resolve a cultural condition is one example of the responsive nature of the design.

The second project, a commercial office in Cairns (16.9203° S, 145.7710° E) was more concerned with the modern cultural image of the organization, together with the design resolving the difficult site location beside a major highway into the regional city. The community in this instance was Cape York Partnerships, a sophisticated organization delivering significant national policy and service delivery into First Nations communities throughout Far North Queensland. An implied outcome of the building was to reflect a similarly sophisticated image arrived at through social and technical design resolution. The commercial offices had to provide community event and workshop spaces, and professional office and meeting accommodation. The main elevation faces west into the setting sun across a noisy 6-lane highway. The need for a responsive sound barrier and effective sun-screening set up the architectural response and material choice.

In both case studies, the primary structural system was steel treated to withstand the tropical and salty coastline conditions. Infill aluminium secondary structure, and fibre cement linings are typical. The one deviation is in the Cairns project, where tilt panels of concrete constructed on site to resolve both acoustic and fire requirements became the external expression of the architecture. The roof build-up on both is slightly different in that the Lockhart River project used bulk insulation and a reflective layer, where the Cairns project used long span sandwich panels and a reflective layer to deliver the required R values and contribute to the minimized energy use and cooling systems.

These two projects, completed through my former small practice Kevin O’Brien Architects, set up a clear necessity to value the influence of culture on the design of spatial settings, the influence of location on detailed planning and construction methodology, and the influence of tropical coastal climates on detailed design and performance. Since joining the national practice of BVN Architecture in 2017, these influences have come to set out a framework that guides that large scale work that we undertake on all our projects in Australia. This framework is called Designing with Country.

Designing with Country

BVN’s Designing with Country work guides the way we think about projects that engage with First Nations communities and contexts. These contexts vary from direct engagement on community projects to contributions to mainstream projects and provides industry leadership. At the core of all these contexts is a need to understand the First Nations concept of Country. The idea of Country is drawn from a sense of belonging. When First Nations speak of Country, it is about the place of their ancestors, stories, lore, and knowledge. These memories and connections form the basis of song-lines and bind people to their Country. Country is a matter of sustenance and is therefore as much a cultural and spiritual condition as it is a scientific or physical one. It follows that within an associated knowledge capital, there exist endless opportunities to engage with and affect the cultural and built environments of a specific locale.

In thinking about Country, there is a logic for movement located in the idea of a track, logic for occupation emanating from the idea of a camp and logic for events found in the idea of ritual. Acknowledging that a site belongs to a specific Country on a particular part of this continent enables us to draw inspiration, ideas, and opportunities directly from that place and the people who belong to it.

Why we need this 

Why would we make buildings, modern precincts and communities connect to Country and what makes this important? Our underlying belief is that it is the first point of connection to culture, creativity and science, and an awareness that it has existed in Australia for over 60,000 years. The ambition of the Designing with Country framework is to enable a greater relationship between people, knowledge and environment and work towards an inclusive future. This ambition can be realised by acknowledging the significance of First Nations culture in the consideration and development of the built environment.

Layers of influence

BVN’s approach to Designing with Country is grounded in an understanding that there are many layers of influence that can affect the outcome of a project. The first layer is First Nations and acknowledges and engages with the Community to understand aspirations, the connection to, and identifiable characteristics of, a specific Country and culture. The second layer is Colonial and draws upon the economic networks and hard infrastructure that has come to enable the city today and connect Countries throughout the continent of Australia.

The third layer is Multicultural and, by way of inclusion, acknowledges the modern multi-cultural history, philosophies and vibrancy of the locale since Australia’s 1973 removal of the official ‘White Australia Policy (1901-1973). The fourth layer is bound to the Technological and understands that harnessing current technology that seeks to connect us to a sustainable future. The fifth layer is Global and seeks to both benchmark the project as an exemplar and understand its relevance on the world stage.

 

 

 

The Methodology

BVN’s Designing with Country process consists of three distinct phases as follows:

1. The first phase is the formulation of a framework that sets out the context of the project site in relation to the Country to which it belongs. It uncovers the site’s geology, hydrology, flora and fauna, and First Nations occupation (past and present) as a Framework Layers diagram. It renders clearly what the site belongs to in terms of Country and, in turn, Country reveals the prompts for consideration in the second phase.
2. The second phase is a focused investigation to reveal opportunities in relation to the project. Our Opportunities Lens looks through the concepts of Spatial Settings (Track, Camp and Ritual), Country Palettes (material, color, flora) and Caring for Country (energy and carbon). This analysis informs the urban design, architecture and landscape architecture approaches but also provides guidance to way finding, archaeology, engineering and especially heritage bodies of work. This part requires collaborative engagement with each discipline to uncover the discipline specific connections that can be made to the previous prompts.
3. The third phase, also in collaboration with the consultant team, defines the specific Propositions. It starts by laying down an accessible narrative and a Proposition Diagram that establishes a clear direction for the project drawn directly from the coding associated with the Opportunities Lens. This extends to include appropriate input, guidance, and review with each member of the greater consultant team to ensure fidelity to the narrative and produced work. Each consultant is enabled and encouraged to develop their own response to ensure genuine responses that set this project apart.

   

 

 

BVN’s Designing with Country is very much a work in progress. We have invested heavily in this work and each project and opportunity presents new experiences and learnings for all involved.

By way of recent demonstration, the following example is a recently completed education campus project in Brisbane’s sub-tropical climate.

 

 

Brisbane South State Secondary College (BSSSC)

Located in Brisbane, just south of the city, the new inner-city high school, as a vertical campus, reflects its inner urban setting together with consideration of the Turrbal and Yuggera Country it is bound to.  Commenced in late 2018 and completed beginning 2022, the new school sits upon part of an old ridge historically used for camping, weaving and the making of tools and implements by the local First Nations. The project is also located within the Brisbane Knowledge Corridor and is an integral part of this leading education, health, research and hospital network adjacent to the University of Queensland, and the Princess Alexander Hospital. With a permeable and energised public realm to maximise learning interactions, along with a memorable and vibrant central native garden, the campus seeks to become a magnet for best practice teaching and learning with a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

The vertical campus is connected across five new buildings with open gallery settings that formally frame views of nearby and distant landscape markers of Country, in conjunction with a circulation strategy that informally amplifies opportunities to connect to Country. Each building is centred around double storey learning hubs, which offer next-level learning characterised by open and adaptable spaces around shared presentation spaces for everyday collaboration across multi-discipline facilities. The settings provide connected teaching experiences with direct access to the natural environment.

The campus consists of flexible and resilient buildings, able to adapt to changing learning pedagogies over time. The architectural language is specifically derived from the First Nations heritage of the site as a place of making (tools, weaving, gathering), informing the scored details within the concrete panels, as well as harnessing a local palette of endemic flora, colours, and materials.

Construction is conventional and honest. Concrete slabs and columns as main structure, aluminium framed walls, and metal work balustrades, glazing and fibre cement sheet for cladding. Energy reduction measures included passive design through considered orientation and maximised natural ventilation with mixed mode HVAC systems, solar and water collection, and consideration of shaded window to wall ratio. In the context of caring for Country the ambition was to heal and repair the site now and into the future.

The project reflects the 3 stages of considerations of the Designing with Country process through: research of people, culture, and Country; the development of spatial settings, material palettes and energy reduction initiatives; and the realisation of the final project as a human focused design that aims to enable experience, learning and that most important desire of architecture – joy.

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