Jon Shinkfield, project director at AECOM, tells us about the groundbreaking project underway in the remote town of Warburton in Western Australia, led by AECOM, the University of Western Australia and the Shire Council of Ngaanyatjarraku.
And he explains how it can inform Indigenous communities around the world.
Images: AECOM
Can you tell A&D about the Sustainable Warburton Project?
The Sustainable Warburton Project is an Australian-first project to improve the liveability of Aboriginal communities in the remote town of Warburton in WA. It is the first tri-partisan relationship between an Australian Indigenous community, academia and industry to create new and improved urban spaces, improved health, education and social structure in Warburton.
The project brings Aboriginal residents of the town together with AECOM specialists. Townspeople and community representatives gather to discuss their needs in formal and informal settings with University of Western Australia (UWA) masters and honours students and the project team to help identify community-enhancing projects. Students design projects as part of their academic requirements, which become the basis for funding application and development.
How did AECOM come to be involved in the project?
It came about as a result of a number of people in AECOM and UWA who have had dealings with Indigenous communities in the past. In 2010, the Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku provided $40,000 funding for a pilot project and AECOM and UWA students and academics provided their time pro bono. That year, three UWA postgraduate students in architecture and landscape architecture took part in a trial of the Sustainable Warburton Project as part of their coursework.
They met with Aboriginal community members to discuss their needs and presented their developed ideas to the community. Three projects were submitted to the Federal Government for funding consideration. One involved introducing urban agriculture into Warburton by planting orange trees throughout the town. Irrigated with treated wastewater, the trees address water scarcity and provide shade, a food source, protection from dust and improved community health. The second project looked at housing arrangements and clusters that work more harmoniously with the way Indigenous families gather together.
Why are projects like this important for Aboriginal communities?
Aboriginal communities are the subject of much attention and intention, and there are numerous examples of one-off projects. The Sustainable Warburton Project is intended to be repeated for several years.
Changing attitudes and community engagement are part of a long-term charter for the Sustainable Warburton Project to create a direct and meaningful dialogue about the community’s development. It is hoped that by creating awareness and engagement, a set of shared values and a shared vision will be held by all stakeholders.
What different design strategies need to be employed for Aboriginal community buildings?
Natural resource management in Warburton is virtually non-existent and there is little understanding of the environmental factors or the mitigation of these factors that affect planned action or management. Traditional strategies have been constrained by a lack of understanding of eco-social-health relationships and how these are linked. As issues of sustainability become more apparent, so too has the recognition that environmental conditions have a significant impact on the social and physical health of the community.
AECOM and UWA are working with the community and the Shire Council to provide the most current industry thinking and opportunities for physical planning, community amenity and structure, social engagement, urban climate control, water management, energy management, environmental health and long-term sustainability. AECOM is also advising on alternative energy options to help find solutions to the community’s reliance on costly diesel fuel to drive the town’s generators.
Can this model be replicated around Australia for other Aboriginal communities?
The Sustainable Warburton Project will not only affect the future of the Warburton community. It potentially informs the broader agenda of Indigenous settlement in Australia and around the world by moving beyond a rudimentary and dated approach to planning and amenity.
Historically, Aboriginal communities have not been considered in terms of their physical and social structure. Because of their hunter-gatherer ancestry and the history of occupation of their land, urban settlement has been a foreign and unfamiliar state of existence. Aboriginal people have experienced a relatively recent history of colonial, mission and homelands settlement and therefore have a very limited frame of reference about structural planning in an urbanised framework and the impact this has on their wellbeing. There is pressure on the community to physically expand their settlement yet there is little understanding of the requirements or implications of planning decisions.
What do you see as the future of community design?
The key to the future of community design in the indigenous territories is engagement, rather than consultation. When engagement is achieved over time then it becomes capacity building and the whole community is positively affected. The community is informing the design with their ideas and inputs. Design distils a volume of ideas and thoughts to a clearly articulated outcome and that’s what we are doing with the Sustainable Warburton Project — building as a process through time.
