Consistently at the forefront of invoking industry-shaping Indigenous change, Arcadia has today launched its inaugural Indigenous Strategy to coincide with Reconciliation Week.
The Strategy, which will guide much of the practice’s operations between now and 2030, will see the goals and aspirations of Arcadia formed into something more tangible. The Strategy has been in the works since 2020, conducting internal research and workshops to identify three major tenets: Respect, Community and Advocacy.
“Landscape Architecture has the opportunity to lead the built environment in the inclusion of knowledge and perspective of First Nations' people for a better outcome in caring for Country. Our design discipline shares an alignment with First Nations thinking when it comes to caring for Country, with our botanical and material understanding,” says Arcadia Principal Alex Longley.
The initial processes of the strategy centred around creating a research action plan that would ultimately guide the work of Arcadia, whether it be projects or administrative tasks. Given the corporate nature of action plans of this type and the strong commitments Arcadia has already made in the Indigenous space, Longley says the practice opted to go down a different route, and was guided by Kaylie Salvatori, the company’s first Indigenous Landscape Strategist.
“We believed we were better off looking at a strategy which has a similar role without the corporate governance, that wasn’t really going to be of any benefit to us as an organisation, and we’d be able to better control our destiny with an external collaborator that would hold us to account.
“They assess what we’ve committed to do, and on a yearly basis we’ll review and discuss how we're going in terms of achieving those goals, and the steps we’ve taken and how we can improve. If we’ve made progress we can also look to advance or potentially bring in new goals to make us more aligned with having conciliation with First Nations peoples and assist the public in understanding culture.
“It’ll continue to evolve like a masterplan. The goals and actions will be reviewed and potentially have the pathway to those goals redeveloped.”
Longley believes it was important for the nationwide practice to be able to channel the enthusiasm and desire to make change into a document that possesses the ability to be refined as time goes on.
“I think that it's important for our team across our four studios to have a consolidated understanding and level of measurement on ourselves as a business, on our teams that are operating on projects and as individuals.
“For that enthusiasm to be shared and magnified, it’s essential that there’s something everyone is capable of engaging with an understanding of what the intent is.”
For 2022, Reconciliation Week has adopted the theme of ‘Be Brave, Make Change’. With Indigenous consultation becoming something of a formality and more projects connecting to their natural surroundings, the built environment is certainly taking the theme to heart.
“There’s a very noticeable difference between the requirement or desire from the built environment to have the connection to Country process as part of our design and development process,” Longley says.
“I think that there's a large amount of bravery from a lot of built environment professionals that are new to understanding. Engaging with Indigenous consultants can be intimidating to some people, because they don’t want to offend or create offence due to ignorance or lack of exposure. I feel this is a by-product of poor education on Indigenous culture throughout schools, and making this step forward will be a big move for a lot of people.
“We had a 3 hour session last week with Uncle Dennis Foley and when asked a question, he responded with ‘you’re better off to do something and do it wrong, learn from that mistake and move forward, rather than to do nothing at all.’”
As for Longley’s personal motivations, the Arcadia Principal says it is to do with making known the customs and character of the world’s oldest civilisation in a country that has long looked elsewhere.
“I think that I sit in a part of the population that I’m old enough to understand what I don’t know, and young enough to understand what I want to know. We travel the world as Australians and see the value and significance in immersing ourselves in many cultures, which we see as being amazing life experiences, but until recent times haven’t recognised the value of these opportunities with our First Nations culture and Country.
“There’s a pathway for my generation to stand up and push things along rapidly, not only to make amends for things that happened in the past, but to ensure future generations are empowered with the opportunity to learn and be emersed in the oldest living culture on earth."
Arcadia’s Indigenous Strategy can be viewed in full here.
