ArchiCulture Cafe number SEVEN

This week's lecture Urban Indigenous Place Values given by Kelly Greenop presented to me a number of fascinating ideas to contemplate when designing.
The first was the idea that place consists of a great number of aspects (like culture!) and that the consideration of the place involved with architectural and design interventions is paramount to the overall meaning of the finished product. The cognitive and sensory experiences of the user of a space makes up their understanding of the place of a design outcome even before they enter the site - at the very least cultural ideologies and events attached to the location and details of a site will inform a user's idea of the type of experience they are to have there. Kelly explored this, mentioning experiential aspects such as social, historical and territorial associations that could be attached to specific places.
The second was the idea that the traditional and historical aspects and the contemporary aspects of a cultural group may not necessarily link together in a way that is obvious or conducive to an uncomplicated manifestation of cultural practices that may have been easy in the past. The example given was the iconic images of contemporary Brisbane and Indigenous identity. The apparently disjointed relationship between these two identities presents, to me, a number of stimulating prospects for architectural interventions.
The third was the fact that cultures change over time with progressions of technology and liberal social shifts. As a designer, it would be important to know which practices, objects and concepts of a particular culture are contemporary and which are historical. The use of cultural aspects which come from a certain time period could hold local meaning which contradict the conceptual intent of a particular design proposal.
The fourth is the idea of place changing meaning through the translation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous occupation. The meaning associated with Indigenous historical occupations of a particular site may be starkly contradictory to the meaning associated with non-Indigenous site proposals or existing buildings. I tend to think it would be extremely difficult to appease both sides of this dichotomy with so many cultural aspects to consider.
Following on from this idea of conflicting meanings in place, I found the Inala example was very interesting in that it started as a predominantly non-Indigenous site and now has a very strong Indigenous population. It was fascinating to consider that some of the Inala Indigenous population presented in the lecture formed a resolute connection to the site of their current dwellings. Attaching this meaning to a contemporary site which might not necessarily hold an historical link with Indigenous culture suggests to me a site-specific aspect of Indigenous culture. This site-specific importance is extremely fascinating to me as a designer as it could provide a rich amount of material for design solutions.