Jones, D., Low Choy, D., Revell, G., Heyes, S., Tucker, R. & Meikle, H. 2013. Planning Education and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Australia:  Where Are We? Refereed Conference Paper, Australian & New Zealand Association of Planning Schools Conference, Canberra, University of Canberra, 27th September – 29thSeptember 2013.

Jones, D., Low Choy, D., Heyes, S., Revell, G.,Tucker, R. & Meikle, H. 2014. “Reverse Greening Australian Landscape Architecture Education: Charting an Indigenous Perspective on Country Respect and Design”. Refereed Conference Paper, IFLA Asia Pacific Congress, Sarawak 28-30 April, 2014.

Richard Tucker, Darryl Low Choy, Scott Heyes, Grant Revell, and David Jones. 2016. Re-casting terra nullius design-blindness: better teaching of Indigenous Knowledge and protocols in Australian architecture education. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, Vol 26, No. 4

Heyes, S.A., New, D. and Tuiteci, S. 2015. “Mapping the “Unseen” Landscape: Using Participatory Mapping to Raise Awareness of Aboriginal Landscapes in the South East of South Australia, Projet de Paysage: A Landscape International Review, Special Online Issue 12: Landscape and Culture.

This project emerged from a 2015 public space design competition open to landscape architecture students across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. The competition invited students to investigate the experiences, values, and significance of “hangout” places within public landscapes.

Building on earlier teaching and research partnerships with Indigenous communities, we (Scott Heyes and Andrew Saniga) developed a design brief for students from the University of Canberra and the University of Melbourne. The brief centred on exploring the concept of hangouts through a culturally inclusive lens, incorporating Indigenous perspectives on place, gathering, and everyday use.

With support from the Local Eden Aboriginal Land Council and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, students participated in a five-day field trip to the Haycock Point Culture Camp, an Aboriginal site of significance located at the northern end of Ben Boyd National Park, on Yuin Country. The Culture Camp is a contemporary gathering place, purposefully maintained for the local Aboriginal community to share, celebrate, and pass on knowledge. The campground consists of a series of family camping sites connected to a central meeting place, and is within walking distance of bush foods, fishing, and diving areas that have sustained the community for generations. Archaeological evidence and oral histories reveal that the site has been a gathering place for thousands of years—indeed, a longstanding “hangout.”

By spending time at the Culture Camp—fishing, sketching, bushwalking, storytelling, and participating in other shared activities—students engaged directly with the living landscape and the knowledge of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal knowledge holders. These experiences informed their design thinking and gave rise to a set of concept proposals for public hangout spaces in both regional and urban contexts.

This project and its reflections were captured in a co-authored paper, which features student design outcomes alongside critical reflections on how field-based learning shaped their understanding of place, cultural continuity, and the layered meanings of public space.

Read a publication on this project

Student Concept Designs

Experiments in Hanging Out by B Brennan, K Chen, D Ding and J Doak, Melbourne School of Design, the University of Melbourne, 2015.

Bring Your Own Torch, University of Canberra Landscape Architecture students, S. Fehlberg, N. Thi Phuc Dang, S. Bellani, and L. Tran, 2015.

Discovery Pontoon, University of Canberra landscape architecture project team: L. Liu, W. Wu, L. Zhou, and R. Sun, 2015.