DESIGNING WITH COUNTRY

Discussions about Country can tend to use the term as a cliché, without ever articulating exactly what is being referred to. All one is left with is the suggestion that this term references something that is subtle and meaningful for First Nations people.

The oft repeated recognition of Country, etc. that uses what has become a standard text in just about all walks of life, rattles off that word with a proud, self-satisfaction that embodies all of the politically correct gestures and little more, just in case something has been missed.  Country is left as a huge, catch-all void that means everything about nothing in particular, but has something to do with that essential cultural relationship that is claimed to exist between Aboriginal persons and place, or something like this.

Beyond this fuzzy feeling about the term, there is nothing but an intellectual haze that defines what has become the social/political importance of recognition that knows it is the correct, required acknowledgement to publicise so as not to cause offence, or to be not seen to be whinging about land claims and special treatment. The hollowness of this written and/or spoken gesture has been highlighted by the failure of the Australian Labor government's referendum that sought to give the First Nations people a voice - nothing more than the right to be heard was denied.

So it is that one gets texts written by First Nations people like Debra Dank that seek to give some context to Aboriginal experience, pointing out its difference, significance, and relevance, in the hope that some understanding and true recognition might be achieved. Terraglossia attempts to tackle this task which has its inherent problems. Matters of experiential subtly are not easy to articulate in language, let alone a method of communication that has developed from another culture in another country on the other side of the world: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/12/terraglossia-first-nations-experience.html.

Danièle Hromek has reported on this matter too, in an enlightening piece that addresses the issues involved in what has become known as Design with Country: see – https://architectureau.com/articles/are-you-really-designing-with-country/. This text is unusually clear about the concerns with this concept, pointing out something of its substance with the warning that the approach should not become the 'politically proper' football that the recognition statement has become: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2024/06/country-outside-inside-place.html.

The Danièle Hromek text has been reproduced here in full, such is its relevance. We must heed its warning. The West has become very adroit at capturing notions and manipulating them, as though anyone cared. If Design with Country is to mean anything more than an advertising slogan, we need to try to understand and listen to the elders instead of flapping around while using the term as the equivalent of shrewd spin or fake news. True understanding requires humility and care, two matters that are rare in our arrogant, egocentric, 'smarty pants' modern day West that thrives on selfies and social media that promotes individuals and their opinions irrespective of anything else. Design for Country involves everything else. What becomes clear is the need to know much more about Country: what it means; how it holds meaning; its relevance and significance; and its mode of operation. Without this we are left literally in a no man's land.

THE TEXT

DESIGNING WITH COUNTRY

Are you really Designing with Country?

The term Designing with Country is increasingly being commodified and colonised by non-Indigenous organisations and professionals. Each person has a responsibility and a role to play in honouring this process.

For a genuine Designing with Country outcome, the relationship between the First Nations designer or architect and the community on whose Country the project is located is critical.

Image: Artwork by Djinjama

by Danièle Hromek

15 Dec 2025

The First Nations Advisory Committee and Cultural Reference Panel (FNAC) to the Australian Institute of Architects recently published the first of a number of resources to support non-Indigenous architects and other built-environment professionals in how best to reflect and respect First Nations cultures and heritage in their work.

Across the continent and islands now named Australia, legislation, frameworks and professional competency requirements now exist to mandate the protection of cultural heritage, meaningful engagement and culturally responsive design. It is evident the industry is moving in a new direction. As such, the FNAC’s first set of resources comes at a critical point to guide and support the good work happening within the industry.

The FNAC’s Terms, Concepts and Shared Understandings resource clarifies concepts such as Indigenous design and architecture, Co-design, Country-centred design, and Designing with Country. Often, we see these terms being used interchangeably in tenders and projects. It makes it challenging for First Nations professionals to respond to requests for tender in which these terms are being misused or are not properly defined. Similarly, when these terms are not used consistently across projects, it becomes difficult to provide clear direction to clients, colleagues and co-tenderers regarding scope, roles, deliverables and timeframes on projects. These terms do hold different meanings, and it is crucial to understand them fully – particularly Designing with Country.

Designing with Country is a term that, over a number of years, has shifted in its meaning. First Nations architects and design professionals came to understand that a term was needed to express our distinct architecture and design work that occurs with communities on Country. Increasingly, however, First Nations built environment colleagues are expressing concerns that the term is being commodified and colonised by non-Indigenous organisations and professionals who lack the epistemological, foundational, relational and ancestral connections to Country, culture and communities that Designing with Country requires.

Designing with Country needs the involvement of qualified and experienced First Nations built environment professionals before the project commences – and even before the brief is authored. It requires deep connections to place and ecology that travel back in time over many thousands of generations. Designing with Country needs the designer to be able to read, feel and sense the spirit, energy and story of Country as known and guided by local communities. Designing with Country must be led by First Nations Peoples.

The word “with” determines that Country is an active instructor to the design process – as if Country itself were a co-designer. Country cannot hold a pen (or, these days, a mouse!) in the way a built environment professional can, so instead it communicates through the architect or designer. Country is continually communicating; however, unfortunately, it is evident that the majority of non-Indigenous people are not yet reading its signs and signals. We can see this in the continuing destruction of Country in built projects that favour a Western methodology over a local methodology of place. While non-Indigenous built environment professionals are often caught in a system of unmovable legislation that forces them to take these harmful actions, it is nonetheless critical that they don’t call processes that caused immense damage to Country “Designing with Country.”

First Nations design and architecture professionals who use Designing with Country as their approach, methodology and/or process have often tapped into their own Ancestral roots to develop it. It is distinct to them, their family and their perspective; the cultural knowledge, passed down from their Old People, that allows them to Design with Country is likely to be privileged and specific to their family or group. Indigenous knowledges are often place and group specific: they are passed at the right time to the right people chosen by the nominated Knowledge Holders to ensure knowledge is kept within the familial and locational contexts.

Cultural knowledge can be about any topic – from bush medicines to information about a place to how to do something. This is called Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP). According to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Indigenous Peoples have the right to protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the associated intellectual property. As a First Nations designer or architect works with their familial or ancestral groups’ ICIP to develop their Designing with Country approach, that particular approach may also become that designer’s own intellectual property (IP), meaning they are working with both ICIP and IP. As such, when non-Indigenous people employ the term Designing with Country, moral and ethical issues can arise: whose knowledges and IP have they appropriated to have the knowledge and cultural experience that the Designing with Country process requires?

For a genuine Designing with Country outcome, the relationship between the First Nations designer or architect and the community on whose Country the project is located is critical. Many First Nations built environment professionals are working off-Country (that is, not on their own), so they need strong and meaningful relationships with community members on whose Country they are designing. If this is not pre-existing, time and resources must be factored in to ensure this relationship can be built, so the deep knowledge of place and community values held by the community can be shared in the appropriate way.

I believe the true potential offered by Designing with Country is some years from being realised. Designing with Country could enable an entirely different process of architecture and design – one guided by deep knowledge of places shared by First Nations community wisdom. Genuine Designing with Country could result in a wholly different architectural or design vernacular, one unique to each place on this continent and these islands. To achieve this, First Nations design and community leadership need to guide the approach, methodology, siting, scoping, and process of a project to meet the needs of Country and community, in alignment with the energies, stories and spirit of place.

Using Designing with Country to describe work that does not meet these conditions risks diluting the term – or worse, embedding the wrong understanding within it and, consequently, allowing its meaning to be lost permanently.

Non-Indigenous built environment professionals can design with respect for Country. They can consider and integrate planning to improve the health and wellbeing of Country, and incorporate outcomes that respond to Country. They can act in a culturally responsive way by following advice provided by First Nations community members, co-designing with Knowledge Holders to develop processes and outcomes that resonate with Country and community.4 They can co-design with qualified and experienced First Nations design professionals, who can embed their developed Designing with Country approaches, methodologies and processes into the work. But they should never appropriate that approach into their own practice – it does not originate from their own worldview and perspective and therefore is cultural misappropriation.

Clients of architectural projects also have a role to play. To achieve the best outcome, clients should be building relationships with First Nations design professionals and community members in the pre-work stages – to inform the brief, site, business case, staging, and construction. They should seek ways to unlock legislative blockages that cause negative outcomes for the health and wellbeing of Country. They should ensure inclusive and meaningful engagement is leading the design process, and they should not be okay with a tokenistic treatment or simple artwork being the only outcome of this engagement.

Their role as advocate is immense, and, like designers, so too is their responsibility to ensure that Designing with Country processes are honoured properly – never misused, never diluted and never ignored.

Footnotes

         1. This article is authored from an Aboriginal woman’s perspective and worldview. As                 such, when “my,” “our,” “we,” and “us” are used, I am referencing an Aboriginal                         perspective and worldview.

1. 2. In this writing, the names First Nations, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples are used to reference those peoples whose deep heritage originates from the continent and close islands now known as Australia. “Indigenous” is used when referring to global peoples who have a deep Ancestral belonging to places.

   3. Australia signed up to UNDRIP in 2009.

   4. From the National Standard of Competency for Architects – Explanatory Notes and Definitions 2021 (page 13): “Culturally responsive refers to being aware of one’s own cultural identity and worldview to enable respectful actions and thoughts towards others’ ideas, beliefs and values, irrespective of whether they differ from one’s own cultural position. Acting in a culturally responsive way requires a level of cultural competence and a recognition that there is no single way of being, acting and knowing. Cultural responsiveness moves towards enabling equity and inclusion.”

2.