Beautiful and redundant: winning Indigenous design scrapped

The winning design for Canberra's newest cultural precinct would have been set "within an undulating landscape to capture the drama, beauty and spontaneity of the beautiful wild grassland landscapes of Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country".

But, just days after hearing they'd won the design competition for Ngurra, the First Nations-led team of architects and designers also learned their ambitious design would not be used.

Instead, a revamped version of the precinct will now be on Acton Peninsula, adjacent to the National Museum and the original premises of AIATSIS, a site wholly different from the one earmarked back in 2022.

But no one seems to have informed the competition runners that a site change was on the cards until shortly before Indigenous Affairs minister Linda Burney announced the new precinct.

The winning design, by a First Nations-led team comprising Djinjama and COLA Studio in collaboration with architects Hassell and Edition Office, had been the result of a meticulous process of examining the site and understanding its cultural significance.

"The organisation, flow and movement of people throughout the design has been drawn from observation and meditation on the movement of animals through the landscape, a movement that has occurred for millennia," it said, in a statement accompanying artist impressions of the site.

In announcing it as the winner, the jury described it as "bold, yet elegant in integrating with the landscape" and commended "the commitment to rehabilitation of the site as a statement about the environment and First Nations connection to country".

Djinjama director Daniele Hromek, a Budawang/Yuin woman, said she and the team had been given guidance and themes by AIATSIS when the competition was announced, and "we took them very seriously".

"We also have had a process that was important to us in terms of our connection to this place as Aboriginal people ... though we are neighbours to this country, my family are kin to many of the people who are Ngunnawal, so we feel very connected," she said.

"And we also, I'm going to be honest, asked our ancestors for help to make sure that this design was as much as possible, working collaboratively with country and the stories that belong there.

"We feel like we achieved that, and that's why I think why the design is so special, and why it won and why it sits in the landscape so well.

"And we would hope that we can achieve that across any site."

The original plan, announced by Ms Burney's Coalition predecessor Ken Wyatt, would have relocated AIATSIS to the Parliamentary Triangle.

That announcement was quickly followed by assertions that members of the local Indigenous community had not been consulted, and believed the site was unsuitable.

But the institute will now remain on the Acton Peninsula and be upgraded and expanded to include a National Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Centre.

There will also be a National Resting Place to house and care for First Nations ancestral remains without provenance "and those waiting to return to country".

"This will be bricks-and-mortar truth telling," Ms Burney said last week. "A place where our history can be recognised and celebrated."

Ms Hromek said she and her team just wanted to see the precinct take shape, regardless of the location.

"It's really important that this is built," she said.

"It's a different site, different qualities, different attributes and different meanings to country, and First Nations people. It already has the AIATSIS building there, so it already has some meaning to us. But yeah, it's different."

Head of design and principal at Hassell Mark Loughnan said while architects were used to projects being abandoned or going off-course, he was happy to have been a part of the process.

"I should say we're really honoured and thrilled to win the design competition," he said.

"I mean, we did put a lot of effort in and think we came up with something compelling and appropriate for that particular site.

"They're both on the lake, they're both in Canberra, I think they're both great sites. So we're just looking forward to the next round."

But he confirmed that the team had been advised of the new site "pretty much at the same time" as finding out they had won the competition.

The competition, announced by AIATSIS in March, 2022, had a distinguished jury including filmmaker Rachel Perkins, academic and writer Marcia Langton, journalist Stan Grant, several architects and former Liberal politician and The Canberra Times columnist Amanda Vanstone.

But, like the competition winners, the jury were only informed shortly before Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney announced the new precinct on June 6.

Ms Vanstone confirmed that she had received a call from the minister's office the day before the announcement.

A spokesman for Ms Burney said the federal government had been "in extensive consultations with AIATSIS and traditional owners of the Canberra region before making the decision to proceed with the new site on the Acton Pensinsula".

"The previous Coalition government's proposal in 2022 was estimated to cost around 50 per cent more than was originally allocated. It was not practical to proceed with the original project."

But he confirmed that a new design process would begin soon, and "original design teams will be involved".

In a statement on its website on Friday, AIATSIS confirmed that it had received 25 expressions of interest in the competition's first stage, and had selected four design teams to proceed to the second stage.

"AIATSIS and the Design Competition Jury would like to thank the four design teams for the considerable effort they invested in the competition and recognises the commitment demonstrated by the four selected design teams, particularly given the national significance of the Precinct and complexities of the project requirements," it said.

In a later statement to The Canberra Times, AIATSIS said it had conferred with the designers involved before the announcement.

"Due to the material change in location associated with the decision in relation to Ngurra as announced on June 6, the winning design concept from the Architectural Design Competition can no longer be utilised for Acton Peninsula," it said.

"At the end of May, discussions with design competition principals were undertaken, including the design process for Ngurra moving forward. This process is currently underway.

"Limited project costs have been associated with the competition. The decision to move forward with the new Ngurra at Acton is a fiscally responsible decision by government which AIATSIS supports."