Codesigning with Country: Deakin Hycel

Woods Bagot was approached to design a dedicated hydrogen research facility for Deakin’s Warrnambool campus on Marr Nation Country that would connect industry and community through dedicated laboratory and education spaces. This purpose-built facility would be critical for researching, testing, and prototyping sustainable hydrogen fuel cells for use in heavy vehicles.

Deakin engaged First Nations consultants to embed an Indigenous perspective in the project through considered consultation and iterative design processes. “Everything we do here is about enabling Australia’s sustainable transition to a clean energy future,” says Deakin Hycel Director Prof. Tiffany Walsh. “And that’s a principle of Indigenous culture: caring for Country.”

First Nations consultants are traditional knowledge holders who understand the cultural sensitivities of a site, instrumental in translating the desires of community to the client.

Consultants can educate a project team on the stories of a place and identify conceptual threads that can be woven into the design narrative. More than an aesthetic outcome, it is a holistic approach to the building design, activation, and ongoing use. 

“This was the first time we’ve engaged with First Nations people in the design and development phase of a new build,” says Walsh. “A key learning for us was to ‘build it in, don’t bolt it on’ when it comes to authentic, sensitive and ethical First Nations engagement. The Hycel team approached Mel Steffensen [from Peek Whurrong land in the Gunditjamara/ Maar Nation] and Sherry Johnstone [Keerray Woorroong, Yorta Yorta woman of the Maar Nation] early in the conceptual phase to act as conduits between the local Elders and the university.”

“It’s important to encourage young people to enter STEM careers, and that includes Indigenous cohorts,” continues Walsh. “Mel and Sherry work with young people, and they can provide guidance on whether the space is fit-for-purpose for Indigenous youths.”

First Nations consultants are traditional knowledge holders who understand the cultural sensitivities of a site, instrumental in translating the desires of community to the client.

Consultants can educate a project team on the stories of a place and identify conceptual threads that can be woven into the design narrative. More than an aesthetic outcome, it is a holistic approach to the building design, activation, and ongoing use. 

“This was the first time we’ve engaged with First Nations people in the design and development phase of a new build,” says Walsh. “A key learning for us was to ‘build it in, don’t bolt it on’ when it comes to authentic, sensitive and ethical First Nations engagement. The Hycel team approached Mel Steffensen [from Peek Whurrong land in the Gunditjamara/ Maar Nation] and Sherry Johnstone [Keerray Woorroong, Yorta Yorta woman of the Maar Nation] early in the conceptual phase to act as conduits between the local Elders and the university.”

“It’s important to encourage young people to enter STEM careers, and that includes Indigenous cohorts,” continues Walsh. “Mel and Sherry work with young people, and they can provide guidance on whether the space is fit-for-purpose for Indigenous youths.”

For project leader Thomas Linschoten, the codesign process helped to identify the inherent blind spots in architectural practice, and to understand the meaning of truly inclusive design.  

“In our mind, we had designed this futuristic, Tron: Legacy, secret lab-type building,” says Linschoten. “We presented the schematic designs to the consultants, and we received feedback that the design wasn’t culturally safe – the structure was hard and monolithic and didn’t feel welcoming.”

“Our first reaction to the building plan was that it looked like a bunker,” says Mel Steffensen. “It was sterile; it lacked warmth and there was no connection to the Country. We understood its purpose, but in the landscape, it wasn’t going to work. From an Indigenous perspective, it was the antithesis of what our culture is about.”

With the architects, the First Nations consultants devised solutions to modify the design to respond to the local area and its history in a more meaningful way. The first step was to redesign the entry to the building, which bends from the collaboration heart, opening out towards the campus and connecting the landscape with the floorplate.

“It was an amazing opportunity for us to take a step back from the project, to think about some of the architectural gestures and decisions and the implications they would have for Indigenous culture,” says Linschoten.

The First Nations consultants had the idea to modify the entranceway with a material that was warmer, more textural, and had a closer association with Country. Johnstone, who is also a visual artist and educator, observed that the gentle bend in the passageway almost resembled a Kuyang (eel) trap – an historic object of Aboriginal ingenuity with strong cultural significance to the area.

“Our ancestors built a beautiful aquaculture system in our area that they used to manipulate the waterways to capture eels,” says Johnstone. “One of their solutions was to weave a grass basket that the eel would swim into and trap, because the eel can’t swim backwards.”

The Budj Bim wetland holds evidence one of the world’s oldest and largest aquaculture systems, comprising weirs, stone channels and damns dating as old as 6,600 years. The Gunditjama people would exploit the seasonal flooding to trap freshwater fish and eels for sustenance and trade. These sustainable farming systems supplied enough food to sustain the community year-round, and even enabled the Gunditjmara to trade dried freshwater products for goods with other nations.

The design team studied a woven Kuyang that belonged to local Elder Uncle Robbie’s great-great grandmother, closely examining the style and the colour of the traditional grass weave to replicate in the tiled walls.

Elsewhere in the design, Johnstone and Steffensen were pleased to note there were already circles embedded into the circulation geometry of the building. The six circles would come to represent the six mobs or tribes that reside within the wider Warrnambool area.  

“Circles are an important part of our symbolism and of our traditions,” says Johnstone. “Out on Country, you don’t run into square corners anywhere. I think that’s why circles are so significant within our cultural representation. In a yarning circle, it represents gathering, coming together, and equality.”

“In a circle, everyone can be seen; everyone can be heard; everyone is equal,” adds Steffensen.

Six concentric circles are woven into the spatial organisation, each named after a local tribe: Peek Whurrong represented in the arrival zone and landscape; Chapp Whurrong in the collaboration heart at the entry; Kuurn Kopan-Noot in the hydrogen laboratory; Kirrae Whuurong in the characterisation laboratory; Keer-Up-Jmara in the control room; and Yarro Waech in the truck research bay.  

“Moving into that educational space, we’ll be able not only to share the knowledge about the hydrogen technology, but we can also impart a bit of our local history within each of those six circles,” says Steffensen.

The organic geometry is carried into the timber battens in the interior design, where the finishes and material palette have been influenced by Moyjil – an ancient local coastal meeting place – borrowing from the silvered greens of saltbush and eucalypts and the warm ochres of local sandstone.

“The first time I set foot in the building in its early stages, I cried,” says Steffenson. “It was a pretty surreal moment. We could see the curvature of these steel beams, the circles on the ground; we could imagine what the entry way was going to be like. And to know that we had a little bit to do with the way that it was going to look is very emotional, and very humbling.”  

“The engagement was nice and early so that what we did contribute could be incorporated into the plans until we got it right,” adds Johnstone.  “My hope is that future architects will take in the surrounds, know about the Country, take in the landscape, the history, the colours, textures – the beauty – that surrounds everything.

“Everything has a spirit, and that spirit needs to be put into the building as well.”