Re-casting terra nullius blindness: empowering indigenous protocols and knowledge in Australian university built environment education

The built environment disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture and planning are taught in more than 25 universities across Australia under the tutelage of three important professional bodies: Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) and Planning Institute of Australia (PIA).
This project is in support of the built environment professions. It researched the extent to which Indigenous Knowledge Systems were being taught at university built environment schools across Australia, and involved undertaking surveys on student and staff knowledge of Indigenous Australians in the built environment sector. The project was developed because the built environment disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture and planning, both academically and professionally, were not deeply engaging with Indigenous communities and the knowledge they possess of the land and sea and there were and are opportunities address this.
In this Report, the term ‘Indigenous’ encompasses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is a term applied with all Indigenous peoples around the world. The diversity in cultures, languages, kinship structures and ways of life of Indigenous peoples are recognised and use of these terms is not intended to homogenise Indigenous peoples.
Independent Indigenous and non-Indigenous peer reviews of this project, its findings and its associated deliverables have strongly supported the approach and findings forthcoming from this project (see Appendices F and G). This conclusion is confirmed by the Indigenous chair of the project’s Reference Group (Appendix D) and the Independent Referees (Appendices B and C).