Our friends at Parlour have shared videos from the Wellbeing of Architecture Symposium, which took place in Melbourne last May. We’re sharing them with you because our co-founder and now WA Government Architect, Emma Williamson was a keynote speaker.
The Symposium supported the Wellbeing of Architects research project, a three-year study, led by Naomi Stead, into how workplace cultures and professional identity affect wellbeing in architecture. The Fulcrum Agency was a Research Partner in this study.
Emma was invited to offer a provocation on the link between ‘contracts, procurement and wellbeing’ and (no surprise to anyone who knows her) she had some pithy comments to make! Emma spoke honestly about the motivations for shifting from a practice of 20+ staff (and occasionally ‘paying wages with our mortgage when contracts were put on hold’) to creating The Fulcrum Agency, a small, agile practice ‘committed to a client type rather than a building type.’
She covered a lot of ground in five minutes, and if you’re running a practice, or considering starting a practice, or working with us at The Fulcrum Agency, we encourage you to watch the video here. Skip through to 18:42 if you just want to watch Emma.
Last week, we were chuffed to receive the SA & WA Social Enterprise Pioneer Award!
As a Social Enterprise, we redistribute 50% of profits towards charitable initiatives that align with our purpose, and consider how our efforts contribute to a fairer and more sustainable world. Being a Social Enterprise is not always easy but it does provide a framework for measuring the impact of our investments (financial, time, energy et al).
We’ll let you know how we go in the national awards in a few weeks!
‘They need to fix my house… it’s broken, falling apart. I want to have a good house like the white people have.’ Muuki Taylor is a Martu Elder, celebrated artist and Member of the Order of Australia, in other words, a national treasure. It’s distressing to see him live in such despicable conditions.
Paige Taylor’s article in The Australian, ‘Best of Both Worlds’, describes the challenges faced by the Martu people living across the Great Sandy Desert – from the mining town of Newman to the homeland communities of Punmu, Parnngurr, Jigalong and Kunawarritji.
We are privileged to know these places well. The article mentions two projects we delivered alongside the Martu-run Jamukurnu Yapalikurnu Aboriginal Corporation: a housing audit across three communities and the Martu boarding school in Newman.
We will continue to work alongside our Martu clients as they negotiate with the WA Government to fund quality housing and necessary community infrastructure.
As Taylor says in her article, ‘life on their own land is just a dream…’
Earlier in the year we applied for a substantial grant through the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation to design and construct an on-Country classroom at Boomerang Bore. And good news – our grant application, delivered on behalf of the
Pertame School
, was successful! The new facility has been a long-held dream for Pertame Elders and will enhance their thriving language revival program.
It is my dream to teach my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren our language and show our culture to them so they can think and talk in Pertame.
Christobel Swan, Pertame Matriach
The on-Country classroom and adjacent camping facilities will provide a permanent home for the Pertame language on the land that the Country came from. The hub would provide an immersive experience, enabling children to look out into Country and see and experience the words being spoken.
English is a foreign language. Pertame language is our language. It’s our identity, it’s who we are, it’s where we come from, it’s our family. We have to instill in the children a love of their language, a love of their family, their culture and therefore a love of themselves. Kathy Swan-Bradshaw, Pertame Elder
Congratulations to Vanessa Farrelly and the Pertame community for introducing us to this excellent project. We can’t wait to get more involved!
Regional Development Minister Don Punch has announced $2.9 million funding to repurpose the former aged care facility in Warmun into workers accommodation, helping deliver affordable housing options for the remote Indigenous community in the East Kimberley.
The facility, which is owned by Warmun Community, was built in 2014 as part of the reconstruction efforts following a devastating flood event. However, it has never become fully operational due to challenges securing an operator and increasing Federal regulatory requirements for aged care facilities.
We are incredibly proud to be working alongside the community at Warmun on this project – their perseverance to bring this incredible building (designed by
Finn Pedersen
and Iredale Pedersen Hook) back to life is inspiring.
The Fulcrum Agency is delighted to share the Guides to Wellbeing in Architecture Practice, an output of the Wellbeing of Architects research project, which we have proudly supported since its inception.
“The Guides address five interrelated areas that impact wellbeing at work, as identified through the
Wellbeing of Architects research project
. Together, they seek to support healthier workplaces and work environments. This is crucial to the future of architecture as a viable, attractive and fulfilling career, a sustainable, robust profession, and for realising the benefit that architecture services can bring to communities.
These Guides are for everyone, at every career stage. They are not just for those experiencing challenges or poor mental wellbeing. People currently flourishing might have ups and downs in future, or have colleagues and friends who need support, or workplaces that could be improved.”
You can find out more about the Guides and download them
here.
Everyone has some agency to make improvements, in some arena – whether large or small.
By Kieran Wong, Partner and Founder at The Fulcrum Agency
Last week I attended the Aboriginal Housing and Homelands Conference, held from April 9-12, 2024, in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), which brought together around 250 delegates to discuss the crucial topics of housing and homelands in Aboriginal communities. Set against the backdrop of Arrente Country, the conference theme, “Building a strong, self-determined Aboriginal housing and homelands sector in the Northern Territory,” emphasized the importance of empowering Aboriginal communities to take control of their housing and homeland initiatives.
I was there to present our work with JYAC on Martu-led initiatives for housing in their homelands and to listen and learn from the line-up of dedicated people working in this niche space. These are my observations on the event starting with Day 1…
I arrived at the convention centre after a brisk and beautiful walk along the Todd River to a Welcome to Country from Traditional Owner, Benedict Stevens. It was a stirring start to the week. The conference was spread out over four days and with multiple sessions, it was impossible to listen and engage with all the content and stories on offer. I found this hard as there were so many great presentations that I couldn’t attend. With the small cohort of practitioners, housing experts, tenancy managers and government, it could have been organised to allow for a single stream of content more targeted towards the theme.
Dr. Josie Douglas, a long-time advocate for social justice, challenged the audience’s perception of home and belonging. She compared the song ‘I Still Call Australia Home’, an anthem consumed by the notion that you can choose where to call home with ‘always was, always will be’, the rallying cry for First Nations peoples across Australia. Douglas noted that for Aboriginal people, home isn’t chosen – it is a birthright and an obligation deeply rooted in tens of thousands of years of connection to Country. This obligation is best maintained through homelands, those communities on Country, where old people were born and will go to die.
Through her work at the Central Land Council, Dr Douglas is developing strategies for the maintenance of homelands and policies that recognise their importance to Aboriginal people, culture and the broader nation. This is the kind of nationalism or obligation that Peter Allen’s song just can’t comprehend. Her speech served as a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggle by Aboriginal communities to maintain a connection to Country and their homelands.
Dr Josie Douglas, Executive Manager, Central Land Council
Queensland architect, Paul Memmott revisited his 1988 and 2004 essays on the ‘State of the Art of Aboriginal Housing’. It has been 35 years since he wrote his original essay and he asked the question, ‘Has anything changed’? The five recommendations outlined in the 1988 essay may as well have been written yesterday, with perhaps the only slight increase in the number of Indigenous architects now working in Australia. He called on the Australian Institute of Architects to return to the field they once occupied by providing stable, evidence-based advice on Aboriginal housing to the government and funding bodies.
It was delightful to watch AHAC (Aboriginal Housing Aboriginal Corporation) present their inspiring journey towards independence and to know we played a small part in their story. As an Aboriginal-led and robust organisation, AHAC is seen as a beacon of empowerment and self-determination. Someone said to me afterwards that this was due to money, and I agreed to a point. If the challenge is simply money (and not intelligence, agency, resilience, commitment) then it isn’t a challenge at all, just a choice made by governments about where to spend it. Budgets are about choices and governments express their values through these choices. Many people talked about choice in their presentations – the choice to fund sealed roads versus failed prawn farms or the payout to the French for submarines we didn’t want or need. The simple fact is that AHAC demonstrates that, with appropriate money, many of the so-called barriers that face Aboriginal housing can be mitigated.
Liam Greeley from Menzies School of Health Research provided an evaluation of the NT Government’s Healthy Homes program. I’ll summarise his excellent work:
Data is important.
Knowing if a program is working is important.
Developing any program for future works should be based on knowing what works.
Not knowing implies not caring if what you are doing is what you are being paid to do. This seems crazy, and yet, is the baseline format for how most programs roll out in Aboriginal housing.
Greely noted the challenges in understanding and evaluating data when most completed work completed is labelled as “miscellaneous” or “other”. The world of taxpayer-funded social housing repairs and maintenance remains opaque, and perhaps this is how the funders like it.
Finally, Matthew Ryan, the newly appointed chair of the Northern Land Council (NLC), delivered a powerful and passionate speech. He started slow but by the end, was not mincing his words when addressing the need for better partnerships and trust between the government and Aboriginal people. Ryan’s frustration was palpable as he used the word “appalling” a dozen times, emphasizing government failure. He stressed the importance of governments in telling the truth and the NLC’s role in fighting for the rights of Aboriginal people:
NLC needs to get the gloves on and start punching, fighting the government
. It was a provocative speech and an interesting start to the next chapter for the NLC.
Several presentations by the CLC used the iconic image of Gough Whitlam pouring sand through Vincent Lingiari’s hand – the return of land to Aboriginal people.
My second day and another sun-drenched walk along the Todd.
First up, was a talk by David Donald and Bobby Bayley from Healthabitat – a resilient organisation that has been working to improve living conditions in Aboriginal communities for decades. I found Bobby’s ‘maintenance is sexy t-shirt’ disconcerting – sexiness is fleeting and this is a space where I want to see long-term romance. So, her presentation on localized waste disposal sites was a relief and a refreshing take on an age-old problem. Their proposition to develop waste management solutions closer to the communities, rather than transporting septic pump-outs over long distances, was pragmatic and environmentally conscious. As they delved into the details, it became clear that their approach was not only cost-effective but also had the potential to create local job opportunities. Donald and Bobby’s presentation served as a reminder that sometimes the most effective solutions are the ones that are right in front of us.
I was chuffed to meet the group from the Nawarddeken Academy in Western Arnhem Land, the recipients of a travel bursary that we sponsored as part of the conference. Our funding contributed to the cost of the charter flight from community to Darwin – the most expensive part of their journey. I was disappointed to miss their talk as I flew out just prior, but hearing community voices is so critical for these conferences. AHNT – count us in for sponsoring next year!
Kieran Wong and members of the Nawarddeken Academy
The conference also featured a closing panel discussion on “The Way Forward,” which brought together key stakeholders from government, academia, and community organisations to discuss the next steps in building a strong, self-determined Aboriginal housing and homelands sector in the Northern Territory. I was struck by the question posed by a Commonwealth public servant, “How do you stay optimistic?” The answer lies in success stories like AHAC, which demonstrate that community leadership, coupled with adequate funding, can lead to transformative change. Rather than more policy work, reviews, or strategic commissioning frameworks, the key to progress is empowering Aboriginal communities with the resources they need to take control of their own destinies.
Several presentations by the CLC used the iconic image of Gough Whitlam pouring sand through Vincent Lingiari’s hand – the return of land to Aboriginal people. I kept imagining Albo pouring money into the hands of Aboriginal leaders like Barb Shaw or Robin Granites – long-overdue recompense and recognition that while governments may not be able to cede power, they can at least hand back wealth. “From little things, big things grow” and the “always was, always will be” – lyrics of a new song for Australia’s reckoning with home.
The National Indigenous Times has published an opinion piece by TFA’s Kieran Wong and Jamukurnu-Yapalikurnu Aboriginal Corporation’s Tony McRae on the critical work we have been doing to secure a safe, healthy and prosperous future for Martu communities in the Western Desert. Martu people know what is needed to build a successful life and now it’s time for government to listen to their plan.
Martu people living in remote communities in the Western Desert have set out a new vision for climate-appropriate housing and community infrastructure.
Climate change doesn’t affect every part of Australia equally. Remote communities suffer more extreme heat and storms than anywhere else.
As rising temperatures put even more stress on remote communities, extreme weather will force people out of homes that are too hot, leading to overcrowding when other family members take them in.
Having languished in poor and increasingly overheated housing, Martu are taking matters into their own hands. Working with their land council, Jamukurnu-Yapalikurnu Aboriginal Corporation (JYAC), have developed their own plans for housing and community infrastructure.
The Martu Community Co-Design Process – a partnership between Martu, JYAC and The Fulcrum Agency funded by the WA Government – determined a realistic plan for sustainable, culturally appropriate housing that will accommodate future growth.
Communities talked for several years about their histories and ambitions for the future, and the result is a holistic review of the three on-country Martu communities of Parnngurr, Punmu and Kunawarritji.
This process kept Martu people at the centre of all design and decision-making, and provided an exchange of knowledge between the community and technical experts. At all times, the process is guided by the spirit of ngurra (country).
The co-design process allowed the community to lead. When we have the opportunity for ownership, we take it by the hand and nurture it. Communities need to get to a state where they are liveable and where families can grow. That’s the most important thing.
The co-design process allowed the community to lead. When we have the opportunity for ownership, we take it by the hand and nurture it. Communities need to get to a state where they are liveable and where families can grow. That’s the most important thing.
For Martu, all aspects of ngurra are connected, and boundaries between the public and private realms are porous. For instance, if you ask someone about their house, they will often respond with a story about their yard or the street, and how their home interacts with other people, the landscape or climate.
Past attempts to improve housing have been narrow and short-term responses. New houses are delivered without proper engagement or family decision-making. Planned maintenance, critically necessary in this harsh environment, has not been carried out in a systemic and sustained way.
For example, positioning for optimal solar performance would mean designing new houses that face north to capture airflow and natural light. While this is true in most urban settings, it can cause problems in communities where cultural protocol determines how you occupy space. Applying general standards without community engagement can result in poor outcomes for culture, with unwanted or taboo views towards ngurra or neighbours.
Any new housing and community plan needs to address these mistakes. It is not simply about materials, orientation or speed of delivery – they must have regard for culture, family and community sustainability.
Additionally, community-based repair and maintenance programs ensure that money spent in communities stays in communities, improving economic sustainability.
The design work is now complete, and Martu and JYAC are now in negotiation with the WA Government to fund the next stage of this project, which is the construction of quality housing on ngurra with Martu long-term house titles and community-based maintenance teams.
It is possible to avoid the merry-go-round mistakes of the past. Martu have a fully detailed plan to rebuild Martu communities and respond to climate change. Will the government listen?
Tony McRae, Jamukurnu-Yapalikurnu Aboriginal Corporation CEO
Kieran Wong, The Fulcrum Agency, Co-Founder and Partner
The Wellbeing of Architects symposium_slider 1080_2 title
The Wellbeing of Architects symposium aims to drive positive change, helping to create a healthier, more sustainable future for the architecture community.
TFA is a proud Research Partner on this important project.
The Wellbeing of Architects [education + practice] symposium marks the conclusion of a comprehensive research project,
The Wellbeing of Architects: Culture, Identity and Practice
(2020-2024). This event, held over two days, presents the study’s findings and – more importantly – proposes actionable recommendations for addressing the mental health and wellbeing issues prevalent in the architecture community.
Day one
focuses on architectural education, exploring methods to improve the wellbeing of students and educators. It will feature insights from teachers and student leaders, aiming to identify effective practices and cultures that foster mental wellbeing – in the studio and beyond.
Day two
delves into architectural practice, addressing issues such as workload management, service valuation, and the promotion of a thriving culture. The symposium will provide practical advice for practitioners of all sizes and sectors, considering the broader construction industry context and the role of peak bodies in driving change.
The event will also launch the
Guides to Wellbeing in Practice
, a set of research-informed guides aimed discussion and action towards transformative change. Speakers include researchers, industry leaders, and innovative educators and practitioners, offering attendees new insights, tools, and resources to lead efforts in enhancing mental wellbeing within the architectural community.
We’ve had a long-time love of the
Fremantle Foundation
, in particular their Impact 100 campaign, which invites 100 donors to give $1000, resulting in a pool of $100,000. Community-based organisations have the chance to pitch for this money, often resulting in a life-changing grant for people doing great things in our town. We always cry on voting night and wish we could give the money to everyone who applies.
Our $1000 comes from The Fulcrum Fund, where we invest a percentage of all income to support community-led projects that enhance quality of life, enable cultural safety and practice, and address systematic injustice. As an office, we debate how we spend the $$ in our Fund, but the Impact 100 campaign remains top of the list every year.
This has been a round-about way of telling you that if you can, and you are interested and are perhaps local to the Walyalup area, you might be interested in becoming an Impact 100 donor too. Go
here
to learn more about what’s involved.
