CONNECTING COUNTRY

As a young graduate starting out on his architectural career with the Aboriginal Housing Company in Sydney in 1986, Yugembir man Dillon Kombumerri was a little wary of the idea of non-Indigenous people interpreting Aboriginal culture in their design practice.

“When I first thought about what it meant to be an Aboriginal person designing with Aboriginal communities in mind, I really had it in my head that I didn’t feel comfortable with [non-Indigenous people working in this space],” he recalls. “But as I started working on projects, and meeting non-Indigenous architects who had been working with community – somebody like Gregory Burgess springs to mind – then I actually took a very different position.”

Now a principal architect in the Office of the Government Architect NSW, Kombumerri has been one of the prominent voices advising on the Sydney Ochre Grid. A mapping project that seeks to connect both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, building knowledge bridges