Narrandjeri House, Fitzroy North, Melbourne Community Building Project, Australian Architecture Development, Images
Narrandjeri House in Fitzroy North
18 Aug 2021
Design: Public Realm Lab
Location: Fitzroy North, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Photos: Tom Ross
Narrandjeri House, Victoria
Narrandjeri House is a heritage factory repurposed to create a flexible contemporary workplace that celebrates Aboriginal culture and creates a culturally safe space for staff and clients.

What was the brief"

Aboriginal Housing Victoria had long outgrown their heritage warehouse in Fitzroy and had started leasing surrounding spaces to house their over-flow teams. This was creating cultural divisions within the organisation, a sense of ?us and them? based on amenity, access to senior leaders and space. We were engaged to help AHV define their future needs and identify a suitable new location for their headquarters. But from the earliest discussions, everyone within the organisation lamented the need to leave their central location that is significant in its connectivity with other Aboriginal organisations and the history of Aboriginal self-determination in Victoria. We spotted an opportunity to help AHV radically redesign how they work and then craft a new workplace around this, within the existing footprint.
AHV?s key needs were: 1) a culturally safe space for Aboriginal clients and staff, and a space that celebrated Aboriginal culture and self-determination, 2) a highly efficient, ...