- DESIGN STUDIO E: TIWI ART AND CULTURE -
Tiwi College Art and Culture Center
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The Tiwi College Art and Culture Center will be a Pedagogical Multiplier where the students can learn about the Journey & Development of their own culture from reading and enjoying the layout of the design.
The project is set in one of Australia’s most extraordinary educational and geographic landscapes. Integrated with its remote and tropical surroundings, Tiwi College offers a weekly boarding school for Tiwi students to enable them to stay on country and pursue their education in a culturally responsive environment. The center should enable the development of a vibrant and dynamic creative arts hub within the school property. In built form it should celebrate Tiwi cultural identity and reflect its geology, flora, fauna, people and history. As a cultural symbol, it is essential that the design process proceed in collaboration with the Tiwi College stakeholders.
The Tiwi Islands are part of the Northern Territory, Australia, 80 km to the north of Darwin. They comprise of Melville Island, Bathurst Island, and nine smaller uninhabited islands.
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The Tiwi Islands consist of “8 countries”. The Tiwi people inherited the country from one's father. The Tiwi are Indigenous Australian people, culturally and linguistically distinct from those of Arnhem Land on the mainland just across the water. The tropical monsoonal climate frames the lifestyle of the Tiwi people, dictating the food sources available and their ceremonial activities. The islands have been isolated from the Australian mainland since the last ice age. The islands' climatic and geographical extremity means that they have distinctive vegetation and special conservation values.
The Tiwi Islands
Tiwi people have a special relationship with AFL. The unique linkage between footy, hunting and Tiwi identity is an interest of studying. The Tiwi also have unique views on the universe, on one's role in society, on religion, and on organizing system. Together with the 'unbroken link', these characteristics of Tiwi culture provide inspiration for design concepts of the project.
Understanding the Tiwi Culture - Concept of Cycle and Journey
There are 8 interconnecting factors that interact with each other to shape the understanding of Tiwi Identity, namely: 1) Climate, 2) Geography, 3) History, 4) Culture, 5) Economy, 6) Education, 7) Brief & 8) Site. It is from this regenerative loop that the role of the proposed Art and Culture Centre in reshaping and reconstructing the Tiwi Identity could be understood and illustrated. The new Art and Cultural Center feeds back into this regenerative loop and modifies the existing environment, influencing the development of a new cycle of Tiwi identity.
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This concept of a cycle and a continuous journey echoes with the crucial idea of “unbroken link” in Tiwi culture. A link that has significance value in their cultural lives but is lost in modern time. It is from understanding, depicting, reenacting and mapping of their journey in the world that they reinforce their bond to their own heritage and kinship group. The construction of the Unbroken Link between their past, present and future therefore plays a key role in organizing their rich history in the past, nurturing their self esteem and pride, empowering the Tiwi people in present time, and sustaining their presence in the days to come.
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Unfortunately, the genuine development path and history of Tiwi is lost in the modern time. The continual understanding of the Tiwi Identity is missing, especially among the Tiwi youth. The Art and Culture Center should provide the opportunity to fill in the lost blankness and map out the history of Tiwi for them.
Understanding the Tiwi Culture - Unique Views and Values
Perspectives
The Lost Link
Unfortunately, the 'continual journey' and the 'unbroken link' that is so important in Tiwi culture is disturbed when the westerners and mainlanders came into power. The social destruction, spiritual decline and welfare dependency brought about by the ills of the modern society cause the rapid corrosion of Tiwi culture. The genuine development path and history of Tiwi is thus lost in the modern time. The continual understanding of the Tiwi Identity is missing, especially among the Tiwi youth. The Art and Culture Center should provide the opportunity to fill in the lost blankness and map out the history of Tiwi for them.
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The center should become a part the adaptive cycle of development, a part of the Reorganization Stage of Tiwi Culture, and facilitate the in the West-and-Tiwi cultural symbiosis.
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By being a place to map out the lost development link in Tiwi History, the continual understanding of Tiwi Identity is restored. The center would enhance the sense of belonging, pride, and culture of Tiwi. The venue of art education would serve as a record of the ancient past, the transformation, the connection, a breeding ground of the thriving present generation, a hub that allows empowerment and imagination of future.
Modifications are made to the existing road network to improve both the physical and visual connection to the site. Covered walkways linking the complex to other parts of the campus are introduced to encourage circulations within the college. The site is further set back to enlarge the arrival area. The existing woodland to the back is also appropriated as part of the experience path of the design.
Design Proposal - Site Response
Design Proposal - The 10 Concepts
The final design proposal incorporates the 10 design concepts inspired from study of the Tiwi culture and responses to the existing site condition.