Lost Lands Found (Indigenous Garden)

The ‘Lost Lands Found’, Indigenous Garden revitalisation project at Monash University Clayton Campus is a live practice project. The garden was created by Ethnobotanist Dr Beth Gott in 1985 and features plants and trees originally used by the South-Eastern and Eastern Indigenous people of Australia for food, medicine, fibre and implements. Beth’s work has been acknowledged by Elders and members of the Wurundjeri for the important role that she has played in preserving indigenous biocultural knowledge and heritage.

Over the course of the semester students have developed a project that traverses a range a project scales, from broader master planning design considerations, such as establishing critical site lines and situating the garden better within its surrounds both physically and culturally, to the design and conceptualisation of smaller scale architectural interventions within the garden and developing these in detail, building prototypes in the MADA workshops.

Students have worked closely with Monash University stakeholders, including the project lead, proud Wemba Wemba Wergaia man, Dean Stewart. Dean has a beautiful saying, “always written twice – once in the land and second in the sky”. He is keen to involve architecture students to assist with conceiving a place for reflection and sharing of knowledge in the garden; a space that has a deeper connection to place, to Country, the sky, and the cosmos; a place where Lost Lands can be Found.