Emma Matthews

emat0022@student.monash.edu↗

The Kokatha Cultural and Community Centre aims to recognise and reconcile the damage of the past, with an awareness that reconciliation is an ongoing process. The site, currently operating as a museum filled with memorabilia of past weapons and missile testing, will be transformed into an education and community centre that honours the Traditional Owners, rather than commemorating histories of violence and disruption. The landscape itself bears the scars of colonisation and conflict, which the project seeks to confront and begin to heal.

Community Centre Perspective

The community space intends to promote health, belonging, and connection among Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents with the intention to increase population, cultural continuity, and a gradual reclamation of land and identity through a shared space which provides a safe and welcoming space where knowledge and culture can be shared.

Education Centre perspective

While acknowledging the inevitable presence of military activity in the region, the project aims to carve out a space within the heart of the town that reorient its identity. The education space is situated near the Woomera School to encourage learning, knowledge-sharing, and cultural exchange.

Education Centre section

Whilst the project intends to restore the native ecology and population and community presence. The fragments of the past are difficult to ignore. This section highlights the damage of past missile testing which is still present within the land.

Within the comunity centre

The community Centre intends to hold activities and events in the internal and external spaces which promote relationships and a sense of community. Through the architecture it is intended that people will use the Centre as a space to connect, share knowledge and experiences with other members of the community.

Restoration of community and ecology

Within the architecture are moments of preserve and growth. Members of the community are encouraged to engage in cultivation and growing of native flora.

Full site elevation

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