RPS landscape architect joins advisory panel for Ngurra Cultural Precinct design competition

RPS Principal Landscape Architect, Des Cloake, has been appointed as one of two to serve as a technical landscape advisor for the Ngurra Cultural Precinct design competition

The Australian Government announced it would build Ngurra – an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural precinct - earlier this year, and has called on the community to shape the project’s design.

Once complete, Ngurra will be home to an Indigenous knowledge and cultural centre, new facilities for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), and a national resting place to house and care for ancestral remains in Canberra.

Des is an award-winning landscape architect from our Brisbane office, the Co-Chair of RPS’ Reconciliation Working Group, and a proud Yuggera man.

“I’m honoured to be involved in such a culturally significant project, and I'm looking forward to seeing the designs by the short-listed teams," said Des.

"It really is an exciting and humbling opportunity.”

The competition to select a winning design for Ngurra is being managed by AIATSIS who said:  

The Design Competition begins the process of realising the long-held vision for a national institution to recognise and honour one of the world’s longest living cultures.

The Ngurra Cultural Precinct will sit on Country that is home to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people who have lived for thousands of years amid a landscape of limestone plains, mountains, swamps, and streams.

AIATSIS says the precinct will build a shared understanding of our present and our future, furthering the national narrative of what it means to be an Australian.

The term 'Ngurra' appears in many different Aboriginal languages around Australia and is a word for ‘home’, ‘camp’, ‘a place of belonging’ and ‘a place of inclusion’.

RPS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures and to Elders past and present.