Indigenous landscaping and biophilic urbanism: case studies in Noongar Six Seasons

Abstract

Background

Indigenous landscaping has had a revival with Indigenous cultures as an important part of multiculturalism. The landscape elements are generally gleaned from Indigenous Elders and from anthropological texts and pre-invasion history texts (e.g. explorers’ notebooks) that enable an understanding of the ecological, food, and medicine aspects of their propagation. The purpose of this study was to examine how Indigenous landscaping (knowledge, values, management methods, use) can assist with biophilic urbanism, the new approach to bringing natural systems into the built environment. This emphasizes the importance of place meanings in biophilic design. It will illustrate this in Western Australia using the Noongar People’s Six Seasons of distinct landscape each with importance for providing a living environment (shelter, food, medicine, and spiritual nourishment) and as a basic requirement for biodiversity management over 60,000 years.

Results

The study presents key reasons to include Indigenous interpretive landscaping into biophilic urbanism. Case studies in Six Seasons Gardens are used to show how integrating a cultural element into landscaping can bring many advantages. From the analysis of the case studies, we identified qualities of Indigenous Local Native Gardens. Several reasons for prioritising Indigenous landscaping in urban settings are proposed. These highlight cultural, educational, and professional values that can be achieved.

Conclusions

In this paper, we presented three case studies of urban indigenous and native gardens. We highlighted implications for adding indigenous dimensions to the management of the natural and built environments and brought to attention how indigenous landscaping is a conveyor of meaning, inclusive culture, and the importance of biodiversity. The future of biophilic urbanism will depend on whether sufficient contact with historians, anthropologists, and remnant indigenous communities can be made in order to emphasize the value for all aspects of biophilic urbanism in creating a deeper sense of place.