In 2022 Port Adelaide Enfield Council and its Aboriginal Advisory Panel awarded the lead Architect role for its Aboriginal Cultural Centre to Ashley Halliday Architects following a highly competitive nation-wide open tender call.
Long time collaborators Ashley Halliday (Architecture) and Warwick Keates (Wax Design – Landscape Architecture) are leading an authentic, place-led, co-design partnership with the local Kaurna community and Council. We are greatly inspired by the enthusiasm, wisdom, honesty, patience, and mutual-respect shared by the Custodians, Council and broader project team on this journey.
This project represents an outstanding opportunity for the community of Port Adelaide Enfield to acknowledge and pay respect to the Kaurna Meyunna past, present and emerging – the traditional owners and custodians of this place. Furthermore it represents a unique opportunity for council to demonstrate its vision and leadership in joining the community together to heal each other and Country.
Kaurna histories, knowledge, experience, thoughts, and ideas have driven the formation of the concept design. Together ‘Brave and Curious’, the traditional owners, and Council developed a series of cultural principles and directions for the design, programming and operation of the project. Importantly, the cultural principles act as key performance indicators to ensure the highest level of design integrity, cultural representation and expression.
The proposed concept design represents a thoughtfully considered site-wide exploration of landscape, site planning, ecology and architecture and expresses the ideas, values and requirements identified with the custodians through a series of design workshops.
This project will create an immersive Aboriginal cultural experience, where learning, celebration, landscape and architecture are sensitively curated to create a safe, multi- dimensional indoor- outdoor place that connects Community, Culture, and Country. We look upon the role of Yitpi Yartapuultiku as a place with unique feeling and presence where ecology, landscape and architecture interweave and unite to create an atmospheric and highly adaptable multi-purpose indoor-outdoor cultural venue.
The design concept is sensitively curated to create an immersive cultural experience that restores and reconnects people, culture, and Country .
The Aboriginal Cultural Centre Port Adelaide will be a culturally-safe place that offers a broad range of amenities and spatial modes for the Port Adelaide Enfield community and visitors to connect socially with each other and Country. It will be a place for creating special experiences, new knowledge, memories and cultivating relationships – A living cultural landscape that brings people together.
2023 International Architecture Exhibition la Biennale Di Venezia – Australian Pavilion Exhibition.
SA Awards for Planning Excellence 2022 – Ministers Award.
SA Awards for Planning Excellence 2022 – Planning With Country.
Location: Port Adelaide, South Australia
Client: Port Adelaide Enfield Council
Project Value: $34m
Construction: May 2023 – December 2024
Services Provided: Lead Service Provider, Architecture and Interior Design.
