30 Jul 2026
“Country has been changed so dramatically. It doesn’t mean that the stories and the places aren’t still there. It’s just that they have been changed in ways that can’t always be seen… Cultural mapping helps to unravel those stories, mysteries, ideas.”
These words from Dr Danièle Hromek, a Saltwater woman with Budawang, Dhurga, Yuin, Burrier and Dharawal ancestry, and Director and Design Lead at Djinjama, have stayed with me since listening to her on the Green Building Voice podcast this month.
Built environment professionals are fluent in maps. Master plans. Topographic surveys. Flood and heat maps. Zoning overlays. Services drawings. We rely on them every day. They shape how we understand place and, ultimately, the decisions we make.
But, as Danièle says, our maps only tell one kind of story. Cultural mapping helps us see others. It reveals the narratives, relationships, histories and living knowledge embedded in place, including languages, cultural practices and care for Country. Danièle describes cultural mapping as a process of “re-reading Country”.
Colonial maps reveal one way of understanding this continent. As Danièle puts it: “Sometimes a map is just about saying, ‘Here’s another way of seeing’.”
That’s how I felt the first time I saw the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia. It replaces familiar state and territory boundaries with 250-plus Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language groups and shows that ours is a continent of many, many nations. Every project, the AIATSIS map reveals, begins in a unique place, and with unique Traditional Owners, knowledge and stories.
In this spirit of recognition, the GBCA celebrated NAIDOC Week, and its theme of 50 Years of Deadly, by reflecting on the work we’ve achieved through our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan and the work ahead.
When we developed our first RAP in 2017, we were among a handful of organisations in the built environment sector to do so. Today, many GBCA members have their own RAPs, creating new opportunities for First Nations businesses and employees, and embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices much earlier in the design process.
For the GBCA, our greatest contribution to reconciliation lies in our deep work doing what we do best: rate, educate and advocate.
Through Green Star, we rate projects that design with Country, not just build on Country. Green Star Communities v2, for instance, honours Indigenous knowledge with the Places category rewarding accessible, safe and vibrant places that respect connections to Country.
We educate by creating opportunities to learn from First Nations Peoples through our events, education programs and TRANSFORM conference, where Danièle was one of several First Nations keynote speakers. (And online courses on leading on Indigenous design or working with community and Country are a great CPD boost.)
We advocate by championing projects that demonstrate what designing with Country can achieve. One example is Country Road’s Chatswood Chase flagship store. Working with Nguluway DesignInc and the Gaimaragal Group, the retailer created a fitout shaped by the stories and landscapes of the local area. Sweeping timber ribbons across the ceiling echo contour lines of the landscape. Read our case study in this month’s Green Building Voice.
Projects like this reflect a nascent but important shift in thinking. A decade ago, Indigenous design practitioners were rarely part of project teams. Today they are beginning to help architects, planners, engineers and developers see Country differently.
Seeing Country differently allows us to see ourselves and our work differently. The beautiful artwork at the heart of our Innovate RAP, created by Darug Boorooberongal artist Daniel Apps, is another kind of map. Pathways radiate from a central meeting place, crossing landscapes, waterways and ecosystems. It expresses the enduring connection between the built environment and the natural world, and the relationships that bind them. Daniel captures pages of words in a single image.
Of the many learnings I gained from Danièle’s conversation with our own Elham Monavari on our podcast, it was that cultural mapping is not simply a transfer of knowledge from Traditional Owners to design teams. It is knowledge that is documented, strengthened and returned to those who shared it, so they can draw on it in future conversations, planning and cultural stewardship. This creates something far more meaningful than consultation: a genuinely reciprocal relationship.
The Closing the Gap report reminds us that reconciliation is unfinished work. But the enduring promise of reconciliation is that it invites us to keep listening, keep learning and remain open to new ways of seeing that deepen our understanding of Country, of our work, and of ourselves.