This research explores relational frameworks and water care to inform urban design and planning of cities. An analysis of Melbourne’s geomorphology and deep history reveals that since colonisation, urban planning and design interventions have significantly altered coastal landscape conditions and displaced water in the urban environment. These practices are still being perpetuated in modern water management. Despite water being largely engineered underground, water memory keeps resurfacing in the form of intense flooding, compelling us to reconsider our positionality, values, and relationships with water.
The study centres on the Indigenous paradigm of relationality. This concept provides an expansive alternative to colonial approaches, whereby water is understood as agentic and sentient rather than merely as a ‘resource’. The paradigm involves a set of practices that orient our understanding of the world towards an equal, responsible, and co-creative design role.
The thesis explored the relational practices in Boon Wurrung Country to develop a framework that informs new urban planning and design methodologies for underground water management. In particular, the research analyses drained, displaced, and piped waterways.
The research was created with the collaboration and co-supervision of Boon Wurrung Elder Professor N’arwee’t Carolyn Briggs AM. This paper proposes a relational design methodology based on Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Doing and Being and in collaboration with Water. This methodology was tested through projects including creating an augmented reality application and a curriculum design for Master of Architecture Students at Monash University. The paper will share the findings, challenges and opportunities of looking at design through a relational lens with Water.