Hames Sharley is proud to announce that it is Architects Without Frontiers’ (AWF) new Network Partner, joining its community of socially conscious Australian organisations.
The announcement is an exciting step for the interdisciplinary design practice, which sees it draw on its strong national footprint to support AWF to continue delivering its humanitarian projects in a sustainable way.
“We are immensely proud to announce this partnership with AWF,” Hames Sharley Managing Director Caillin Howard says. “The AWF community is a force for good and we are excited to create a strong impact for more people in our communities with quality design.”
Founded in 1998, AWF is a non-profit organisation that facilitates the design and construction of health, education and community projects in many countries. It has helped transform the lives of more than 2000 people around the world, primarily in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.
Its network includes architects, landscape architects, urban planners, engineers, quantity surveyors and other land and property specialists, each collaborating to fulfil AWF’s vision to ‘transform humanity through design’.
“The addition of Hames Sharley to our network partnership is a perfect fit with our shared social values, philosophy and sustainability approach. Together, we collaborate for communities who have the greatest need for design but the least access to it,” AWF Founding Director Esther Charlesworth says.
The partnership is perfectly aligned with Hames Sharley’s mission to work with and invest in Australia’s most remote and in-need communities, and supports the practice’s ‘Reflect’ Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).
“Our studio presence in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, in particular, provides us with excellent reach to use the power of design for social good, and identify new opportunities to work within the many communities there in need,” Mr Howard says.
Hames Sharley’s first project in partnership with AWF is for non-profit Housing for Homelands, an organisation that works with Arnhem Land’s First Nations communities to co-create new housing that responds to the right of homeland residents to determine where and how they live.
Together with AWF, Housing for Homelands and Jackson Clements Burrows Architects, Hames Sharley will consult and collaborate with Raymanngirr Homelands residents, Goŋ-Ḏäl Aboriginal Corporation, Laynhapuy Aboriginal Corporation to deliver a scalable pilot dwelling that may be repeated and adapted for other communities.
The responsibility lies with all of us to improve the process, delivery and outcomes for housing in remote communities throughout Australia, says Hames Sharley Associate Director and Northern Territory Studio Leader Alex Quin.
“Working with Housing for Homelands and AWF to engage in a collaborative process to deliver better housing to remote communities is a both a privilege and a responsibility. It is a privilege to work with senior Yolngu people in their homelands to collaboratively develop housing that supports living on country to keep culture strong,” he says.
For Hames Sharley team members, the partnership will benefit their professional development working with like-minded experts and other practices while building their knowledge across a mix of projects and disciplines, says Hames Sharley Associate Director Yaara Plaves.
“Importantly, we wish to set a benchmark for future generations of our design and architectural profession to create accessible, equitable and selfless projects that do good in our communities. Ultimately, we want to have a positive impact on people and the planet and AWF is making that possible,” she says.