The Creation Of Shelter In Pre-Colonial Far North Australia And New Zealand
Shelter has always been a necessity for mankind. We, as humans, have a relationship with the land that we must respect to live happily amongst it. Spaning back as far as the pre-Colonial Australia, indigenous Australians understood this connection excellently. Their shelters seemed to ‘bend with the land’ as they understood crucial elements within the architecture to compensate for distinctive climate and cultural factors to fit their nomadic lifestyle. Their living style was very minimalistic yet practical. The indigenous Australians only built what they needed to survive. For evidence of this, we will be looking at the text; ‘Gunyah, Goondie and Wurley: the
The relationship the Maori had with the sea was that it supplied them with food, and if camped near a river, fresh water.
Aboriginal rainforest groups employ as range of shelter types but were mostly dome shelters due to the rainy wet climate of the forest. The domes allow the water entry to be minimal and for the water to run off and not collect on the roof causing the hut to collapse. They built, permanent domes, temporary domes, windbreaks called yiwan; especially in the large open spaces, shades which are called dyadu, and others11. The construction of the domes varied from tribe to tribe. The scale in which they were built varied from a nuclear family housing size which are called dugar, to large community size huts, dyimurr. The larger domes spanned up to 9 meters in diameter12. It was generally common for multiple families to be housed under one roof. These huts often held 30 people or more. Some had circular-based flooring and other oval-based13.

Figure : Dome Houses in Far north Australian Rainforest
White, A.A, photographer. Photographer. c1907. John Oxley Library. (Accessed May 10, 2014)
There was domes that had multiple rooms, which were intersecting structure. Some also had continuous framing members versus apex-fixed structural members. The village plan segregated the housing into groups. In one hut might be a family, one man and his wives and their many children, with fires within for cooking and warming.