This Prefab Shed Allows an Indigenous Community in Australia to Double Down on Food Production
SJB Architects collaborated with members of the Nyul Nyul Community to create an on-site harvesting facility that works with the elements.
SJB Architects collaborated with members of the Nyul Nyul Community to create an on-site harvesting facility that works with the elements.
Since 2009, the Nyul Nyul Community of the Kimberley region of Western Australia has sustainably wild harvested and processed Indigenous foods like the gubinge, a superfood that has the highest source of vitamin C on the planet. When frozen, it can be dehydrated and milled into a mixable powder, which Community members sell to a range of industries including chocolate and cosmetics.
More recently, on the Dampier Peninsula north of Broome, harvesters installed a prefabricated shed structure that has allowed them to streamline their operations. Instead of transporting produce off-site for sorting, cleaning, and processing, the new structure allows those procedures to take place on location, increasing efficiency while improving worker conditions.
The Packing Shed, shown here as a rendering, was designed by SJB Architects in collaboration with the Nyul Nyul Community. The Orana Foundation reports that gubinge harvest has increased by more than 120 percent since introducing the shed to production.
Courtesy of SJB Architects
SJB Architects, a firm with Sydney- and Melbourne-based practices, designed the shed in collaboration with Bruno Dann, a Nyul Nyul elder and traditional owner (a custodian of the land), as well as the Orana Foundation, an organization promoting and protecting Australia’s Indigenous food culture.
The architects at SJB spent a decade working with Dann and his business partner, Marion Louis Manson, visiting the site in Western Australia and learning more about the Community’s needs and its relationship with the land.
The gubinge is a deciduous tree that grows in the Kakadu and Kimberley regions of Australia. The Nyul Nyul Community harvests in the Kimberley region in Western Australia between December and May, depending on the weather.
Courtesy of SJB Architects
SJB Architects spent years visiting the Twin Lakes Cultural Park and the Nyul Nyul Community that lives there, homing in on a design that would would work best with their practices and the environment.
Courtesy of SJB Architects
See the full story on Dwell.com: This Prefab Shed Allows an Indigenous Community in Australia to Double Down on Food Production
