How does one intervene and design landscapes in the remote, sensitive, regions of Australia, like the design you made for the Uluru Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre, where the harsh environment is so closely part of Indigenous culture and life?

In such a remote area, it really was about discovering the landscape and culture as we found them. It was based on an appreciation of a landscape that is magnificent at every scale and about a reverence for the living Aboriginal culture found at Uluru. The indigenous people are known as Anangu and are the custodians and owners of the land. They are the hosts while the tourists are the guests.



When visitors come to Uluru they think they are just going to be looking and experiencing an enormous iconic rock, but to the Anangu people everything there is precious and to be respected. Before the cultural centre was constructed in 1993, most visitors only drove through the landscape and their experience of the desert was limited to taking photos or climbing the rock, a practice Anangu do not approve of as the rock is sacred and they feel responsible if people injure themselves while climbing.

Rather than tourists getting out of air-conditioned buses or cars and just walking straight into the cultural centre, we sited the bus and the car park 300 metres away, so visitors walk through the desert along sinuous pathways of red sand and actually experience what it is like to be immersed in the desert, to experience the nuances of the flora and fauna. This meandering journey prepares them for the cultural knowledge they will encounter in the cultural centre.

What was your brief from the Anangu people?

That the visitor is invited to experience the desert as found at that particular site and on that particular day. The Anangu wanted as little as possible to be altered, added or removed. To this end no trees were removed and there was minimal removal of other vegetation. As many materials as possible from the site were used, including for the pathways, walls and path edging, and no drainage patterns were altered, as even a slight change in gradient can alter the way water is dispersed across the desert landscape. p

Kate Cullity