ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of a visual data gathering technique for understanding Aboriginal housing use and developing appropriate design in the context of everyday life in Aboriginal Australia. It makes a case for the use of visual methodologies in the field of Aboriginal housing studies as a means of critiquing existing designs and as a first step in the development of a novel housing procurement model which permits designs that are responsive to Aboriginal culture and environmental context. The method draws on ethnography and architecture both in the field setting and in the analytical setting. The House Game aims to facilitate the development of an architecture brief, through the identification of culturally specific parameters, with an emphasis on spatial organisation of the built form and how these spaces would be used in a number of situations: winter, summer, sorry time and so on. This method provided the householder with a language with which to discuss their house and housing design while identifying cultural and social parameters. The House Game is distinguished by its capacity to capture the holistic vision that Aboriginal householders seek to convey.
