06/07/2022
Associate Professor Elizabeth Grant.
Beloved women and friend to all. Thank you.
“BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Elizabeth Grant is an architectural anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow in the The Office of Academic and Student Engagement at the University of Adelaide with a distinguished record in the field of Indigenous architecture with a specialist interest in the design of institutional environments for Indigenous peoples.
Elizabeth Grant's research interests include Indigenous architecture, Aboriginal housing and homelessness, Indigenous children's learning and play environments, prison, court and other design for the criminal justice arena and culturally sustainable design. She is interested in ascertaining congruence or 'fit' between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' behaviours and cultural norms and the design of physical environments.
Elizabeth has wide experience in the Indigenous arena over three decades, in urban, rural and remote settings, ranging from research and enacting processes to achieve outcomes in the built environment, to advocacy roles acting for Aboriginal communities. She acts as consultant to a number of national and international architecture and engineering firms on a range of projects with an emphasis on Indigenous design issues in master planning and design projects.
Her expertise lies in generating Indigenous design recommendations for projects through applying evidence based research and community consultation and working with design teams to produce culturally appropriate built environments for Aboriginal peoples. She also has expertise and considerable experience in conducting participatory planning processes and post-occupancy evaluations.
Her work is underpinned by two ethical philosophies. Firstly, she wishes to assist in improving the quality of outcomes of the lives of Australian Aboriginal peoples in terms of improving the built environment.
This objective however needs to be met on their terms and within their cultural frameworks and socio-economic and political goals. Secondly, Elizabeth sets out to educate non-Aboriginal Australians on the value of ‘culture’ as a social asset and unique functional part of human heritage, and further to understand, appreciate and accommodate cultural differences in the use of the built environment and society.
Elizabeth Grant is an international expert on the design of Indigenous custodial environments.
Her doctoral research examined Aboriginal people's preference for prison environments and was the first empirical study of its type and examines preference and congruence as a mechanism to negative behaviours in prison environments. This work has had a major impact on the way prisons and prison housing for Indigenous prisoners are designed both in Australia and internationally.
The application of her evidence-based research has led to greater understandings of the needs of Indigenous prisoners by correctional agencies, architects and others and the development and adoption of documents such as the Minimum Standards and the design of the award winning, West Kimberley Regional Prison Project. Dr Grant has spent over a decade conducting cutting-edge evidence based research. She has published extensively on the topic of prison environments, while tackling issues confronting correctional agencies such as overcrowding, temperature control, ligature points, conditions for women and children, human rights and other factors affecting the prison experience.
In 2015, she was honoured with the International Prison and Correctional Association (ICPA) Excellence in Research Award for her work in this area. In 2017, she was appointed as an Independent Expert Director to the Board of the Aboriginal Prisoner and Offender Support Service. In 2017 she was invited to submit to three Government inquiries and appointed as an expert witness and participant for closed forums on juvenile detention as part of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.
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Curriculum Vitae – Dr Elizabeth Grant
Dr Elizabeth Grant is an elected member of Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), a member of the International Association for People-Environment Studies (IAPS), the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA), the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), the Australian New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC), the Australia and New Zealand Chapter of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies and the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA).
Dr Grant is a Churchill Fellow, has published three books and over 70 papers and serves as a peer reviewer and referee for more than 10 international journals. She is the lead editor of the upcoming Springer International Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture.”
JULY 6th 2022, University of Adelaide [Website, Staff Directory]., https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/elizabeth.grant?dsn=directory.file;field=data;id=38836;m=view
It is with great sadness that we share of the sudden passing of Associate Professor Elizabeth Grant. Elizabeth Grant passed away peacefully in her sleep on 5th July 2022. Elizabeth’s contributions to architecture, criminology and anthropology are extensive, awarded and ground-breaking. Her commitment to First Nations people, design, research, institutional environments and Indigenous architecture are known and respected by many peoples across the world. Among her many achievements is the establishment of this social media page – Indigenous Architecture – in 2013. It now has thousands of followers. Elizabeth’s energy, drive, determination, wit and passion will be fondly remembered. Elizabeth is a mother, grand mother, and loving partner, and we send our deepest sympathies to her family, friends and colleagues at this very difficult time. Please honour Elizabeth by sharing your best memories of her.
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