sala4D project 'The Springs' gets AILA award for Orange's Great Depression site

Directors of Orange-based business, sala4D, four community design plans by both Shahreen "Shah" Alford and Celia Baxter recently nabbed top tier honours at The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) NSW 2022 Awards.

One of its winners for the Western NSW area, presented a unique opportunity for sala4D's original birth mother, Shah Alford, who returned home to establish the business in 2012, after travelling the globe with her profession.

"Orange is the very reason I became a landscape architect," she said.

"I felt this strong desire to come back and live regionally, because we have a beautiful town here and I love that landscape architects can help communities - I really wanted to reconnect with the same place that I'd grown up in."

The Springs Heritage Landscape Plan, a conservation project with Orange City Council, gave Ms Alford the perfect platform to forge further links with her birthplace.

Giving others the chance to form new connections, or preserve long lost ones, sala4D's design proposal in Orange received the AILA-esteemed commendations for plans to sacredly record and interpret The Springs - a heritage-listed site in South Orange.

"I knew the area and of some of the cultural significance, because I'd worked with council on the Shiralee Master Plan and the DPI land - so I also knew there was a history of encampments out there from the Great Depression," Ms Alford said.

Known as an Aboriginal fringe camp during the Depression-era in the 1930s, the site is located on the outskirts of the city alongside a travelling stock route near Shiralee Road and Hawke Lane.

Occupied by an estimated 18 Indigenous and non-Indigenous families, who resided together in the harmonious shanty settlement, the site was cleared by council back in 1936.

Just prior to the site's near-bulldozing in the millennium, heritage-based funding was sought for a master plan to conserve the area's significance.

Plans were also aimed at allowing the public to (carefully) observe the history-laden land, through a series of meticulous designs; which is where sala4D came in.

"Master plans are really important for small communities, because they provide a vehicle for seeking funding from government," Ms Alford said.

"So, if you've got a master plan that shows all of your aspirations and show how you've thought about how it all works, then the government feels confident that their money is going to be well spent.

"Wisely, Orange City Council decided to do one for The Springs area and the Local Lands Council was also quite involved."

Forming strong, consultative process with Aboriginal stakeholders, the sala4D pair absorbed information from Elders, family descendants, Orange Local Aboriginal Lands Council and past settlers.

Also the most senior Wiradjuri woman descending from the Wellington Valley, one of the last surviving residents of the site is Aunty Joyce Williams.

"It was good on The Springs, everybody got on well together," she says in a video by Orange City Council video, describing what life was like there until she was around age 14.

"They used to get a hold of old bricks from the rubbish tip and mix up clay and stuff with it and make their fireplaces, add it all around ... some [people] got married and some were never [married], no different than white people," she says with a smile.

sala4D's proposal shows designs that would relay the true histories from local people and its heritage, that "would otherwise be lost and untold."

The company did this through presenting its plan, which involved information points and interpretive sculptures - such as silhouettes of settlers, outlines of 'ghost houses' to depict its shanty homes and children stepping over the creek, to name a few.

"We designed simple still structures to hover over the footings - which are all heritage-listed, so you can't touch it - just to give people a sense of scale and what the houses might've been like and how small they were," Ms Alford said.

"Especially through the Rifle Range area, the Aboriginal community say 'just walk lightly; tread lightly and just listen, be quiet and hear'.

"So, the space allows for that and it's about gently perceiving - that's that fourth dimension for you -and it's not a heavy-handed plan, but really just providing people access and the opportunity to understand."

Keeping a lookout at the top of the hill close to the dam, the outline of a Wiradjuri man was also in the designs, including gripping phrases embedded into the footpath and family names of residents.

Fit with a boardwalk, picnic areas with seating and a Totem Pole sculpture, the AILA mentioned its "strong visual link to Wiradjuri culture."

"It's an emotional place [and] the interpretive sculptures proposed, are designed to simply allow those emotions to flow," it said of the project.

"The design interpretation treads lightly, allowing for reflection and cultural appreciation of a shared history ... The plan will enhance visitor understanding and appreciation of the significance of the site and it will [also] assist council to strengthen and maintain relationships and connections between the community, and the heritage item."

Research through the Central West Museums says the site's Aboriginal descendants were from well-established Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal lands, which included members of the Monaghan, Carberry, Grace and Bell families.

Surnames of Burnes, Monaghan, Hart and Merritt were also recalled by Aunty Joyce Williams at The Springs; a place where the design company wants to see it "gently" transformed into something incredible to honour its original settlers, just like Aunty Joyce.

If the project eventually reaches tender, it'll also give the Orange area a community-lead vision - one that would freeze decades of history, for many years into the future.

"We are our work and our work represents us, which is the idea of the fourth dimension of beauty and time and that's our process - as landscape architects, you rely on time to actually evolve things," Ms Alford said.

"So, I'd like to keep doing awesome stuff for our local communities and keep bringing them better urban design, and we want to help regional communities know that they deserve great design and should expect the best, regardless of a community's size.

"That's the main thing - that's what gives us that fire in the belly."

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