Holly Farley

Biography

Dr Holly Farley is an applied architectural researcher, co-design facilitator and passionate educator. Holly researches people’s lived experience of the built environment. She undertakes collaborative research with community, industry and interdisciplinary partners.

Holly is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Fremantle School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. Her current industry linked, interdisciplinary national project explores the lived experience and architectural design of residential aged care facilities to inform future architectural design of aged care environments. She is also engaged in co-design and co-research with regard to Aboriginal spatial practises, both in the domestic and public realms. Prior to her current Research Fellowship, Holly was a PhD candidate and sessional academic at Curtin University.

Holly’s PhD research explored cultural expression through sociocultural spatial use patterns within remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. Her thesis also reconsidered how academic research can be used within the professional domain of architecture in the provision of housing with respect to sociocultural spatial use. In doing so, Holly has developed a novel visual consultation co-design method, The House Game. The House Game is a method that allows members of Aboriginal communities to collaborate with the researcher to visually map sociocultural spatial use in the context of both existing Anglo-Australian housing typologies and in the collaborators’ ideal house.

Research expertise and supervision

Holly is available to supervise Masters and PhD projects through qualitative research methodologies that centre on the intersection of lived experience, built environment and cultural exchange.

Book chapters

Farley, H., Birdsall-Jones, C., Datta, S. 2019. “The House Game: a visual method for eliciting Aboriginal housing parameters” in Creagh, R., S. McGann. (eds) Visual Spatial Enquiry: Diagrams and Metaphors for Architects and Spatial Thinkers. Routledge, London

Creagh, R., Babb, C., Farley, H. 2019. “Local governments and developed in placemaking: Defining their responsibilities and capacities to shape place” in Hes, D. and Hernandez-Santin, C. (eds) Placemaking Fundamentals for the Built Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
Research reports

Conference papers

Farley, H., Birdsall-Jones, C., Datta, S. 2017. “A visual consultation method for understanding spatial use in remote Aboriginal housing” Back to the future: The next 50 years: Proceedings of the 51st International conference of the Architectural Science Association.

Pitts, G., Farley, H,. Datta, S. 2013. Research in Practice - An exercise in generative urban massing, in Stouffs, R. and Janssen, P. and Roudavski, S. and Tunçer, B. (eds), Open Systems: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia, May 15-17, pp. 685-694. Singapore: The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia.

In the media

2018 West Australian Newspaper, Streetwise Column No 75 with Katherine Ashe, September 5 2018, `Collaboration for a win-win'.

Community engagement

2019 - Nyamba Buru Yawuru YATEC Co-design visioning workshop, in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders Australia, UDLA and Brave & Curious. Invited Facilitator.
2019 Conversations Matter. Convener
2019 PlaceAgency symposium WA, invited by the West Australian Local Government Placemakers Network, with the City of Fremantle, Curtin University and the University of Notre Dame Australia.
2018 - 2019 Sub-editor The Architect. Indigenous and Regional Projects
The Architect is the official journal of the Australian Institute of Architects WA Chapter, chronicling architecture in WA.
2017-2018 Community Engagement with Wongutha Christian Aboriginal Parent-Directed School. Facilitator.
2017 3 Over 4 Under: On Connection. Invited Speaker. This public talk series is hosted annually by Australian Institute of Architects, WA. State Theatre Centre.

Awards

2019 Place Leaders Asia Pacific Place Leadership Award. Awarded to Place Agency & The University of Melbourne for the Place Agency national teaching and learning collaboration.
2016 Teaching Excellence and Innovation Award, Faculty of Humanities Curtin University
2011 Australian Institute of Architects
Graduate Prize in Architecture
Awarded for the most outstanding student in design and professional studies.
2009 Deakin University, Facility of Science and Technology
Richard Gibson Award
Awarded for the best design project submitted by a final year bachelor degree student.

Selected research reports

Birdsall-Jones, C., Farley, H. 2015. “Housing conditionality, Indigenous lifeworlds and policy outcomes: Western Australian Case Study”, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute

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