Announcing the BlueScope Steel Glenn Murcutt Student Prize, Ms Dodson said Melbourne University’s Fiona Lew had won the prize for her Single Men’s Community at Palmerston Indigenous Village - an examination of suitable self-help housing for indigenous men who’ve moved to Palmerston near Darwin. In doing so, she sought to address fundamental issues of appropriate design and construction, and the self-esteem and skills associated with being owner-builders.

The awards jury said they “appreciated Fiona’s resolution of simple shelter housing that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate indigenous patterns of living with elements that can be added or subtracted”.

The jury also noted that “the provision of successful indigenous housing in Australia is a subtle and complex cultural issue which Fiona sensitively addressed, and that her response to the Northern Territory circumstance and landscape is well considered. Government’s provision of standard ‘white fella’ western-style housing and unemployment relief to northern Australia’s indigenous communities has not been particularly successful, and models such as this should be tried, tested and assessed for better patterns for indigenous housing in the tropics”.