Elizabeth Grant

Elizabeth Grant CF (23 August 1963 – 5 July 2022) was an Australian architectural anthropologist, criminologist and academic working in the field of Indigenous Architecture. She was a Churchill Fellow and held academic positions at The University of Adelaide, as Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University's RMIT School of Architecture and Design, Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra and the University of Queensland. She researched, wrote, and was an activist focused on architecture and design with Indigenous peoples as architectural practice and a social movement, and the observance of human rights in institutional architecture (in particular reforms to prison, custodial and court architecture). Her expertise in Indigenous housing and homelessness, design for Indigenous peoples living with disability, and indigenising public places and spaces made her a regular guest on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National and ABC Local Radio. She wrote and reviewed architectural projects for architectural magazines such as Architecture Australia, the journal of the Australian Institute of Architects, and the Australian Design Review. Career Grant specialised in the research and design of buildings and environments in the field of Indigenous architecture. She promoted the design of humane, culturally appropriate architecture that fits the needs of Indigenous users, to participate in the recognition of the unjust treatment of Indigenous Australians, and to dignify contemporary Indigenous cultures through architectural excellence. Much of her work examined the design of humane institutional architecture (in particular, prison, custodial and court architecture) and housing for Indigenous people living with a disability. She contributed to Government Inquiries, Coronial Inquests and Royal Commissions, including the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory to have the conditions of custody and housing improved for Aboriginal peoples, and the segregation and isolation of children detained by the State prohibited. Grant carried out research on the design of public architecture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and her work led to changes in the way prisons, courts, pre-schools and other environments are designed for Indigenous users nationally and internationally.