The Northern Territory, and Darwin in particular, is an exciting frontier for uniquely new site and climate responsive architecture that will hopefully propel Australia’s northern-most capital into its own. As a SONA representative, I want to become more involved and empower my colleagues to participate and take ownership in designing a Territory that we can all be proud and bothered to live in. I will serve to enliven our collegial environment using my resourcefulness and keen graphic design skills (as well as my penchant for puns). And now that I have finally found a firm grasp to the academic side to the course, I hope to help others, particularly newer students, better understand the issues facing architecture and provoke more informed and innovative design solutions. I will also seek out the talents of my colleagues of all levels and together, aim to not only upgrade our collective skill base and confidence in design, but more importantly, create a democratic and supportive collegial environment that nurtures an enthusiasm for architecture as opposed to simply completing assessments. As a Territorian, I am filled with hope that Darwin shall become the tropical Northern capital city it is destined to be, and so by helping each other succeed, together we shall ultimately make the NT succeed.

Pio Gillamac

2019 SONA Representative NT Chapter