Shifting Ground

Meet five Indigenous architects and designers charting new creative territory.

After years of exclusion, the value of design based on Indigenous principles is finally resonating across multiple disciplines. The results — buildings that prioritize environmental stewardship, urban interventions aiding inclusivity — aren’t just overdue, but essential to broaching the challenges of our times. Meet five Indigenous innovators who are leading the way

In 2015, after almost a decade of work, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) released 94 calls to action aimed at redressing the systemic disenfranchisement — past and present — of Indigenous communities across the nation. At that point, there were fewer than two dozen licensed Indigenous architects in Canada, a meagre statistic that was echoed in other countries. In the years since, however, a palpable change has taken root: the global ascension of practices and practitioners that embrace traditional knowledge and its potential to produce more equitable built environments is fundamentally reshaping our understanding of space, place and connection to the natural world. Only blocks from where those TRC calls were published, for instance, the Winnipeg Art Gallery recently inaugurated a new addition, Qaumajuq, dedicated solely to the work of Inuit artists. Among its many notable features is a sprawling exhibition, conceived in part by an emerging Inuk designer, that takes cues from the richness of life in the Far North. It’s just one of the many ways in which Indigenous practitioners, spanning communities from Aotearoa to Sápmi, are integrating long-held values and traditions into a wide range of projects, demonstrating the continued relevance of ancestral knowledge to our contemporary moment.