Formline Architecture is one of four Indigenous-led practices working with Natural Research Canada to develop prototype housing for Indigenous communities in remote regions of Canada. Courtesy Formline Architecture
The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for architects to reassess their roles in creating safe spaces for cradling humanity. Indigenous design thinking, with its focus on kinship, community, well-being and nature, is a new-old way to reinvigorate the human-environment relationship.
What is Indigenous architecture" According to Maori architect Hirini Matunga, it means exhibiting some?if not all?of the following characteristics:

a clarity about its genealogy or whakapapa [a Maori principle of identity]
a link to an Indigenous archetype or archetypes an engaged response to a defined Indigenous need?past, present or future
a structural articulation of the cultural and social values of the particular Indigenous community
a design response to an Indigenous peoples? specific place-based narrative
a structural form?informed by Indigenous knowledge, world views and cosmology; and
an inherent, culturally configured or ascribed Indigenous meaning1

Over the past few years, Indigenous architecture has been coming to greater prominence within Canada. Notable developments include the foundation of the Laurentian University School of Architecture, which includes Indigenous values and Elders as part of its teaching, and the creation of the RAIC?s Indigenous Task Force, w...