Kenneth J. Chakasim.
Born in Moose Factory, Ontario and affiliated with Attawapiskat First Nation, Jake Chakasim, 43, is pursuing his doctoral studies at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include Indigenous planning and architecture.
Who or what inspired your interest in architecture"
My grandfather inspired me to pursue design as a profession. My grandfather exposed me to both a tacit and temporal way of thinking and being out on the land in the far reaches of the North, long before Canadian schools of architecture were thinking of the northern landscape as a space for a design laboratory.
Explain your interest in Indigenous original teachings as a tool to inform architecture. My perspective is informed by a series of lived experiences with my grandfather?a story of place, instructional stories about hunting and giving back to one?s community. It?s a story of reciprocity as much as it is a story about him overcoming the experience of going to a residential school. An understanding of original teachings is a vehicle for framing our relationship to the environment.
What is ?Indigenous design? and what should non-Indigenous people learn from it for planning and architecture"
?Indigenous design begins with a shift in mind that drops down to a feeling,? a quote I borrow from my current supervisor, speaks directly to what many non-Indigenous theorists are starting to write about: the tacit wisdo...