Developing professional responsibility and awareness when working with Indigenous communities requires intent as well as follow-through. Providing a high level of service means understanding how to meaningfully build a project with an Indigenous community, not for them.
TEXT Elsa Lam with Kelly Edzerza-Bapty, Dr. David Fortin, Tiffany Shaw, Dr. Patrick Stewart, and Alfred Waugh
In the past few years, there has been an increasing awareness of the imperative for Indigenous involvement on major public architecture projects, whether their program directly serves Indigenous Peoples or not. This reflects the concept that Indigenous architects and designers?as well as the Indigenous Peoples that live both on reserves as well as throughout other urban, rural, and northern regions in Canada?are equity-deserving as a community that has experienced barriers to equal access, opportunities, and resources due to disadvantage, discrimination, and racism. Most commonly, this takes the form of a requirement on calls for proposals for an Indigenous consultant to be part of design teams. But as any firm who has responded to such RFPs knows, there are few Indigenous architects in Canada, and involving Indigenous community members directly requires thoughtful strategies. What are some guiding principles to approaching an Indigenous architect, Elder, Knowledge Keeper or community member to be part of a team" What do non-Indigenous architects and consultant teams need to know about designing...