Abstract
This paper calls for five new paradigms toward indigenous futurisms in the undergraduate architecture design studio. These paradigms are: (1) indigenous people are of the future, (2) indigenous people are of the sky, (3) indigenous people are of the arts, (4) indigenous people are of political action, and (5) indigenous people are storytellers. Indigenous architecture is often relegated to the distant or more primitive past; however, indigenous people are fundamentally a people of both the present and the future. This paper takes on eight case study projects designed by undergraduate architecture students for the Cherokee Nation, located in what is currently known as the State of Oklahoma in the South-Central United States. The Cherokee Nation is in pursuit of sovereignty through governance, healthcare, education, history, and in its architectural production; sovereignty is about the future of a people and a nation. Each paradigm is explored through three phases of design studio work: a. spatial logics, b. program input, and c. details, details, details. By examining project briefs, student research work, plans, paraline drawings, and physical models, this paper aims to critically examine student projects as temporal case studies in light of the five proposed paradigms. These paradigms are a radical call for design educators to consider time when scenario planning toward alternative futures for indigenous people, to resist the trappings of a more primitivized past, and instead call for indigenous futures.
Presenters
Bailey Morgan Brown MitchellAssistant Professor, College of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology, School of Architecture, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Architectonic, Spatial, and Environmental Design
KEYWORDS
Indigenous, Architecture, Pedagogy, Design Studio, Sovereignty
