Increased demand for Indigenous-led architecture means challenging the norms of a colonial industry
Eladia Smoke, the founder of Smoke Architecture, sitting in her office. Her team is entirely women-led, and they follow a hybrid work schedule to allow for a physical presence in their communities. (Photo Brody White)
SEVEN RAVENS LINED UP along a clerestory of the Naskapi Women’s Shelter, sunlight filling the space below while the new building was inspected. One of the birds leaned down and tapped on the glass, catching Eladia Smoke’s attention.
“I got the raven’s sign-off,” she says, reflecting on the moment she knew the shelter project, completed in 2019 in Kawawachikimach, Que., had come out as it was meant to.
With a growing demand for Indigenous-led architecture, the few Indigenous architects in Canada are creating spaces for First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities that support cultural practices and a relationship to the land, and encourage community engagement.
As a result, these architects are challenging the norms of a colonial industry.
Smoke, who is Anishinaabekwe from Obishikokaang (Lac Seul First Nation), founded Smoke Architecture in 2014.
She bases her architectural approach on teachings from Indigenous creatives and regalia makers, who taught her sacred items that “[seek] to come through into our physical realm have a job they want to do.”
“And I think that is true of spaces,” she says, adding that the spaces must be used for their true purpose to accomplish that intended work.
She says if architects listen closely to Elders and communities who have long withstanding relationships with the land, they can determine what buildings, houses and other structures should look like, and what their purpose is.
For Smoke, a collaborative approach takes the “ego out of the equation” and doesn’t put pressure on a single architect to come up with the perfect solution, which could interfere with a good design.
Smoke’s team recently worked on a design for a museum in Curve Lake First Nation in Ontario. Museums are generally spaces for historical artifacts to be stored and exhibited, but this isn’t what the local community wanted, Smoke says. Instead, they were looking for an active cultural centre that could house sacred artifacts from the past, while creating space for ceremony and knowledge-sharing.
The team came to the conclusion that the space should be designed as a roundhouse: a round structure that has been used as a community hub for thousands of years.
“A lot of times, what I heard in school was, ‘as an architect, you have to be persuasive to help the clients, who don’t have the professional training to see this is what they need,” Smoke says.
“I really don’t buy into that,” she says, emphasizing her company’s values to be respectful of spaces and listen to the desires of communities.
Smoke sketching out a new design. She bases her architectural approach on teachings from Indigenous creatives and regalia makers. (Photo by Brody White)
Smoke Architecture has recently grown over the last five years, going from a three-person team to a group of 14. And, they’re all women.
“I wanted to set up something that was women-led, which is not very common in the architectural business,” Smoke says.
They’ve also moved to a four-day work week and operate as a hybrid office so Indigenous architects can stay connected to their communities by being physically present at home.
Smoke says there’s a demand for more Indigenous architects and building professionals in Canada.
“This industry benefits hugely when folks who have those teachings from millennia of inhabitation in our territories bring forward their ideas about how spaces work well,” she says.
Alfred Waugh, who is a member of Fond du Lac Denesuline Nation, is the founder of Formline Architecture + Urbanism. The firm was the first Indigenous-owned architectural firm to receive the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture award, in 2022, for the design of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia.
The Centre houses records for survivors and family members of survivors of the residential school system in Canada.
Alfred Waugh is the founder of Formline Architecture + Urbanism. The firm was the first Indigenous-owned architectural firm to receive the Governor General’s Medal for Architecture award, in 2022, for the design of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia. (Photo by Alana Paterson)
During the design process, an Elder told Waugh it was important that if survivors’ became overwhelmed and emotional by looking at records and photos, they could turn and connect with the landscape at any point. So, much of the building is glass.
Waugh says UBC had suggested a plant-covered roof, but an Elder flagged that, since the Centre is located in a lower part of campus, the building could blend into the ground.
“It [could bury] the building, kind of like burying the history,” Waugh says.
Instead, a copper butterfly roof was installed, an inverted roof where two surfaces are pitched downward and inward toward the centre of the structure and meet in a central valley. This creates a waterfall that pours off the building when it rains.
“To me, it symbolizes all the tears of the people who went through the residential school process,” Waugh says.
These consultations that lead to beautiful, thoughtful design aren’t just necessary to these commercial projects; connection to the land and community are important for residential projects too.
Outdoor gardening space is often considered. In rural areas there might be a need for a communal freezer for harvesters, Waugh says.
Waugh also says there’s more demand for three and four-bedroom units in Indigenous housing complexes to accommodate large families.
“Or, we might have a one-bedroom next to a three-bedroom so grandma can live next door, but still have autonomy and be connected to the family,” he says.
These functional design choices must be balanced with form from the beginning stages to flow cohesively. Instead of adding Indigenous art once a building is done, Two Row Architect – an Indigenous architecture firm based in Ohsweken (Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario) – ensures the art is integral to the building from the get-go, in a permanent way.
For a hospital under way in South Niagara, Two Row advocated for an art installation by Jay Havens, an artist of Kanien’keha’ka and Scottish Canadian ancestry, to be incorporated into the main atrium.
The installation will depict the creation story, where Sky Woman falls from a hole in the sky, in distress, and birds fly up to catch her. They gently guide her down to the back of the turtle, explains Brian Porter, the Principal Architect at Two Row, who is from the Oneida Nation.
“That story ties to the work the staff are doing; catching people in distress and getting them back on solid ground,” Porter says.
He says having a seat at the table in public-private partnerships like these – where the province is a decision-maker at the table alongside private entities – from the start is crucial so they can advocate to Indigenize spaces.
Porter says Indigenous architecture principles are becoming more mainstream, but it’s a slow and steady process.
“These things are slowly inching their way back towards Indigenous ways of knowing and being,” he says.
Originally published in the Globe and Mail