February 18, 2022
Regenerative Place-Based Design Practices
ARC Fellow: Bobbie Koch
Degree Program: MS Arch, History and Theory
Faculty Advisor: Hyun Woo “Chris” Lee, Construction Management
Firm: 7 Directions
Firm Advisor: Daniel Glenn
Community Advisor: Mike Prate
Project dates: Autumn 2021 – Spring 2022
More about this project:
Prior to colonization, the Sicangu Lakota Oyate traditionally gathered the materials to build their homes from within their local environment — a regenerative, place-based cultural practice. Ongoing settler-colonialism and capitalist markets centered upon extraction and anthropocentric building methodologies continue to impact the ways in which Indigenous nations, such as the Sicangu Lakota Oyate (and the world in general), design and construct their homes. The research objective is to develop a place-based, culturally-driven framework that can be utilized to analyze and evaluate regenerative material practices in design and construction within Sicangu Lakota homelands. This applied research project is a collaboration between the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and 7 Directions Architects/Planners to explore regenerative, place-based material practices and methods for residential design and construction in Sicangu Thamakoche. The research will end with a case study analysis of a local project through the lens of the developed conceptual framework.
Ancestral Lakota building practices were circular, relational, cultural, place-based and regenerative. (Bobbie Koch)
Settler-colonialism impacted Lakota building practices through assimilatory policies that continue to effect and affect communities today. (Bobbie Koch)
Within the context of building practices, Lakota futurity means thinking in-formation with the knowledge of our Ancestors and dreams of our future Relatives through the decisions we make in the present. (Bobbie Koch)
The Indigenous methodological approach to learn and explore regenerative, place-based materials and building practices with community in Sicangu Lakota Makoce. (Bobbie Koch)
