Indigenous Cultural Center
Design Studio
University of Virginia School of Architecture
Fall 2018
Collaborative Design-Build Studio
This collection of work represents the research and design process of a collaborative architecture and landscape studio. Working with the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (SWO) tribe on the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota, the studio partnered with members of the tribal community and the Language Institute at the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribal college. The overall program focused on creating a cultural immersion learning center within a production landscape with a sustainable approach to material and energy resources.
The radial plan derived from the spirituality of the Dakota people, who find all life to exist about a center. This project reinterprets native traditions and vernacular dwellings into a contemporary language that maintains culutral relevance while looking forward to the future possibilities of the Dakota.
The site plan is defined by connections to the existing community college, language center, and a prairie nature trail to the west.
While maintaining these links to the existing built environment, this project sought to create a new world of its own. The cultural center is off the grid and utilizes sustainable, local materials such as timber and rammed earth. In addition, local labor and community engagement will provide the tribal members with construction skills to be implemented in the future - giving the Dakota people the sovereignty that they strive towards.
